Tommy Robinson’s Ground Force Moment

Unable to get into the USA - the criminal record may not have helped - Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, has had to turn to other means for occupying his time. After his attempt to stick his bugle in to the affairs of a South Wales school earlier this week garnered severely adverse comment, The Great Man then turned his attention to the so-called Football Lads’ Alliance.

So it was that he began a Facebook Live session this afternoon. But this was a campaign destined to develop not necessarily to his advantage, which might explain why the session has vanished from his Facebook page. It seems that Lennon is not quite as universally popular as he would like his devoted followers to believe.

Fortunately, the ever-vigilant Luke Collins has captured the moment when Lennon has his Ground Force moment. “Today, Luton are having a day out … It’s a football day out” explains Lennon, before going on “There are four men within the crowd trying to politicise it”. As opposed to Stephen Lennon, who wouldn’t politicise anything, honestly.

But do go on. “They tried to hold up a banner against the FLA. None of these men have come here today …” and then he was interrupted. Lennon can be heard asking them “Do you go football? Do you go football?” before trying to resume his rant. “Some lads who are not …” and then it seems the Ground Force moment arrived.

That meant Decking. Live on video. It seems someone smacked Lennon, and he fell over. In the melée, all that The Great Tommy can be heard saying is “Where’s my bodyguard gone? Where’s my fucking bodyguard?” Yes, the same person whose followers talk of “facing someone like a man” needs a bodyguard. 

But not to worry, Tommy fans, The Great Man then posted another video - also since deleted - claiming that the number of men trying to unfurl a banner had fallen to two or three. And that he was all right. Even though he was wiping his mouth, as someone might have done after being in a scrap. And anyway, Luton were winning.

Polite conversations? Great persuader? Aspiring serious politician? Media personality? Family values campaigner? Truth seeker? No, just a career criminal and cheap thug.

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Nadine Dorries’ Full Batshit Brexit

Those out there on the right of the Tory Party had told the world that they would have their 48 letters expressing no confidence in Theresa May by Thursday lunchtime. Then it was Thursday afternoon. Then it was Friday. Now it might be Monday next. But they are not downhearted, and nor are they out of touch with reality, honest. And to show just how true that claim is has come more wisdom from (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries.

Ms Dorries has already found any kind of Customs Union to be not to her taste, if only because she has difficulty understanding what one of those is. So it must be A Very Bad Thing. But she still wants the media coverage, and so instead of admitting she hasn’t a clue what she’s on about, has just carried on digging herself deeper.

So when the member for time long past Jacob Rees Mogg, and London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson harped on about the UK becoming a “vassal state”, she seems to have fancied a bit of that. The problem she then encountered was summarised by Alan Gibbons. “‘I call it a vassal state, an empty state.’ So Nadine Dorries confuses empty vessel with vassal, meaning a person in a permanent state of subordination to another. Good to see the calibre of some of our politicians”.

As Steven Bray the Stop Brexit man might have said, it’s not going very well, is it? On she ploughed, contributing to an article in The Comet titled “Our Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire MPs react to Brexit agreement”. While her fellow Tories Oliver Heald and Alistair Burt were cautiously in favour, the Fragrant Nadine was not.

“It means we have no vote, no voice, no veto. No MEPs, no commissioner and no say when we leave”. Which part of “Leaving the European Union” does Madam not understand? Still, she did know “It won’t pass through Parliament … It’s a disaster and no MP who has the best interests of the country at heart can vote for this”.

Could it get worse? It certainly could, when a layer of delusion was added to the mix, with Ms Dorries musing “If Graham Brady received 158 letters it would remove the need for a vote of no confidence. There is also no requirement for letters to be published or to be made public”. Would that mean there are more of them?

After all, if the European Reform Group and its pals are having difficulty mustering 48 signatures, 158 does seem a bit of a big ask. But to leaven the boredom, she has brought forth more of that award-winning prose: “To be clear, I submitted my own letter to Graham Brady some weeks ago. The writing has been on the wall for some time”.

Pity it wasn’t on the piece of paper she put in the envelope.

Also a pity that she and her pals can’t tell the difference between the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the agreement which would cover the UK’s future relationship with the EU. And remember, folks, they allowed her to become an MP.

