BBC – Politically Enraged

They think you’re stupid

By Daviemoo

The Conservatives think you’re stupid.
This isn’t some controversial hot take from a loony leftie- it’s factual. Do you think when Dominic Raab refers to us as “amongst the most feckless and lazy workers”, or Boris Johnson says “the working class man is likely to have a drinking problem” or Truss blithely declares that we “don’t work as hard as people in communist China outside of London” that they are mentally adding a postscript to exclude you and yours?
The British are guilty of a hilarious type of exceptionalist elitism, where the rhetoric is- “everyone is bad but I”. But every member of the conservatives looks at every one of us, and especially every person who props their shambolic government up, with the open scorn and the quiet dislike we reserve for those we feel are beneath us. This is beyond question- and the only question left to ask is, do you prove them correct by voting for them?

The UK media has propped up and enabled every governmental misstep for years. From it’s “both sides but here is Nigel Farage as an ‘expert'” coverage of brexit to the desperate commands of the Daily Mail and Express to forgive and forget legal transgressions aplenty under tory governance, it’s hardly an open secret that British media is bought and paid for by and large with the thrombosis blue cash of conservative pundits.

BBC Bias & the mishandling of COVID

Emily Maitlis casually confirmed everything we leftists have been saying for years last night; that the BBC is increasingly biased in favour of positive coverage for the conservative government, and that critical coverage of their performance is met with consternation- not just from number 10 which has long been the case, but from within the upper echelons of the BBC itself.
When top advisor to Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, broke the lockdown rules to travel the length of the UK from London to Durham- and despite lack of police action, he DID break the rules- the BBC rightly scrutinised his actions. And yet, the BBC, hand in hand with the party, convinced a critical mass of people to calmly accept the lie.

In any other administration throughout history (and no doubt in any future administration which has extricated itself from the miasma of corruption which blights the conservatives now), Cummings’ transgression would have been met with immediate repudiation. His actions endangered people- simply stopping for petrol could, and would, have spread the coronavirus to people around him. Cummings reported later that he was “testing if his eyesight was ok” by driving to a town nearby- begging the question of how he felt safe to drive 200 miles when first becoming sick with the virus. Had Cummings had an accident whilst driving (likely- as coronavirus can make you extremely unwell and especially at the time), his actions would have spread coronavirus throughout whichever hospital was unlucky enough to take him. The hubris with which Cummings et al. handled this betrayal of the British public did two things: compounded the conservatives ability to simply double down in the face of outrage and disgust, and expedited the collapse of the British public’s trust in the government.

Maitlis confirmed in her speech that her opening remarks on Cummings breaking the rules were met with fury from those at the BBC who supposedly oversee impartiality. Justice is blind, the saying goes, but everyone at the BBC who has failed to step forward is guilty of wilfully covering their own eyes to the facts surrounding a lack of non partisan coverage, throughout the pandemic and in the run- up to the leadership contest in 2019.
Many right wing pundits regularly accuse the BBC of a lack of impartiality but when one side says “be less biased” and the other side said “be more biased”, this is not the battle for impartiality the right claim it to be.

Remember as well, the reaction of conservatives to the BLM protests; back then, how dare people risk the spread of the virus at any cost? How disgusting and disgraceful that this is how the social justice warriors flaunt lockdown- and yet every time a conservative broke the rules, that exception was acceptable. the double standards and division of equals has been driven into an engine shaking overdrive by the tenure of Johnson.
Many of us at the time knew that Johnson’s term would be a disaster- and we cannot blame Johnson for the initial effects of coronavirus, as this was a freak occurrence. What we can do, however, is zoom out: coronavirus does not exist in a vacuum. It’s damaging influence also wrapped tendrils into every other problem the UK was facing. From the continuing ablation of security data leaks via Dido “dataloss” Harding heading up the most vital tool in coronavirus protection and prevention to Governmental backroom dealings were brought to the forefront by the brave actions of Jo Maugham of The Goodlaw Project. Even broader still, the economy was already shaking at the knees prior to the pandemic as businesses shored up their interests against the well known but insidiously unreported effects of a horrendous EU withdrawal agreement. This mess, however, can be laid at the feet of Johnson and his unscrupulous enablers, from Priti Patel who formented an anti EU group long before the referendum was announced, to Lord Frost who- just like tinpot Thatcher-a-like Liz Truss, defected from remain to leave just to taste the winner’s champagne- only to discover those of us shouting poison were correct all along.

