There is a problem in Britain when it comes to discussing objectively the issue of Islamism. Nowhere is this more demonstrable than at the BBC
That the BBC has a left-wing liberal bias in its current affairs programming and news broadcasting is now, like the weather, a staple feature of British national consciousness. Perhaps like the weather, the BBC just cannot be reformed. We simply have to live with it and make allowances.
Still, when one hears yet another piece of skewed BBC news reporting, it’s difficult not to be angered, particularly when the subject is terrorism.
BBC’s Today programme recently reported on a video showing a young British Muslim from Cardiff, Nasser Muthana, apparently attempting to recruit would-be jihadists. The programme also reported on an interview with Nasser Muthana’s father, Ahmed Muthana, who denied any knowledge or awareness of how his son had been ‘radicalised’.
Sarah Montague of the Today programme, discussing the radicalising of young Muslims in Britain with Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, commented: ‘the father clearly had no idea of the influences on his son’.
That comment goes way beyond the evidence. How could Sarah Montague possibly know that? She, like the rest of us, knows only what the father said, nothing more.
Montague’s comment was a classic example of a common BBC practice of skewed liberal interpolation, where a liberal value judgment is insinuated into the factual debate which then passes off as fact into the public consciousness.
This is not news reporting, but a form of social engineering, and is particularly noticeable not just with matters concerning radical Islam but also with liberal sacred cow issues such as immigration and social welfare reform.
Time and time again with current affairs and news, the BBC often gives the impression of wanting to turn the public mind in a liberal direction and seems to see itself as the officially designated fixer of public opinion, while at the same time singing the praises of free speech. Free speech, that is, so long as the boundaries are liberal.
The point is particularly relevant as Montague’s train of thought slipped neatly into the views of Sir Peter Fahy of the Prevent strategy on counter terrorism.