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UN Slams UK Poverty - Press Sneers

“There must be no doubt that the means for rescuing [the poor] … will require public effort and public funds. Poverty can be made to disappear. It won’t be accomplished simply by stepping up the growth rate any more than it will be accomplished by incantation or ritualistic washing of the feet” - J K Galbraith, Washington DC, 1963.

Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, has concluded a fact-finding visit to the UK by excoriating the Government and its lack of assistance to the poor. To its credit, the Guardian has put his conclusions on its front page today. No other paper has bothered to do so. After all, there is potentially another Curse Of Strictly to report.

As the BBC has reported, “Quoting figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, he said that more than 1.5 million people were destitute at some point in 2017, meaning they lived on less than £70 a week or went without essentials such as housing, food, clothing or heating … A fifth of the population, amounting to 14 million people, are living in poverty, Prof Alston said”. The Government’s tin-eared response was all too predictable.

“The government rejected his analysis, pointing to rising household incomes”. Well, Mandy Rice Davies situation, eh? But this is supremely disingenuous: those rising household incomes include those at the top whose incomes have increased at an obscene pace.

Moreover, even the Beeb can’t resist reminding its audience that Alston is FOREIGN: “Levels of child poverty are ‘staggering’ and 1.5 million people were destitute at some point in 2017, the Australian said”. So when the Daily Mail got on the case, the result was all too predictable. First came the allegedly straight news article calling him “controversial”.

The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker make sure their audience knows “Critics have blasted his tour and said the UN should to be studying poverty in third world countries rather than the UK, the world's fifth largest economy”. And “a Government spokesman said: 'We completely disagree with this analysis’”. No word about food bank usage.

Then comes the “opinion” from failed pro-am ranter Leo McKinstry. “I would argue that Professor Alston and his team, although independent human rights experts, are marinated in progressive orthodoxies, and went into their investigation with their script about ‘Tory cuts’ already written.Dressing up their preconceived notions as new evidence, I believe they have simply regurgitated what they were told by Left-wing activists and lobbyists”.

The delusional McKinstry reminds his readers that the UN “totally ignored the other side of the story - that, for all its flaws, modern Britain is a remarkable success story, combining economic growth with dynamic enterprise and a strong civic infrastructure”. He needs to get out of London more often. Because he’s talking out of his backside.

And the Murdoch Sun, all too predictably, enlists the deeply unsavoury Philip Davies to rubbish the news. But poverty is real, and most of those suffering have no other voice than the interventions of left-leaning politicians and the likes of Philip Alston.

To quote Prof Galbraith once more, “A plea for public funds by the head of Lockheed, Chrysler or a deeply needful bank is instantly heard; the poor man doesn’t ask, for he knows no-one is listening”. Including our free and fearless press.

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Bigoted Academic Says He’s Not A Bigot

Stephen “Pax” Leonard, whose Twitter bio describes him as “writer, linguist, traveller”, has taken grave exception to an article published by the Daily Mail: “This is hugely inaccurate article fed to DM by Durham. DM not contacted me. These are 'replies' to tweets taken out of context by Far Left mob. One of these replies has been doctored. I hold no ant-semitic or Islamophobic views whatsoever”. But here a problem enters.

Stephen "Pax" Leonard

On this occasion, there is no cause for complaint at being plastered all over the Mail’s website, as Leonard is bang to rights. The article’s title - “Durham University academic who said Sadiq Khan wanted to make London 'a Mecca for Muslims' and blasted Jewish media moguls in string of antisemitic and Islamophobic tweets is stripped of honorary fellowship” - is supported by the most incriminating of evidence.

After all, the Mail got most of its article from The Tab, which had already told “Dr Stephan Pax Leonard has had his Research Fellowship removed after his Islamophobic and Anti-Semetic tweets were reported … In an email sent to students of St Chad's College, Principal Dr Margaret Masson confirmed that Leonard would be stripped of his title, adding while St Chad's encourages free speech, Leonard's comments could not be ignored”.

There was more. “Stephen Pax Leonard had previously tweeted that Sadiq Khan ‘wanted London to become a Mecca for Muslims’ and that ‘millions of Muslims support ISIS’. These and many other Anti-Semitic posts have since been deleted … Leonard's tweets were later published in Cherwell and were covered by The Durham Tab yesterday. At that time, A Durham University spokesperson said: ‘The views that have been reported are wholly inconsistent with the values of St Chad’s College and Durham University’”.

