Call from a producer this morning: Zoe please help - we thought the panel on our show was balanced, but it turns out they’re both pro-mass detention camps for asylum seekers. Would you come on to be the anti-detention camp voice? We are in a really bad place, friends, I am telling you.
Maybe the show in question could look at broadening the number of panelists available After all we know Emily Sheffield is going to appear on one panel a week but without mentioning she is Camerons sister in law etc Also applies to anyone from Tufton Street but fail to mention who funds them
Why do media outlets give a platform to ANY pro-mass detention assholes?
Twitter is a dangerous cesspool of misinformation and hate. It should be banned in all democratic counties.
Dear Producer, you have to start at the root cause: words. First, discourage your reporters and presenters from using weasel words with no concrete foundation: "Legitimate concerns" for existence.
Then you could insert a question about why, if the council's lawyers argued that the demonstrations were causing a danger to public safety, why weren't the demonstrations policed, and arrests made? It isn't difficult - police managed to arrest more than 500 for holding placards elsewhere.
Finally, context - every time you do the "illegal boat crossings" insert the words "which represent a very small proportion of overall immigration", for example. Hold a brainstorming session with your staff. Many of them will be well enough informed to make valuable suggestions. Kind regards etc
They could also not host guests who are pro mass detention camps!
You'll be saying they shouldn't have Nigel Farage on #bbcqt Question time, next...
😱🤣
Steady on...😂😉
Using the word 'illegal' in combination with 'migrants' when talking about any refugees/asylum seekers, however they get here,is both factually and legally inaccurate.The BBC uses such phrases constantly and allows government ministers to get away with thus demonising people fleeing their countries.
I agree. And I don’t agree with the ‘rude’ designation which @safety.bsky.app @bsky.app @support.bsky.team has appended to your reasonable, civil, decorous post. Have a follow!👏
The label is attached to my account and by extension, every post. Bizarre, but of long standing
Hi Linda, for some reason your reply was hidden, as if it said something offensive. 🤷🏼♀️
Hi. It is a label attached to my account, and therefore also to every post. A blunt instrument but there you are.
Exactly or avoid entirely until they start making some actual sense on all of our airtime.
They really are a laugh a day, these monsters.
The way in which matters at Epping are being presented leads to pretty grim conclusions. No real analysis. Making a case for Fascism. FFS.
Yes. If the council were arguing that the demonstrations were creating a danger to public safety - which is what the BBC reported without actually questioning it - then why weren't the demonstrations restricted.
Maybe if they were wearing PA t-shirts the police would be more motivated.
I was troubled by the Tory Mayor of Epping saying there were valid cultural & historic reasons why an immigrant hostel shouldn't be there. Turns out the "Valid cultural & historic reasons" he claimed were in fact a large National Front membership there in the past. I suspect he was one such member.
For any council to bring such a case already put them in my "probably dodgy" bin. Epping twinned with Buchenwald?
The news at ten last night really pushed this home. Unchallenged quotes from Reform about sending ALL migrants home, and labelling them illegals, and it all being a problem for the government. Not once did it say the problem was actually the protesters. The danger from the protesters was the case.
The torrent of this from ordinary people on social sites is growing fast - I don’t know if the government actually realise the extent to which it is taking hold
Ah, can't blame you for saying no. Stacking panels and doing this whole "debate bros." thing seems to be the recent erm..."fad". They just wanna get leftists onto these shows to try and gang up/humiliate them, just to lend credance to the right's arguments, wise to decline.
So, ummmm, they invite two people, presumably to talk specifically about asylum / immigration (since they aren't asking you (Zoe) to also talk about tax thresholds or river pollution or whatever). So you'd think they might have some prior inkling as to their views on asylum / immigration. 1/2
But well golly gosh, turns out they're both fans of concentration camps for asylum seekers!! Whodathunkit? What a stroke of bad luck! Looks awfully like an attempted ambush. You're well advised not to touch it with a bargepole. 2/2
When democracy is threatened by fascism it is no time for 'balance'. Would they flesh out their panels with pro-slavery and pro-holocaust speakers?
It’s getting close to that
You know, I think they would.
I think so too.