Coronavirus no doubt exacerbated many problems faced by the British public, but despite being its own distinct illness, coronavirus and its subsequent mishandling was merely a symptom of the long-term disease British people have unknowingly suffered from for many years- governmental malfeasance.

Truss, Sunak and post-Johnsonism

The liar, the switch and the million pound wardrobe

The most insidious aspect to hiring Johnson on as prime minister was the tacit acceptance of the normalisation of political lying. Johnson’s duplicity was “priced in” we were told, better to have a disgusting truth twister as PM who could bluster his way into every situation that came up and leave wreckage behind, because at least he has funny hair and makes us laugh?
The country is in shambles, in every possible way it can be- Johnson cleaved a divide in the nation through nationalist rhetoric, polluting the nature of pride in Britain- it was wrong to be proud of Britain for being multicultural and diverse, wrong to be proud of our progressive steps towards acceptance of the LGBT+: the only thing to be proud of was Britishness itself. So long as you help your bloo passport up high and kept quiet about the ever decreasing living conditions you passed the tory test and were welcomed into the fold as a true patriot, glibly accepting the country’s decline whilst denying the evidence of your eyes.

Who cares if your rivers are suffused with human offal, it’s BRITISH offal…

And what has that led to? Johnson’s eventual ousting has left us with two choices:
Rishi Sunak, a man who has been variously seen to disparage working class people as roundly as his other colleagues, a chancellor whose short sighted stabbings at sense have decimated the economy that, as aforementioned, was already bowing under pressure, a person whose moral fibre is falling apart because he committed the same open transgressions against the British people as Johnson did during lockdown.
And Liz Truss, a woman who has never stuck to a point she didn’t hear cheers for, a woman who changes her allegiance like some people change shoes. Truss has been widely derided in every position she’s been in- known as the “inequalities minister” down the corridors of Whitehall because she’s done not one useful thing for LGBT+ people during her long tenure- except for trying to sneak the LGB alliance, now deemed a hate group in Northern Ireland, in the back door to replace the LGBT council she dissolved out of spite when they criticised her.
When sent to the UN to hold talks with Russia about its assault on Ukraine, Truss managed to infuriate Russia so much that it was rumoured they stepped up their alert on nuclear weaponry and laid the explanation of why squarely at Truss’ lack of diplomatic skill.

The shadow of Johnson looms still over the country, dampening the light of truth- but in the dimness, puppets like Truss and Sunak have been able to fester, and so we end up here. Their normalisation of lying is enabled at every step by tory rags like the express, whose front page today (Thursday 25th August 2022) Tells us that we all must suffer because it helps Ukraine in the war: Make no mistake that our suffering is a political choice by a party so consumed with self masturbatory leadership hustings that they think we can wait until they’ve settled on which head of the hydra gets to speak.

The leadership battle has shown another crack in the conservative armour- so eager they are to blame social justice for the ills of the nation, that they overlook their 12 year tenure; if anyone is responsible for the culture of a country it is the leaders of it, especially when they have had almost 13 years now to address it…

The UK is dying- Scotland wants to leave, Wales will seek to leave, Ireland even hopes to reunify. And still there are those amongst us desperate to cling to the long-dead conservative ideology. Starmer appears to have won back those who defected to tory in 2019 and whilst many of my fellow lefties see this as an indictment on Starmer and his stances (and whilst you may have validity in some of your criticisms) there is no doubt that traditional conservatism has a certain brand of popularity in the UK, and that brand has long since failed to be offered by this iteration of the Conservative party.
Johnson’s (and soon Truss or Sunak’s) cabinet is crammed full of the sort of political ne’er do wells whose entire ideology rests on the accurate recitation of the party line. Not one tory has actually had the courage to draw a line in the sand since Christian Wakeford defected to Labour. I have my own issues with Wakeford simply because he was who he was and did what he did prior to his defection. But every single conservative sat on those benches has been taught, like hell’s own choir, to sing in tune for their supper, to repeat the same tired lines about levelling up, about getting Brexit done, about getting on with the job or the vaccine rollout- to gulp the oxygen in the room and strangle any talk to the contrary, and in doing so they have imbibed every other egregious fiction the upper level of the party have spat out.