Worse, Leonard’s attempts to wriggle his way out of his predicament are going nowhere: he had accepted an invitation to speak at the Traditional Britain Group’s annual gathering last month, alongside such luminaries as Janice Atkinson, an MEP too toxic even for UKIP, representatives of Germany’s AfD and Austria’s FPÖ, and the star turn, pro-am motormouth and libel action non-specialist Katie Hopkins.

But, perhaps in an effort to take the heat off himself, Leonard chickened out: “Dishonourably, Leonard gave us barely 48 hours notice of his withdrawal from his long-standing booking, which was not enough time to source a like-for-like replacement. This retreat appears to have been in no small part caused by activist students barely out of short trousers and playing at journalism who had enquired about his attendance”.

Viewers may still want to look away now

Volunteering to speak to the racist rump of the Monday Club and its phoney aristocrat head man Gregory “Lauder” Frost is not a good look when protesting that those calling you a racist bigot are being unfair. Nor is asserting when replying to the Mail that you are in favour of repealing hate speech legislation. Nor is claiming that your Tweets were taken out of context when it’s all too obvious that no further context is needed.

Stephen “Pax” Leonard will probably now feature in Spiked, and receive an apologia from the loathsome Toby Young. But it won’t stop him being a bigot.

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Brillo BBC Row - The Clarkson Parallel

After BBC politics host and Spectator magazine head man Andrew Neil garnered significant adverse comment by referring to the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr as “Karol Kodswallop” and called her a “mad cat woman” - thus aligning himself, deliberately or otherwise, with the alleged “man who bankrolled Brexit” Arron Banks, who has waged a campaign of abuse against Ms Cadwalladr for months, the climbdown began.

Sadly, all the BBC News Press Team could manage was a Tweet telling “There has been some discussion on here regarding a tweet from Andrew Neil about Carole Cadwalladr. He has deleted the tweet and recognises it was inappropriate”. Neil Retweeted the Tweet. But neither he, nor the Beeb, said sorry. There was, though, a statement.

“Andrew acknowledges that the tweet was inappropriate, and it was removed shortly after it was posted. The tweet was sent from Andrew’s personal account, however the BBC has social media guidelines which it expects all staff to follow and these have been discussed with Andrew” it told. So still no apology. And then it got worse.

That was because Director General Lord Hall-Hall had told anyone prepared to listen that he was appalled at the abuse journalists receive on Twitter. While the organisation which he leads did, er, very little about the abuse one journalist was receiving on Twitter.

Now matters have got worse still: as the Guardian has reported, “Senior female BBC journalists have complained to executives at the corporation about the presenter Andrew Neil, after he failed to apologise for calling an Observer journalist a ‘mad cat woman’ … Neil … made the comment about Carole Cadwalladr”. And there was more.

“The language echoed that used by Leave.EU’s founder, Arron Banks, who has regularly branded Cadwalladr a ‘mad cat lady’ during her investigation into his Brexit activities and business empire - comments widely criticised as misogynistic”. And more.

“Neil later deleted the tweets and retweeted a statement from the BBC press office saying he ‘recognises it was inappropriate’ to send the message … But the BBC journalists, who declined to be identified because of potential repercussions [my emphasis], said this was not enough and confirmed complaints had been made to executives about the ‘sexist’ comment on Neil’s combative Twitter account”.

Moreover, “The BBC would not comment on speculation that Neil had refused to formally apologise over the comments”. An employee, or someone with similar status, refusing an instruction from management is gross misconduct and a sackable offence. That’s the kind of sackable gross misconduct that saw Jeremy Clarkson out the door.

Small wonder Ms Cadwalladr has noted “Thank you also to all the #BBCWomen who have sent me private messages of outrage, dismay & solidarity. Imagine working for a publicly-funded media organisation where you're worried about speaking out about misogyny for ‘fear of repercussions’”, while Owen Jones responded “This is grim”, and Steven Barnett reminded the Corporation “BBC social media guidance for staff includes advice not to ‘say anything that compromises your impartiality’ nor to ‘sound off about things in an openly partisan way” … Apparently doesn't apply to Andrew Neil”.

