By Andy Ford
BBC Question Time on October 26 gave a revealing picture of how out of step are the ruling class, their Labour shadows, and their stooge commentariat, with genuine public opinion on Gaza.
The panel was Lee Rowley, a strangely reptilian individual, now the Tory MP for NE Derbyshire, Jonathan Reynolds, Labour MP for Stalybridge and Chair of ‘Christians of the Left’ – and Vice-Chair of the Labour Friends of Israel, Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi, and Alan Smith from the SNP. Plus the obligatory Tory journalist, in this case Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times.
Normally ‘Question Time’ suffers under a suffocating atmosphere of rigged audiences, biased chairing and an Establishment consensus on the panel. But this time was different. Free speech managed to break through.
The first question was “Is it possible for Israel to defend itself and root out Hamas without a regional conflict and humanitarian catastrophe?”. Good question…
Lee Rowley came out with what can only be described as a stream of nonsense, which unfortunately is the official government position. “This all started on October 7” he said, and went on to waffle that “There is no context, and no explanation to this”, just the “simple fact” (according to him) “That 1,400 people are no longer with us”.
Spoken like a true management consultant
Er…what about the 8,000 Palestinians who “are no longer with us”? Presumably they are not ‘people’. He continued, “We have to get through this ‘difficult time’”. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so horrible, to describe two million people being bombed, shelled and starved as a “difficult time”.
Asked how to avoid catastrophe, Rowley coldly stated that “Israel has the right to defend itself” and that ‘we’ have to meet ‘humanitarian challenges’ that “We all dislike very much”. Spoken like a true management consultant.
It was left to Tory Baroness Warsi to speak some basic truth. “This did not all suddenly begin on October 7”(applause); the “Only way get a secure Israel is to end the occupation” (applause), and there “Has to be a political solution; a two-state solution”.
For Labour, Jonathan Reynolds said firstly that “Any conflict should take place within international law” and secondly that “we all want it to end”. He even said “Every human life is of equal value”. But then could not bring himself to call for ceasefire, let alone criticise Israel. Here we can see the full folly of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, wielded so gleefully by Starmer, Reynolds and all the rest – if it is indeed ‘antisemitic’ to criticise Israel then even when the IDF murders a journalist, or beats defenceless prisoners or blows up and maims dozens of innocent children – they cannot utter a word of criticism or reproof.
That is, for them, Israel can continue breaking ‘international law’ (whatever that is in the real world) and can continue taking thousands of those lives that Reynolds had just said were of ‘equal value’. It was all too much for one young woman, who made easily the best contribution of the programme.
“…the passive language used is disgusting”
“The passive language used here us disgusting” (applause). “This is not a ‘humanitarian crisis’ – it is a brutal bombardment of civilians! Half of the dead are children. Find a backbone. Of course, everyone condemns Hamas. But when do you condemn bombing children, mosques, apartment blocks? When does ANYONE condemn that?” (applause).
The reptilian one tried to answer. “Hamas is a terrorist organisation which has executed babies. It needs to be taken out” he hissed.
“OK, how many Palestinians have to die?” was the passionate reply, “It’s not even Hamas being blown up! We are seeing children, women, fathers with their children in bags. What is your exchange rate of Palestinians to Israelis?” She completely skewered Tory Rowley’s complete hypocrisy in condemning the deaths of some babies only, and closing his eyes, and trying to close everyone else’s, to the deaths of others. Disgusting is the word.
Chair Fiona Bruce called in a white middle-aged man, obviously hoping for support for Rayner, and was not to be disappointed: “It DID start on October 7” he said, and “Everything that happened before is completely separate”. Really???
An Asian man pointed out that Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank has been open to talks since 1993 – but “It goes nowhere” He called the UN “puppets”, which was met with a horror-struck look from Fiona Bruce.
Journalist Pogrund weighed in to say that that Israel’s actions are being condemned. Are they? Not by him – “But in asymmetric warfare there is no way to avoid civilian deaths”. Oh well, just one of those things.
Another look of horror on Fiona Bruce’s face
Sayeeda Warsi managed to come in and read out Netanyahu’s statements of 2019 that Israel needed Hamas in order to break Gaza from the West Bank. Cue another look of horror from Fiona Bruce. Warsi warned “our politicians” to “stop using language that makes no sense, that is one-sided and hypocritical and goes nowhere to solve this and enables Netanyahu – who includes convicted terrorists and avowed fascists in his cabinet”.
The SNP spokesman called for an immediate ceasefire in his contribution, so that was better than Jonathan Reynolds’ hypocritical hand-wringing.
Another speaker from the audience said that Israel is “Killing children and babies, daily, while the world stands by and lets them continue their murder”. A middle-aged white woman claimed that “We never negotiate with terrorists”, with other audience members pointing out that our own government ended up negotiating with the IRA. Even Gabriel Pogrund noted that ISRAEL talks to Hamas, through intermediaries.
A local Asian man, maybe a Labour supporter, condemned the Hamas attack but “Two wrongs don’t make a right. And the Labour Party has been appalling. To say that Israel has the right to block water, electricity and food…A week later, Mr Flip-Flop tries to say he didn’t say it. The Labour Party in Bradford is collapsing, people are leaving…you will lose 1.5 million votes. You don’t stand for anything anymore… Stop killing children!”
The IRA were ‘different kind of terrorists’ – Labour MP
Jonathan Reynold’s response was so on-message it was painful. He couldn’t call for a ceasefire, just “humanitarian pauses” between bombings, and tried to claim that Keir Starmer’s position is “clear”. Then, ludicrously, that the IRA were a ‘different kind of terrorist’ – “They were terrorists, but they were also nationalists (?) – but Hamas don’t want peace, they just want to attack.”
Fiona Bruce tried her best to retrieve the situation for the Establishment by calling in another three middle-aged white people, including one who had “worked at the White House”, (so hardly representative of Bradford one might think), who tried to smear protests against bombing civilians as ‘hate speech’.
But by then the damage was done. The panel were left looking like what they were – nauseating apologists for the mass murder of non-combatants with the honourable exception of Tory Baroness Sayeeda Warsi who spoke up for elementary humanity. This contrasted with the plain English of the audience members which cut though their web of half-truths, evasions, euphemisms and hypocrisy.
What a commentary on the modern British political class. From the Tory reptile to the Murdoch hack, all were united in excusing the maiming and killing of children. Fiona Bruce did her best to help them, as usual. The only bright spot was that Lee Rayner is certain to lose his Red Wall seat come the next election.
At that point, 76% of British adults want a ceasefire, with only 8% opposed. With each passing day of horrors those numbers will only have shifted one way. The ruling class are isolated on this – and so are the narrow clique that forms the Labour leadership.
This episode of BBC Question Time is available on BBC i-player, here.