Every tory is as guilty as the wordsmiths for their failure to condemn Johnson and Truss’ dismissal of working class brits, every single MP on those benches is culpable for the mass death and ongoing trauma and misery the UK face with the coronavirus pandemic (and no doubt monkeypox). And every person who continues to spiral in tighter and tighter turns to deflect the constant patter of criticisms of this government, wears the badge of dishonour Johnson tore for himself from the ragged material of the Union Jack he so vehemently claims to stand for.

Restricting your rights

Would a prime minister confident in their ability to discharge this oft-fabled “will of the people” feel the need to force through strict curtailment of protest rights?
It seems to me that it simply would not occur to a decent prime minister that he, she or they would have to safeguard against an uprising of people furious at their malfeasance. And yet that is what Johnson and his lieutenant Patel did- despite the open fury at the legislation (I myself attended no less than five protests specifically about the injustice) of the Police Crime Courts and sentencing bill, they kept pushing until the Lords accepted that it was merely- what was the phrase? Ah yes, “priced in” as the cost of a tory government, that UK Citizens should have a tightening of the restrictions on their ability to protest.
Tory supporters would and should have felt a frisson of horror at their government placing these collars around their necks, but were too busy pointing and laughing as it was fit around ours- but a government doing a good job does not waste time debating legislation around whether it’s people can protest or not, because a good government isn’t protested against.

The fact is- the tories aren’t wrong when they look with distain upon some of us. Because a disturbing chunk of voters wilfully crossed that box, gave the tories their assent that this was the status quo they wanted. They were tired of listening to experts so they hired on a government of headline grabbing louts, affair having, law breaking, contract stealing, rights curtailing scum. And some of them have at last woken up- not that they’d admit that we were right all along, no, they’re convinced that swapping Johnson for one of his lessers will improve things, but Truss is as inept as Johnson and much worse with her verbiage and Sunak is just as likely to lie and fall back on culture war garbage to distract from his unfunnily laughable performance: and still yet, behind these folk are the worst- those who still believe wholeheartedly that the conservatives are the best choice for us, that the continually obvious evidence of poor governmental management is just because of social justice and equality even with a huge Conservative majority and compliant media. These people are stupid. And frankly I am tired of capitulating to them, giving in to their ongoing foghorn yells that they are oppressed because they are asked to look critically at the state of the UK and take ownership of it. You are not oppressed, you are not on “the winning team”- because of you we all lose, and those of us who aren’t stupid, who don’t buy into culture war drudgery and the continued propagandist push to accept lacklustre government are sick and tired of having to baby a population of UK citizens unwilling to accept that their ideology was always a shibboleth for the small minded, xenophobic bigots to gain and maintain power.

You made your bed, we warned you it was full of glass- don’t complain to us about your cuts.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

The BBC just doubled down on it’s transphobic hitpiece

By Daviemoo

If you read the desperate flailing attempt at journalism that was the BBC’s recent expulsion against trans people, I feel sorry for you- It’s wording is still rattling around my brain and frustrating me. I, and what I take as thousands of other people received a similarly poorly written response from the BBC where they endorsed their own transphobic nonsense. This state sponsored culture war against trans people hurts the LGBTQ+ community and cis women- the only benefactors? Cis men. It’s past time the community and it’s allies take this besmirching with patience- and take the fight back to the media.

I get asked perhaps once, twice a week, “are you trans?” because I spend a lot of time talking about trans issues. I don’t think it matters whether I am or not, I’m standing up for a minority who are being dragged through our offal filled rivers backwards and I don’t have to be part of that minority. The sad fact is as well that people just don’t listen to trans people about their own issues, even if you platform them- they will gasp, exclaim and swear if a cis person explains the horrors that trans people face, but blithely ignore trans activists who speak out.

Which is why I’m so disappointed in cis allies- there are many, many people who agree that this endless gushing rhetoric in the presses about trans people and their allies is wrong, sick, disgusting, inaccurate- and dangerous. For only so long can this thumb twiddling “we’re trying to sit in the middle but here’s another piece about how terrible trans people are and no rebuttal from trans people themselves” narrative be pushed before it will- IT WILL- spill over into physical violence. And how will that go? If the victim is murdered, they can’t speak. If they survive their words won’t be published. And if they fight back- dangerous trans people attack innocent defenders! It’s a tale as old as time, and as frightening to minorities as it may seem- we cannot win for losing. And with what seems to be most media outlets happy to continue to platform anti trans rhetoric, our possibilities of publishing rebuttals, statements- anything that allows a platform for trans folk and their allies- continues to shrink.