Wow. I’m old enough to remember when you’d have to scour the country for folks who felt that way. You might be able to find one living in the slime under a rock in some dark place, but that was about it. We are so broken. 😢
The media are vermin.
Damien Green on #bbcwato said asylum seekers should be housed in places that are “reasonably civilised”What does that look like for good was sake?
This is what you get when they build a london centric incestuous media network
Deutsches TV, 1934: 'should we build concentration camps to weed out our society?'
christ that’s sordid
“Hi Zoe, we have an immigration panel of 15 people, but we need someone to present the other side. Would you be the balancing voice?”
Years and Years TV series is happening as we speak. This is where we are heading.
Idk, its almost like they could cancel the show, rather than platform Nazis. Crazy idea, I know, but it just might work
Was that BBCQT?
Media is complicit with the fascism and deserve to be treated as enemies of the people.
Wow.
Your efforts and those of people like you go a long way towards redeeming Britain's vile reputation as a racist swamp. As a result, your followers know there are good, decent people still living there.
There are lots of us in the country who think like you. Unfortunately none of us are in a position to be asked onto TV to give our opinions.
Sometimes, there should simply be truth, not a false balance.
Thank you for all you do
The media and @teamlabouruk.bsky.social are trying to appease the racists not the humanitarians #asylumseekers
This detention camp thing has all the hallmarks of Nazi Germany, the continuing dehumanisation of these desperate people is absolutely terrifying.
@zoejardiniere.bsky.social Gah. How do we get to a timeline where human rights for all is the obviously balanced default?
Start calling the pro detention camp people what they are. NAZIS. They understand the word. Let them defend it.
Was the show on GeeBeeBies?
One of the things about the Bad Guys is they are ready to go and deploy at a moment's notice. There's probably a giant list of people on standby ready to give a fascist sound bite any hour of the day.
"Only if you allow me to bring in some props to help make examples of how to approach these topics."
Understand why you’re not doing it, though you’d do a strong job of it. Yet if we take the emotion out of it, “where is the best place to house asylum seekers” has to be answered in a rationale manner by someone other than the far right.
Farage Riots. He, like the convicted criminal in the White House, thrive by exposing and exploiting the ugliness in people. People who really should know better but are too lazy and/or stupid to do anything except hate others just for being different. Sheeple are destroying the world
They've confused balance and impartiality again, haven't they?
Ya ... Alligator Alcatraz was a big ol' red flag. If there hadn't already been several.
I’m reflecting on the PM saying he’ll stop at nothing to secure borders. This is context of people calling for drownings at sea and navy action. I see this as more sinister than his rivers of blood references. Detention camps or concentration ones? Good luck.
Balance
#radio4 this morning with 2 Conservative council leaders was not an interview with questions or analysis. It was allowed to be a party political broadcast on behalf of the fascist party which the presenter #JustinWebb is an obvious fan.
The council leader Corina Gander had the absolute fucking bare faced cheek to blame asylum seekers for the reason why there are no facilities such as GP appointments. Her party was in power for 14 years!!!!
If anything there should be more public services because now there's more taxpayers. But there isn't. This proves the wealth extraction by private firms owned by their mates and that they're happy to blame it on taxpaying immigrants. Even if that means people are put at risk. Deeply sick behaviour.
100% agree with you. I fear people are going to end up hurt or worse if somebody in power doesn't call this shit out for the racist, scare mongering that it clearly is
What's bizarre is outside of the unusual culprits people that used to be against this are now siding with it. Are they cynically hoping it won't come for them too if they stand next to the murder machine? If that's their belief it's woefully naive. How does it go; "first they came for..." etc etc.
It does make you wonder how many of them always felt this way and now feel emboldened to say it aloud. You are so right when you question how this this will end
The problem is that you cannot debate those people. They'll also suggest that things like turning the dinghies back, comparing it to what Australia did, or that we should sink them. Whichever show it is should really not be putting these people on their shows
The government should be launching a mass media campaign to publicise the many benefits of migration & exposing the lies. The fact that they aren’t, & are actually reinforcing the prejudices & misinformation, is one of the most shameful moments in modern British history.
Anyone who's worried about a far-right takeover in the future simply isn't paying attention.
Do you believe government launched mass media campaigns ?
