Did you see that shocking BBC Panorama documentary about the bullying, Soros-funded, far-left, anti-freedom of speech propaganda group currently touring British schools with the Government’s approval, turning kids into brainwashed progressives who believe that “Islamophobia” is a bigger threat than radical Islam?
No. And you never will.
That’s because instead of holding these far left thugs to account, the BBC considers them to be allies, fellow travellers, kindred spirits. Hence the disgraceful allegations that the BBC’s flagship documentary series Panorama got in bed with one such organisation — HOPE Not Hate — in order to carry out a hit job on Tommy Robinson.
That hit job, if Robinsons ‘Panodrama’ sting is to be taken at face value, has backfired horribly.
But before we discuss ‘Panodrama’ in more detail, let us first pause to consider what the reaction would be if the BBC teamed up with, say, the English Defence League to do a hit job on, say, HOPE Not Hate founder Nick Lowles.
The outrage would be enormous. Columnists across the mainstream media would be up in arms. Questions, I expect, would be asked in the House of Commons — not just by the usual leftist suspects but by squishy Conservatives virtue-signalling their dismay that the “impartial” BBC should be betraying its Charter obligations by working in cahoots with a ‘far right’ organisation to smear a charitable campaigner.
And up to a point, the outrage would be justified. As a publicly-funded organisation, the BBC is indeed required by its charter to show “due impartiality.” It’s not supposed to be left-wing or right-wing.
Here is what the BBC says about its Editorial Values:
Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest. We are committed to achieving the highest standards of due accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly and materially misleading our audiences.
So how does that square with the allegations made against the BBC in Tommy Robinson’s ‘Panodrama’ documentary, screened on Saturday outside the BBC’s northern headquarters in Salford, Greater Manchester, if they prove to be accurate?
Badly, I would suggest.
Left-liberal BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney — seemingly caught on camera boasting that one of his political heroes was “Daniel, um, Danny McGuinness”, apparently a misspeak for the Irish Republican Army terrorist and killer Martin McGuinness — appeared to be exposed via secretly recorded footage trying to stitch up Tommy Robinson like a kipper.
Sweeney strongly denies many of the allegations made by Robinson that he was acting unethically.
So too does HOPE Not Hate, especially with regards to the most damning allegation: that one of its members tried to blackmail and bully a former associate of Robinson’s, filmmaker Caolan Robertson, into dishing the dirt on Tommy, and subjected him to a kid of sexual assault.
Presumably — as it has promised — HOPE Not Hate will vigorously contend these apparently retracted allegations in court. Otherwise it might open itself to unhelpful speculation that the allegations have some merit and that this would be exposed during the process of documentary and oral discovery.
What allegedly happened is that Robinson’s former associate Lucy Brown was approached by HOPE Not Hate to help BBC Panorama — the publicly funded broadcaster’s flagship documentary programme — to produce a “Tommy takedown.”
Would this be a fair or proper use of licence-fee payers’ money?
I don’t think even Tommy Robinson himself — Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as he was christened — would disagree that he is a legitimate subject for a BBC investigative documentary.
For anyone unfamiliar with his background and story, these two interviews I did with him are a good place to start. Here’s the first; here is the second.
Robinson has become the public face and voice of the large numbers of British people, especially the white working class, who are concerned about issues like immigration, Islamic extremism, and the widespread “grooming” (i.e. rape) of very young, mainly white and Sikh girls by organised gangs of Muslim men.
He has over a million followers on Facebook; his rallies, such as the one he held yesterday in Salford, are attended by many thousands of people. He commands huge admiration from his supporters not just in Britain but across the world, from ordinary people grateful for his willingness to say what their politicians find unsayable about the threat posed to Western civilisation by Islam.
So yes, clearly it would be a reasonable decision by Britain’s public service broadcaster to tell us the truth about this charismatic, influential figure, with his chequered past which includes stints in prison.
The problem is, according to Robinson in his Panodrama sting, that the BBC wasn’t interested in the truth.
I doubt, for example, that there was ever going to be a section in the planned Panorama documentary where Sweeney set out to question the legitimacy of the extraordinarily draconian sentence passed on Robinson last year for contempt of court.
Robinson, arguably, was a citizen journalist who had taken pains not to break the law but who was yet treated as a dangerous criminal by a vindictive State desperate to make an example of a supposed “far right” menace as a sop to the aggressive Islamist victimhood lobby.
If this is what happened — and I suspect it was — then it is by far the most scandalous thing worth investigating about Tommy Robinson: the fact that a blameless man was imprisoned and had his life put at risk not because he had committed any genuine crime but because the State wanted to use him as a political scapegoat.
A political prisoner in one of the world’s most respected democracies? Now that, definitely, is a subject for a Panorama investigation.
But of course, as we know — or at least have strong grounds to suspect — this was never remotely the BBC’s plan. This was intended to be a hatchet job, pure and simple, conducted by the left-liberal Establishment in cahoots with a far-left propaganda organisation to get Tommy.
It’s not just the BBC that wants to get Tommy. So do all the newspapers, even the supposedly conservative ones. So do the politicians, right the way to the top — Theresa May. So, it would appear, do the police.
But what kind of message do you think it sends out to ordinary British people when the Establishment colludes so shamelessly to hide the truth?
All those white working-class Tommy Robinson fans — the people whose communities have been most hurt by immigration, by multiculturalism, by radical Islam — who are forced by law to pay £150 for their BBC licence fee in return for a service which is supposed to be fair, balanced, authoritative, trustworthy, impartial: how do you think their faith in the system is going to be enhanced by these apparent revelations about Panorama and its star reporter John Sweeney?
At the end of his Panodrama rally, Tommy Robinson urged his followers to register their protest by cancelling their licence fee (which you’re legitimately allowed to do if you don’t watch live television).
I think this an excellent idea and I’d urge everyone to do the same. I’m sick of the BBC. From its one-sided, embarrassingly hysterical, utterly dishonest reporting on climate change to its endless politicking against Brexit, not to mention all its tediously woke dramas and its unfunny left-wing comedies, I think it has long since abandoned its claims to be a public service broadcaster which represents Britain.
The only reason I’ve not cancelled my own licence is that, unfortunately, I’m a television critic and am obliged every now and again to review some of its crap. But believe me, I do so most of the time through gritted teeth. If I could do one single thing to improve the political health of Britain it would be to abolish the BBC. This Panodrama incident just confirms what many of us already knew: the BBC is no longer fit for purpose.
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London
This story has been amended to reflect the fact in the United Kingdom, you can be prosecuted for watching any television at all without paying the licence fee, not just watching the programmes it funds.