Tories BBC ISIS Hypocrisy

Nowhere is Young Dave’s combination of rank hypocrisy and shameless opportunism better displayed than in his bullying of the BBC. The Corporation, dammit, still fails to serve up the news in a way that is truly acceptable to Conservatives. Its presenters still insist on asking Hard Questions (tm) of him and his jolly good chaps. So it was that our fearless Prime Minister went off on one yesterday.

I say you BBC cheppies, do as you're told and go and stand in the corner over thyah! Jully good sheow!!

The hated Beeb insisted on referring to ISIS, or whatever they’re called this week, as “The so-called Islamic State”, which suggests that this crowd calls itself that - ISIL means “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”, and ISIS replaces “Levant” with “Syria” - but that it isn’t really an Islamic State at all. Rather like the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, which certainly isn’t an alliance of ordinary taxpayers.

Dave wasn’t having any of that. So off he went to the Radio 4 Today programme to give that John Humphrys chappie a piece of his mind. “I wish the BBC would stop calling it Islamic State because it's not an Islamic state. What it is is an appalling, barbarous, regime. It's a perversion of the religion of Islam and many Muslims listening to this programme will recoil every time they hear the words Islamic State”.

Jolly good sheow! Except, of course, the Beeb makes the point - and did so in yesterday evening’s news bulletins - of prefixing “Islamic State” with “so-called”. This was just another crude attempt to browbeat the Corporation, and one critic of the Tories saw through it immediately. Responding to Stephen Daisley, Jo Rowling told “you're not the only one uncomfortable with the Prime Minister seeking to dictate BBC editorial policy”.

And then there is the hypocrisy: Cameron is quick enough to go in with both feet on the BBC, but his pals in the right-wing press use the term “Islamic State”, and he doesn’t say a dickybird about it. You think I jest? Let’s see how the Super Soaraway Currant Bun was styling the group recently. “United against I. S. … As Police swoop on first suspected Islamic State terror cell in UK, the Sun urges Brits of all faiths to stand up to extremists”.

But Dave isn’t admonishing Rupe’s downmarket troops, is he? Nor is he wagging his finger at his most ardent cheerleaders at the Telegraph, who yesterday were populating their mobile app with a section clearly titled “Islamic State Top Stories”. No Tory telling-off for the dwindling band of hacks at Buckingham Palace Road, though. And nor is there any ticking-off for the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, either.

Yes, the Daily Mail is also calling it the “Islamic State”, without any sign of the “so-called” that the Beeb use. And, in typical style, the Mail, at the same time, is playing both sides of the field by carrying the story about Cameron bullying the BBC. Meanwhile, nobody seems to be calling out Dave for pushing his own favoured term for the group, ISIL, the first two initials of which stand for, er, Islamic State. So I will.

Cameron’s obsession with the BBC is unhealthy. And his hypocrisy just stinks.