The Clarkson saga showed that no presenter was bigger than the BBC. So what are Lord Hall-Hall and his fellow managers waiting for? If Andrew Neil declined an instruction to apologise to Carole Cadwalladr, he should walk. After all, as the man said in The Ipcress File, he’s done all right for a passed-over Major.

The age of Andrew Neil at the BBC was for a time, but not for all time.

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The Sad Decline Of Harry Cole

After he had made it known that the Brexit withdrawal agreement negotiated by the Government of which he is a member had incurred his displeasure, the Member for times long past Jacob Rees Mogg stepped out of Parliament to bask in the limelight of a press conference yesterday. Many hacks with nothing better to do paid court, including one prematurely bloated specimen who at first looked unrecognisable.

Young man no more

Many photos of Rees Mogg holding forth had this figure in shot. But who was he? Who was this pimply slab of executive Gammon in an unwilling suit? The faux furrowed brow, the lack of notepad, the pretentiously slicked-back Barnet, all looked strangely familiar. And then came the recognition. Yes, that bulging overdraft was instantly recognisable - it was the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, who claims to be a journalist.

Was it really Cole? Could this be the same amateur human being who stood before the cameras less than four years ago showing off his young, svelte self? Where had all the bellies come from? How could someone just 33 years old have acquired such extensive and indeed premature middle aged spread? The presence of beanpole Rees Mogg only made Cole look even more as if he were as broad as long.

Has the continuing pretence that he is a Real Journalist (no sniggering at the back, please) taken such a toll? Is Cole beginning to get a conscience over all the whoppers that appear under his by-line in the Super Soaraway Currant Bun? Has he been missing the asparagus, green beans and hummus from his Pret order? Has the light ranch dressing become something less light? Has the Diet Coke been unceremoniously ditched?

What happened to the large salad leaves he used to insist on? Has he been dodging them? Or is this some kind of metamorphosis in which he begins to more closely resemble his old boss, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines? But enough of the speculation: what can be said about Master Cole’s current state is that it cannot be doing him any good. Some of us may enjoy taking the piss, but he is leaving himself open to all kinds of problems.

Diabetes - ask Tom Watson - is one of those stalking folks carrying excess baggage. Heart disease is another, and were I a betting man, I would wage good money on Master Cole and hypertension medication not being in proximity to one another right now. The toll on the body of being far more Gammon than necessary can be irreversible.

Still, that’s what you get after all those years of lying, smearing, threatening, bullying, and all those other less than totally savoury habits that Master Cole gets up to. He had every opportunity to retract his defamatory smear of this blog, but declined to do so. But when his tail was tweaked some time later, he was shouting the odds and demanding retractions - then having his lawyer send a threatening letter (which got him nowhere).

Being a terminally unpleasant and untrustworthy slob can do terrible things to one’s wellbeing, however good the media opportunities. Sad, really.

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Tommy Robinson School Attack WRONG

After being refused entry to the USA because of his criminal record - which includes entering the USA illegally - Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, had to appear before a Middle East Forum gathering in Washington DC by videolink. Having rather more time on his hands than those who had travelled to the States, Lennon turned his attention to other causes. Like a school in south Wales.

This is what Lennon posted on Facebook: “This just underlines how our education system has been infiltrated by far-left fascists … Birchgrove Comprehensive School (@birchgrovecomp) in Swansea has a board in the school for anti-bullying week where pupils have the opportunity to write who they respect”. Do go on.

“I have been informed by a number of different pupils at the school that someone kindly wrote I respect Tommy Robinson because he stands up for the British public. Surely pupils are allowed to have free thought and opinion?” There was more. A lot more.

“Not according to Andrew Owen the Head teacher. He lost his shit with all the children. He said whoever wrote that better march straight to his office immediately. If no one admitted it then he would effectively scan CCTV and track down the child who dared to have an opinion that was different to his”. Then comes the definite whopper.

“He then threatened to notify the police and informed the pupils they would be placed on the list with people who are suspected terrorists, it will ruin their future and they will be unable to get a job. Bullying children about a board that is supposed to support anti bullying, what a disgrace! I don't know about you but If my child was attending Birchgrove Comprehensive School run by someone displaying Fascist bullying and threatening tactics against the pupils, I would make a complaint, just saying”.