Gender Critical people seem to believe that this mainstreaming of their beliefs is a sign that they’re “winning”- forgetting as they always do that hateful ideology is disturbingly available in the mainstream and it doesn’t make it right- or even the moral majority. Racism was widely platformed as racial segregation was rolled back in the US- in the 70s, 80s- the 90s it was common to read anti gay articles.

The parallels that run between the anti gay moral panic and the current transphobic ones are so blatant once pointed out that it seems amazing that transphobia persists in the face of proof that it’s recycled homophobia.

Arguments we’ve heard before from:
“If we accept the gays we’ll be asked to sleep with them next”

“They’re destroying the modern way of life”

“They’re perverts and we shouldn’t have to share facilities with them”

Are these facets of the moral panic proven? No- no proof of any of it exists.

In fact, the prevalence of the opposite side being involved in their arguments against trans people is almost comical. How often anti gay preachers are found in clinches with other men- one has to wonder how many voices against trans folk are simply fetishists of trans people in the privacy of their own home? One wonders how many moral panics are sparked or inflamed by people furious with their own biological urges- desperate to place blame for attraction at the feet of those who simply exist in the bodies and states they have and are.

Back to the media- the regular dirge of stories demonising trans people serves only to enable and embolden a society that conflates “different” with “devious”.

From Ofcom leaving stonewall’s diversity scheme to the BBC’s increasingly frequent promotion of hateful ideology, this problem is widespread, systemic- and being pushed by a handful of loud voices and a smattering of quiet ones.

The idea that trans rights are in conflict with womens’ rights just isn’t true. Starting with the simple fact that over 50% of women in the UK agree that trans women are women, and even more women agree that trans women are not a threat to cis women- but even if you don’t agree, the confusion and stupidity around this debate continues to frustrate those in it’s periphery along with those it directly involves.

If anti trans people believe they should be able to challenge anyone they don’t feel is cis, there will be a great number of women whose looks do not fit this mysterious “not patriarchal but doesn’t fit my idea of feminine”, who are challenged pointlessly- regardless of whether they were trans or not. I have to wonder how the “we can always tell” crowd plan to police these things. Sometimes in public I will see someone and have absolutely no idea what gender they are and the fact and key difference is- I don’t care.

The point that never gets spoken about in detail is that the concerns so regularly espoused by anti trans activists are already addressed. In existing legislation, there exists exemptions where, as a last resort, trans women can be separated- there is this elusive victory the gender critical group want- already delivered. But it isn’t enough, and this is where the obvious lie crumbles whilst somehow still standing. It’s not and it’s never been about a credible argument against trans people: it’s always been about demonising a minority. Every single instance of a trans person failing to be a paragon of virtue is instantly snapped up by a group and banded about, used to justify pre-conceptions. But of course a group as large and varied as trans people has darker elements- should the whole group be castigated because of the behaviour of a few? The frightening answer from gender critical believers is – yes.

The BBC

The article the BBC wrote was terrible in many ways- not the least, poor writing. Cobbled together with supposed months of research, the article is contrived and clearly has an agenda driving it.

I attach below the body of the response to the complaint that everyone who wrote to the BBC received;

The complaint is masterful in only the flippancy and dismissal of it’s tone. Not one point I made was addressed, as my initial complaint asked the BBC why it wished to place itself at odds with trans people and platform dangerous stories which would- not could, but would- increase the threat to them. They particularly focus on the survey they included.

Let’s speak about this survey.

Hosted by “Get the L out”, an organisation formed by transphobic lesbians to pigeonhole trans lesbians and trans women in general, 40 out of 80 respondents confirmed that they had felt pressured into sex with trans lesbians. I can’t speak to these experiences- I don’t know the people involved and I certainly wouldn’t say that no trans people would pressure others for sex- its proscriptive to say that you know how a minority would behave. But does it not perhaps seem a bit odd that the BBC are happy to use a survey, conducted by an already trans averse organisation, completed by 80 people, half of whom agree with the transphobic rhetoric of being pressured into sex? Of course people will agree with the transphobic question if they are part of a transphobic organisation… It’s hardly a reputable source.