All governments in my lifetime have preferred not to talk about immigration. It worked until Farage broke ranks and used it as a political weapon. Now they think reinforcing Farage's talking points will defeat him. They dont have a clue.
It's kind of difficult for the government to use the mass media for a campaign, when the government is fully owned by the mass media. Fleet Street calls the tune and Downing Street dances to it.
This. 💯. The UK government are part of the problem. (I’m proud to say that the devolved government in Scotland recognise the benefits of migration.)
It's the not taking our jobs union view. See also Brexit.
Yeah man, would have been nice if we had completely different people in charge rather than a government that will simply never do this in any form. Like, what are you talking about?
The government are responsible for this BS.
I would like to suggest that even if you replaced the people with the most well intended individuals you could find, the black box ecosystem of the state would remorselessly grind their minds into making the same narrow and appalling political choices. It’s the individuals AND the ecosystem.
I think the problem is not that the most well-intentioned people would become awful right-wing authoritarians if in power. The problem is that the most well-intentioned people would never be allowed to get into power, precisely because they aren't willing to enact right-wing authoritarianism.
Yes don’t disagree but I think the process of conversion happens long before a politician ends up in actual power. It’s the whole system and the closer you get to it the more its gravity starts acting on you.
Sure but the process is as much a winnowing out as a change. Only cunts get to be in charge.
I mean ecosystem makes it sound like this is just part of nature, but it isn't. This is actually just: the UK is run by uniquely horrible cunts and they will burn everything to the ground in order to preserve their grip on power.
It’s an “ecosystem” because it’s a large multifaceted network of c-words (Politics but also media, business, finance etc) with multiple interacting parts but people are trained to think that changing a few individuals will change it. Take your point about “makes it sound natural”
However in a way that’s the point: changing it will require a titanic effort like climate change bigger than just changing the cogs in the machine.
Is that an "ecosystem" really?
It's an ecosystem of cunts I suppose
*psychosystem?
Psycho System Qu’est-ce que c’est? Fa fa fa faaa fa fa fa fa faaa far better Run run run Run run run awaaaaaayyyy
"I hate people when they're not polite". Could that be the essence of British colonialism?
If only cuntery was an actual criminal offence...
We'd never have enough prisons
I would replace ‘will burn’ with ‘are burning’ but otherwise absolutely unimprovable…
If I weren't old enough to remember the fury from my parents about the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (that brought explicit racism into immigration law) I might be surprised. Labour has history here - and it's not pretty. Either they change or the party dies.
It seems the hysterical, brain dead racists are dominating the MSM and sadly the government too! Are we really going to stand by and let the lowest common denominator have their way because they shout loudly and make threats? Where is the decent,silent majority? I despair.
Asylum seekers first. Have heard first-hand men saying women should never have been given the vote. Dangerous times
I realised something this morning... I've not heard a single interview with an asylum seeker for years. They're voiceless.
Only where Tice or suchlike has duped them into one and led them up the garden path to say what he wants to broadcast
That's true, I remember Tice doing that, about 6 months ago I think. When people tell their story they are human. The media don't want to treat asylum seekers as humans.
He’s done it a few times now and others are following his ‘example’ and some are basically using deception to access people
Ffs
Do they have Hitler and Mussolini on?
More likely Jenrick and Cooper.
So that’s a yes, in effect.
Flattering for you to be recognised as a "balancing voice", but devastating that this detention is such a popular point of view. Farage and his band-wagon should dropped into the Puerto Rico trench.
I’m not doing it.
The programme, or just the camp voice?
That will be an ambush for you ,best stay away
It might be worth it, if everyone on the other side of the argument were not just disingenuous grifters looking to enrich themselves at the expense of society.
And of course the producer can easily abandon the piece
Good, and thank you. They shouldn't be normalising such views, leaving the public with the impression that racism is acceptable in the 21C
Why would you want to be on a show that platforms and normalizes fascists anyway?
Stuff them Zoe
Good for you. Let them spout their bigoted opinions into the ether, presumably as a response to Jenrick being photographed with a neo-Nazi. The fact that Badenoch hasn't said a word about it, nor sacked him [which she should have done], speaks volumes about the Tory party.
