Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil (Jan. 11, 2019)

Posted by George Brennan on January 11, 2019, 1:37 pm

The whole show may be here (but not on my old browser) I guess Jones full speech comes about forty mins in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0by5czv/this-week-10012019 The excerpted spat is here: I still dont know what TheSpectator said Alex Nunns take: https://mobile.twitter.com/alexnunns/status/1083528764267642881?p=v

Posted by brooks on January 11, 2019, 2:21 pm, in reply to "Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. "

Here's the whole show GB Jones is on first and the spat with Neil is at about the 19:00 minute mark. If the BBC had any pretence to political "neutrality" it wouldn't necessarily take away Neil's show, but it would also give one to Owen Jones, or better still, a genuine radical like Pilger. Which of course is inconceivable. CBC is the same; they give programs to the most reactionary neanderthals like Kevin O'Leary and "balance" them with establishment liberals. It's a joke. Anyway, good for Jones for not letting himself be bullied.

Posted by brooks on January 11, 2019, 2:50 pm, in reply to "Re: Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. " Neil's argument seems to be - 'seems' because it's incoherent - that the media can't have as big an influence in stoking the rise of the far right and anti-immigrant racism in the UK as Jones implies since the media didn't play a significant role in the rise of the AFD Party in Germany or the National Front in France. First of all, how do we know whether this is true? I don't. And Neil knows that Jones doesn't know either - how should he unless he monitors the French and German media? - so uses the alleged fact to try to imply that it probably didn't have any impact in the UK either (a convenient belief for someone connected to the Spectator). But even if it is true, it doesn't follow that UK media hasn't played an important role in the rise of the far right. Neil just wanted to catch Jones on something he didn't know about as a distraction from the topic of UK media and the Spectator. At least that's how it appeared to me.

Re: Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. Posted by brooks on January 11, 2019, 4:16 pm, in reply to "Re: Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. " Actually, after listening to the whole thing, I retract my commendation for how Jones conducted himself. Portillo said at one point "…whereas the anti-Semitism in the Labour party is clearly endemic in the Labour party. The Jewish people have received no apology from the Labour Party [have I mentioned the Labour Party?], they are outraged by Jeremy Corbyn’s positions and the statements he’s made, and I think if we’re going to root things out from politics that’s where we ought to start.” The only response Jones had to this was "You’re right, anti-Semitism needs to be driven out of the left; it is a disgusting disease wherever it manifests itself and has no place within the left, or anywhere for that matter." Yet when Portillo tried to connect Corbyn to IRA violence, Jones called it a smear and explained why. So he's not-so-subtly reinforcing the first, and far more damaging smear while calling out the less significant one. Maybe after proving himself a "safe" journalist by this acquiescence in the Integrity Initiative-backed, Israeli-funded state propaganda campaign against Corbyn, he wished to show his leftie cred by getting in a shouting match with Neil over the comparatively trivial issue of the Spectator's racism.

Re: Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. Posted by johnlilburne on January 11, 2019, 5:29 pm, in reply to "Re: Owen Jones spat with Andrew Neil. " Portillo slagged off the Labour Party as endemically antisemitic and Kendall just sat there. The right is on the rise all over Europe - and in much of the world - as a false alternative to the neoliberal establishment. And all some people want to do is draw a false equivalence with supposed Labour antisemitism, thereby undermining the chances of a moderate leftist party coming to power and providing a progressive and genuine alternative. And all to protect against criticism the world's leading proponent of ethnonationalism.