Songs Of Praise - Mail Pundit Shame

And so it came to pass that the BBC broadcast the edition of Songs Of Praise which featured footage from the refugee camp near Calais where a makeshift church has been constructed by Christians from Syria, Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Daily Mail could not allow this opportunity to put the boot in on the hated Beeb go to waste, and so has secured the services of a self-proclaimed Christian to do the deed.

The makeshift St Michael's church ((c) Rob Stothard/Getty)

This accords with the usual Mail logic: the paper can’t be sexist, because the writer putting the boot in on women is herself a woman, it can’t be anti-Semitic, because it can wheel out Jon Steafel for Newsnight, it can’t be homophobic because it can wheel out Andrew Pierce, and now it can’t be anti-Christian because its attack piece “Songs of Praise from the Calais migrant camp... with NO songs!” was written by Damian Thompson.

Dames, whom I’ve been repeatedly told is “one of the good guys”, has done as the Mail ordered in exchange for however many pieces of silver he was bunged for his services, but sadly has not bothered to do his research. Had he done so, he would have found the BBC’s head of Religion noting “Songs of Praise is not only about Christian music, it also explores contemporary issues and modern themes from a Christian perspective”.

The footage from Calais explored the latter theme. In any case, as any regular watcher of the programme will know, Songs Of Praise long ago ceased to be just about going along to a service and broadcasting an edited version of it; it has adopted what is knows as a “magazine format”. Dames does not allow that thought to enter.

Instead, readers are told “How the BBC must have salivated at the prospect! Migrants – some desperately trying to slip illegally into the UK – singing pleading hymns to the Lord. Now that’ll prick the conscience of the nation. And what an embarrassment for the Government … How many hymns did the worshippers of St Michael’s sing in Songs of Praise? None. Not a single verse. In fact, not a single note … we were given only a tiny glimpse of an actual service”. And see above. But there was more.

“From time to time the camera would pan back to Sally in ‘the Jungle’, where she spoke to sincere English and French Christian volunteers ‘coming to the help of these destitute people’ … One lady wanted to bring them ‘the light of the Gospel’. Good luck with that. Sorry to sound cynical, but the script glossed over one rather inconvenient but unavoidable fact about the camp: it is overwhelmingly Muslim … Also – and I wonder if anyone at the Beeb knew this – St Michael’s is Ethiopian Orthodox”.

Yes, in the world of Damian Thompson, refugees are to be sneered at, considered to be criminals, and we have to accept that there are Real Christians, and then there are mere “Ethiopian Orthodox”, who are clearly some lesser form of being. Plus, of course, this is all a dastardly cover for the real baddies, Scary Muslims (tm)!

Even Charles Moore at the Telegraph - you remember the Tel, Dames, you used to work there - has asked “what sort of a person is it who objects to the BBC broadcasting Songs of Praise from the migrant camp in Calais”, going on to tell “The camp contains many Christians, often fleeing persecution. They praise Jesus Christ more fervently than most British people and have more need of Christian mercy”.

Yet for Damian Thompson, “Christian mercy” consists of demonising what the Mail clearly considers are less deserving Christians, while sniggering at the plight of the destitute, banking the earthly rewards awarded him by the false prophets of Northcliffe House, and momentarily forgetting the teachings of Christ.

He may think that he can clean off this taint by occasionally stopping by his favoured Church and pretending to confess his sins. I have news for you Dames - you can’t.