Guess they saw this & reckoned I’m up for a fight but I’ll tell you the truth, arguing over the humanity of refugees is actually not my idea of a good time 😔 bsky.app/profile/zoej...
I don’t know how you remain so calm. I’d have been screaming at him after about 30 seconds. I hope you get plenty of time and space and support away from it all.
Thank you for doing it.
You caveated your point, got mansplained by the @BBC presenter that you must caveat your point, and, while stating that you had in fact caveated at the very start, were talked over and instructed again to caveat your point... I'm thankful you have the strength and ability to fight for truth.
I imagine It’s tiring, I mean these career politicians don’t give a shit so long as they can milk the fame game….
It must be exhausting. So many of us do so much appreciate what you are doing.
Great work! Thank you!
It might not be your idea of a good time, but you are very good at it. But I wouldn’t stress about not responding to every request from those who just want to use you for their own ends.
...In a bad place you say.. yep steered there by the likes of this covertly racist cretin...
Trumps anal tape worm
You must be exhausted with it. It's like hitting your head against a brick wall. Repeatedly. But well done for what you do.
Send them my number I'll call some people out on live TV , fuck it.
I’m glad that you are speaking out so eloquently, Zoe, but you shouldn’t have to. If @teamlabouruk.bsky.social ministers were not such moral cowards, there would be more voices confronting the far right.
Read up on NOLS. It was an operation to destroy the Labour Party by stuffing it with Tories.
I don’t blame you. The fact that the producers didn’t see this when organising the programme raises all sorts of alarm bells.
Well done. Don't help platform the idiots 🙏🏻
Well done.
Good step - stops the both sides argument. Let the host or producers themselves challenge the speakers.
Great opportunity to swing back even harder with the mallet of justice & humanity. Unlike immigrants, bigoted, racist misanthropes are a genuine threat to civilisation - and they won't stop at immigrants. Anyone could be next. Deport the racists; keep the immigrants.
Clearly you made the right choice bsky.app/profile/brok...
Can’t say I blame you. You can’t carry all of this on your own. They need to find a bunch of good people to share the responsibility.
Why are they even “debating” mass detention camps 😩 (I assume this is why you said no. Good on you. )
👍🏽
Seriously, thank you for not doing it. There is nothing to be achieved, you will just be used as window dressing as absolutely disgusting human beings give the most horrible takes imaginable while journalists nod sagely.
May I ask why? Is it just not possible or...?
" it turns out" Hmm. Unlikely that random people were invited without some idea of their line of thinking. Less about achieving balance more about optics???
1. 2 'against' 1 doesn't sound a fair fight [what broadcaster presumably wants]. 2. Debate should be calm, considered & based on facts, rather than likely misinformation that would be spouted [e.g. Tice on LBC a while back, unchallenged while lying]. 3. Zoe must be exhausted with this nonsense!
I keep thinking .. right this is as bad as it can get .. and the each morning it gets worse.. today has been a huge lurch worse again. Feel so helpless to do anything.
Join an anti racism organisation and get involved. We can, and must, do something.
I don't blame you.. just had to switch off R4 Today prog because of the accusatory, hostile and almost gleeful Emma Barnett on the same subject.
False balance is one of the reasons why.
I've been in a few taxis lately and had some great conversations about asylum seekers and Palestine, so perhaps they need to widen their pool of commentators from rabid tabloid hacks to include Edinburgh taxi drivers. Producers: meet some normal people.
This does NOT work in London. [My fartrage worshipping, deform voter, black cab driving brother is how I know.]
I agree 100%. We are in the early stages of another Holocaust.
“It turns out”? And producer didn’t know? How did it just “turn out” that way? Who booked all the others? Did they get “suggested” from the suits upstairs?
They called ‘rent-a-fascist-gob’ by mistake. Happens all the time.
I suggest he cancel that format. Just interview you and random public.
Meanwhile, in Scotland... bsky.app/profile/scot...
This campaign is supported by our First Minister and other public figures. T-shirts are available through the @scotrefugeecouncil.bsky.social #AyeWelcomeRefugees bsky.app/profile/scot...
Three words, Island of Strangers, did this. That's what racist heard. And it's no good to say about broader context of the speech, because whoever wrote it and read it, knew exactly the value of meaning it carried. This is on Starmer and his Government.