Spraying around words like “fascist” and “bullying”? Claiming it’s the “far left”? Check! Where Lennon got that information from is not known. Nor has anyone out there on the far right stopped and thought that him communicating with children might not be a very good idea. But, as he included the school’s Twitter handle, there was plenty of aggressive feedback, to the extent that the account had to be closed down.

As the BBC has reported, “Teachers have been abused and threatened online by supporters of Tommy Robinson after he criticised a school on Facebook … The former English Defence League (EDL) leader said Birchgrove Comprehensive School in Swansea had a head teacher ‘displaying fascist bullying’”. There was more.

“He claimed a pupil was criticised for including him as a person he admired in an anti-bullying project … Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart said events had been deliberately distorted … A presentation ceremony due to be held at the school on Thursday was postponed and the school's social media accounts have been suspended”. So Lennon has single-handedly disrupted scores of kids’ education. What a star.

And as for that claim about notifying the Police, Wales Online has told that “The council, speaking on behalf of the school, said events had been ‘badly and deliberately distorted’, and added that the allegation that the headteacher had threatened to call the police was not true”. So it wasn’t THE TRUTH. And there was one more problem for Lennon.

Wales Online again: “Writing on his Facebook page, Mr Robinson added that if his child was attending Birchgrove Comprehensive School, ‘I would make a complaint, just saying’ … Shortly afterwards, the school started to be bombarded with allegations about the headteacher, and about disciplinary standards there”.

But council leader Rob Stewart - wonder if he’s going to be targeted by Lennon for another of those late night “polite conversations”? - said this: “Birchgrove Comprehensive School is an excellent school. It is unacceptable for teachers and children to be the target of abuse by far right supporters on social media”. So what’s the reality?

We can see this by looking at the latest Estyn report for Birchgrove Comprehensive, which tells us that the answer to the three Key Questions, “How good are the outcomes? … How good is provision? … How good are leadership and management?” is GOOD.

Stephen Lennon, on the other hand, has posted in follow-ups to his Facebook claims, “Looks like Birchgrove comprehensive allegedly has a history of bullying children!” … “Since publishing the post I have been contacted by a number of pupils and some ex pupils all confirming that the school is awful” … “Keep receiving more allegations of bullying in that school. I suggest the governors of the school need to sort out student and teacher bullying”. Is this really THE TRUTH?

There is no published confirmation of any of the allegations made by Stephen Lennon. None at all. Not one word of reliable citation backing him up. Yet he has seen fit to make allegations against Birchgrove Comprehensive School, and as a result has disrupted the education of scores of children. And for what, apart from personal aggrandisement?

He likes to call “liar” on others. But a lot of what he has said about that school has already been condemned as distortion or worse. Yet, if the authorities take a dim view of him sticking his bugle in, it will all be someone else’s fault.

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Rupert Murdoch Abandons Theresa May

Two claims sum up he malign influence of the Murdoch mafiosi on UK politics: the idea that “It’s the Sun wot won it”, that the paper can sway votes and thereby dictate who is, and is not, in power, and that if you want to know what Rupert Murdoch is thinking, then read a Sun editorial. Thus politicians fear castigation by the latter, because it inevitably leads to ejection via the former. This will not be lost on Theresa May today.

It was not lost on Gordon Brown, either: at the behest of the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun abandoned Labour for Young Dave’s allegedly revitalised Tory Party. Cameron was one of the worst Prime Ministers ever to disgrace 10 Downing Street with his presence. He fouled up the country and Theresa May has made things worse. Rupe, meanwhile, gets off Scot Free.

And those Sun editorials began to turn against the PM before the Brexit deal was examined by the press. Yesterday brought “THE Cabinet, we are told, have a ‘difficult’ decision today. It doesn’t look hard to us … If the ‘deal’ Theresa May has agreed with Brussels robs us of the power to exit the EU Customs Union when WE alone decide, it is not Brexit”. Only Murdoch can decide what Brexit really means.