But lets examine the respondents further: one of the 40 lesbians who responded confirming they felt pressured into sex with trans people – is a self admitted pervert who has sexually assaulted multiple women, talked women she has had sex with out of using sexual safety products, and with vast corroborative stories from her victims and an apology from her freely available on the internet- so yet again we hark back to my earlier point that the loudest voices are usually talking about themselves. Seems that the “fully researched article” is somewhat hypocritical, as this very important part was either omitted by mistake – or purposefully.

To allow a person who has literally admitted to sexual assault to cast aspersions on others is highly ironic and – I would think we can all agree- admittedly poor journalism. Hardly the type of person whose words can be trusted.

Spurious allegations from dubious sources seems to be what’s accepted for BBC journalism in the current climate – a worrying development but not one unfamiliar to the minorities the BBC have historically worked to denigrate.

Further to this though, more allegations in the article can be debunked: a section of writing is devoted to stickers with the inclusive pride flag as a backing, which state “Genital preferences are transphobic”. This is, as anyone sane in the fight for trans equality knows, a transphobic nonsense phrase. Genital preferences, most trans people will tell you, are not transphobic- stating you won’t even entertain the idea of dating a trans person because of what you assume are their genitals – is. Quite a simple concept. The proof that these stickers belong to the gender critical people is fairly blatant- they are stuck up with other transphobic stickers, even in the photos in the article- but a thoroughly debunked letter stating the same thing was sent to several organisations in early 2020 along with this sticker. The letter was quickly linked back to… a small cadre of gender critical people.

Is this what we now accept as, and what passes for, thorough, rounded journalism? Or are we to accept that our national broadcaster are willing to sell out their credibility because they have been asked to promote and push a ridiculous culture war, aimed at a group of people who are easy to demonise?

My followup to the BBC’s offensively blithe response is below for your perusal:

And worse still than the BBC’s uncaring response: more journalists come out to defend the piece and the writer!

The overarching problem is this glass shield of “impartiality” which the BBC wishes to stand behind. I have seen no articles by trans people or trans allies denouncing the ties that gender critical people have to the far right – from the confused collaboration of a group of TERFS who started off protesting with – but then were attacked (and one even stabbed by) the proud boys, to Andy Ngo- literal fascist- being given a press badge at the LGB Alliance conference- one has to wonder at what point those who aren’t so extreme may decide that siding with gender critical people puts them too close to the far right.

Where also are the pieces highlighting the problems that trans folk face on the daily, from a healthcare system which seems to actively work against them to allowances the government make in legislation against conversion therapy to allow people -people who will be seeking conversion therapy because they hate or fear themselves and wish to change themselves- to give “informed consent” for therapy – effectively making any bans useless: Nobody can give informed consent to having dangerous, ineffective therapy for something they are castigated for all day every day. Those seeking, or told to go to, conversion therapy, should be intensively protected- not put under the mental strain of this horrific practice. It’s also been revealed as I wrote this piece that the government has been lobbied by a group who perform this evil practice, which is one of the myriad reasons for the delays in banning it!

It’s painfully obvious to anyone, from the very edges of this ongoing tirade against the trans community right to trans people themselves, that the BBC is determined to whip up continuation of this ridiculous and confected war against a minority, as a distraction from the failings of a government who has let down it’s populace more times in six months than most governments during their entire tenure.

Trans people are an easy demographic to blame on the face of things- some trans people become transients, kicked out of their houses by uncaring parents. Forced into sex work to be able to live and then charged by police who even in 2021 do not understand that sometimes life forces people into this avenue, their criminal records are happily displayed by gender critical people as “proof” that trans people are perverted. Context is key, but when you have a hateful agenda to push, anything that sits adjacent to your narrative is sufficient, the full extent discarded.

As this normalisation of hate continues, the LGBTQ+ community MUST set aside it’s petty squabbling and come together- we must be a shield for each other and ourselves, lest we be thrown back to the days where dangerous activism is the only way to be heard. Some of us are not only willing, but ready to embrace a role as a dissident if it means upsetting the status quo- if the status quo is to begin to regularly contain hateful propaganda against members of the community.

I’ve no doubt that a corner will be turned down the line where trans people finally see some light in the darkness, where their acceptance becomes mainstreamed- the question, the reason I sometimes can’t sleep at night, the rock in my stomach worry is – how many of our trans siblings are we fated to lose before people open their eyes to the empty hate spewed forth from institutions happy to foster lies and empty propaganda?