It’s going to get worse because of what the orange idiot is doing in America, enough people here like what they see and Deform and their junior party the Tories will give it to them.
Labour aren't much better, if at all
Of course they aren’t, it’s a race to the bottom for all of them on this issue.
Does this suggest the media is waking up to what it has done?
Or they just want cover ..
Maybe. But it would have been better if they'd say least told one of the fascists they were no longer needed.
Still too busy licking the Overton window.
📌
That the media are driving and stoking this issue has never been so clear to me as it is right now. I doubt they cancelled for the lack of balance as there's a narrative to be pushed. I just don't see this focus (or hatred) in any parts of my everyday life, I only ever see/hear it in the media
Sadly I do see it in everyday life more and more
Bet one of those was a Labour MP.
Wasn't that long ago that anyone openly calling for concentration camps wasn't given a television platform. Media ownership and editorship needs hammering with the full extent of the law.
Two obvious errors there, first you check the stance before you invite the speakers and second you don't look for journalistic balance between fact and opinions. This explains why journalism is dying on TV and in print, the only safe place without confirmation bias is bluesky and Meidas touch.
Once the camps are set up and there’s a George Cross on every lamp post in the country, and sometimes kids are still being murdered or raped by strangers, who are they going to blame then?
This is the point that is not made enough. They will just blame others for all the perceived bad things in their life. I'm constantly removed of that poem we all know.
Tom Robinson made this point way back in 1978. As an aside though it’s striking listening back decades later how some of the phrases (“elites” etc.) used in this have been appropriated by the right now!
😬 not to be confused with ....
Siiiiiing if you've had your cocaine Sing if you're happy that way.... 🎶
More to be killed or abused by someone you know !👀
* more likely....
Bet all these pro-camps people love Paddington as well… holding that story up as a classic British icon and a national cultural touchstone, while having forgotten every lesson that story was actually teaching.
"Hello is that Planning? Chief Exec here. What does the Local Plan say about Concentration Camps?"
If 95% are anti concentration camps you reflect this on your programme. You don't turn it into a "two sides" for/against debate thus making it look like there is far more support for the position than in reality there is. "Balance" means you are in balance with reality, not that you have two sides.
Concisely put!
its disgusting that they would allow people like that to air their opinions
You could always point out that if they didn't invite fascists to speak they wouldn't have this problem.
And where are these mass detention sites supposed to go?
Camps to concentrate "undesirable" people have another name,wait a moment while I try to remember it...
A very opportune moment for @originstorypodcast.bsky.social to release their episode on Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood speech – the difference between the fight from political leaders in the 1960s and the capitulation of leaders today is stark and horrifying. pod.link/1624704966/e...
Plus ca change etc
No doubt
Despite voices of reason like yours occasionally breaking through, it feels like the British media is going to descend into a much worse state before it gets better 😞
Agreed, though I'm not optimistic it will be able to climb back out of that cesspit.
Pro- Detention/Kidnapping...
"Please come, on really short notice, to face alone and deal with the two rabid dogs we intend to set loose upon you... Yeah? Pretty please?" Wtf? No.
They’d lie through their teeth and talk over her whilst dismissing facts and evidence.
I so want to emigrate. I’m so ashamed of what we’ve become.
The way in which matters at Epping are being presented leads to pretty grim conclusions. No real analysis. Making a case for Fascism. FFS.
Nigel Farage calling for ‘peaceful protest’ at hotels housing asylum seekers is diabolical…
Court rules that migrant hotel in Epping should close because ‘violent protests outside pose a risk to public order’ (!) and Farage et al call for more protests outside ‘migrant hotels’. 🤔 Wake up UK! Take a look at the 1930s.
This ruling makes as much sense as Trump blaming Ukraine for being at war with Russia. Anyone looking the ‘peaceful’ protests outside of the Epping hotel will struggle to make a reasonable assessment that these people are coming from a rational and balanced debate.
That’s not what the court ruled. The judgment was based on breach of planning rules. Ie. Change of use. Let’s keep it true, the reality is bad enough.
That’s fair comment. I should have said that the case for the council, though made on a planning rule irregularity, incorporated the public safety argument and that this appears to have persuaded the court. Court rules asylum seekers must be moved from hotel www.bbc.com/news/article...