There is more. “If it prevents us from freeing ourselves from EU rules or courts, it is not Brexit … If we pay a £39billion ‘divorce’ bill without actually leaving the EU’s central institutions, it is not Brexit. It is insanity - a betrayal which cannot ­survive and must be rejected”. Then came a read of the deal, and the mood darkened.

Today’s Sun front page shrieked “PM’s Cabinet In Disarray … May’s soft deal blasted by all sides … Huge battle to get MPs’ backing … WE’RE IN THE BREXS*IT”, with non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn obediently taking his dictation. The paper was calling time on Treeza. As the editorial made clear.

There was the customary lying: “In the 1970s, Ted Heath and Harold Wilson both knew we would baulk at belonging to a Common Market that robbed us of our national independence. So they hid its true purpose - ‘ever closer union’, leading to a superstate with one currency”. No-one hid anything. “Ever closer union” was in the original 1957 Treaty of Rome. There is no superstate. And no compulsion to join the Euro.

Then the mafiosi give Theresa May her instructions. “Do not kid yourself no one is paying attention. The public has been sold a pup again and again. It has had enough. Come clean with Britain. This deal is not wholly without merit. But let us see it for what it is”. By tomorrow, that will have changed to telling her she abandons the deal.

And if she does not, what we already know - that the Murdoch press has abandoned her - will be confirmed. The mafiosi will select their preferred Tory leadership team - probably London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and Michael “Oiky” Gove, as they are both Murdoch assets - and expect their wishes to be carried out.

This is what happens when an interfering foreigner who does not have the vote in this country is allowed into power by the back door. There is, of course, one alternative.

A General Election, a Labour Government, and Leveson 2. I’ll just leave that one there.

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BBC DG Brillo Hypocrisy

If anyone were still uncertain as to the lengths to which BBC management will go in order to pretend that there are really no problems at all with its behaviour, or that of some of its senior staff, the most recent pronouncement from the Director General of the Corporation should set them straight, especially when put alongside more of that less than pleasant behaviour. The Beeb’s own report sets the scene.

“The BBC's director general has spoken out against the ‘disgraceful’ attacks made on journalists on social media … Tony Hall said journalists received ‘constant anonymous threats’ on Twitter for ‘simply reporting on opinions that some people might not want to hear’ … Earlier this year, the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg said she no longer reads what people say online” it explains.

And there is more. “Lord Hall said social media threats were part of ‘an attempt to intimidate people and stop them doing their jobs’ … He told the conference: ‘It is hard to remember a time in which journalists across the world have been deliberately targeted in the way they are today’ … he wanted the BBC's journalists ‘to tackle fake news - or what we should more properly call misinformation - wherever they find it’”.

Carole Cadwalladr - still no right of reply

This is all laudable stuff. But what Lord Hall-Hall manages to miss is that one of his own senior presenters is a fully engaged participant in “attacks made on journalists on social media” because his targets are “simply reporting on opinions that some people might not want to hear”. The social media threats thus generated are indeed “an attempt to intimidate people and stop them doing their jobs”.

As for Fake News, the presenter in question is doing little to combat this when he is promoting the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, the increasingly shrill alt-right Spectator magazine, and engaging in pile-ons against female politicians and journalists who have incurred his displeasure.

Small wonder the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr responded to Lord Hall-Hall “Incredible. You should see what your star politics presenter has unleashed onto my feed. What he's sanctioned & legitimised”. The “star politics presenter” is of course Andrew Neil.

And Neil’s behaviour can be seen at its unpleasant worst in the aftermath of Green Party MEP Molly Scott Cato telling “Here’s the email to the BBC sent by myself and @CarolineLucas explaining why they should reverse their decision to give a platform to Arron Banks. Please continue with your own complaints about this appalling decision”.

After Ms Lucas had confirmed “Appalling misjudgement to give platform to Arron Banks on BBC tomorrow Please do make your own complaint”, off went Brillo. “Thank god the future of the free press is not in your hands - or there would be no free press. You should be ashamed of yourself”. She wasn’t talking about the press. And she’s entitled to complain.

It was Trevor Kavanagh batting for Kelvin McFilth all over again. The kind of behaviour that Lord Hall-Hall has condemned when others do it. So why is the DG blind to such behaviour when it comes from his own side? Well, Tony?

Criticise others for bad behaviour, BBC - but get your own house in order first.

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