We don’t really know if it persuaded the court. We would need to read the judgement. I’ll see if I can find it and post it.
Here it is Paras 70 and 71 seem relevant www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/u...
I’m sure every single one of the protestors were most concerned about the planning permission issue.
Thank you
📌
I’m sort of interested to know why anyone wants to platform people who are “pro mass detention camps” as opposed to doing what normal people would and should do: educate people that they’re abhorrent.
Farage and his supporters are themselves no more than illegal migrants invading the national path to a decent and just asylum policy for desperate refugees. There’s no merit or justification for their case, they menace the innocent and threaten irreparable harm to us all. THEY are the “illegals”.
It’s absolutely shocking.
Why those of us in flyover US need to ditch Red and Blue coastals.
Say No - the producer is from a propagandist organization - they don’t need to both sides their deplorable presentation!
Sad to say but ten years of unbalance by the MSM is coming home to roost.
Seriously if they only just realised they'd booked two people with the same views that's a terrible producer or a terrible researcher or both.
it's going to get so much worse. I thought I had seen the worst in war. It's nothing to white cis supremacist civil atrocities. Humans don't deserve the world they inherited.
I used to live near the Yarlswood Immigrant Detention Centre in Bedfordshire, and that didn't end well. I also knew one of the staff who worked there and they were loathsome. 😡 There has to be a better way.
Take a look at what is going on right here in the US of A! It is horrendous! Concentration camps called Alligator Alcatraz 🤦🏻♀️ No more due process! Our own citizens detained because they are brown
Setting up proper reception facilities is the only realistic way to go. bsky.app/profile/mike...
Where are you suggesting these facilities would be based? Why would other countries around the world want to host asylum seekers on the UK's behalf?
Greece & Italy as examples have opened camps in their own territory, and as for camps outside of their own territories, they used to exist as well, my wife originally came from one, when she was a child, so it is doable.
Yes, I know refugee camps exist. I'm just curious about your plan to set up camps around the world specifically for people to seek asylum in the UK and why other countries would agree to host them, if the UK is not willing themselves
The point is about creating safe routes for asylum seekers, so that they are not forced to use smuggling gangs. There are numerous reports from respected bodies suggesting how this could be done. What’s lacking is government action to implement such solutions. Why the inaction?
I think we already know the answer to that – they don't want them. In 10 years, the UK resettled 29,500 people through UNHCR resettlement schemes (plus, of course, those through the UK-specific Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan schemes).
Agreements can be made with other countries, besides there are already several refugee camps around the world already, wouldn’t take much to modify them for purpose.
We are in a bad place because people are complacent and comfortable with their privilege. Yet so many people swear they aren’t racist. I call BS.
A school boy/girl error. The researcher needs a talking to.
My advice to them would be "why are you having either of them on other than to mock them and their hates?"
2 against 1. What could possibly go wrong?
This is a fundamental problem with so-called impartiality on television. Both sides are given equal weight even though one side is a fringe minority view and the other is the overwhelming majority. Like the Brexit debate with 99.9% of economists saying it would be bad and Patrick Minford disagreeing
Sorry to be pedantic but Minford didn't say Brexit would be good. He agreed with everyone else that it would lead to the demise of agriculture & industry. He was the only one who thought that demise could be a managed to change to an exclusively services based economy. He was wrong of course.
I wonder if producers have ever been caught in a panic because they've accidentally booked a panel of exclusively *not* right wing xenophobes
There's a horrible article in the @theguardian.com about a black guy who was filmed with his white grandchildren at the park. He's been called a paedophile online to Tommy Robinson's followers & now daren't go out. Racism is out of control.
Read that too. Absolutely horrendous. He is still managing to do so much damage!
😶
BBC impartiality - "today we're talking about what it's like experiencing racism, so today we have a person of colour, and for balance here's the most rabid racist you've ever seen. Ah yes balance is restored and impartiality remains intact." Genuinely their actual position in earnest, not satirical
Nothing has disillusioned me to "balanced voices" like the buffoonery of having an anti-vaxxer's opinion next to a Doctor of Immunology and treating their opinion like it holds as much importance as someone who gave 10+ years of their life to studying disease and vaccines. This just compounds it all