Watching Migration Watch

Last week a report by University College London's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration was published that suggested the United Kingdom is a net gainer from European immigration. There is a good summary of the report offered by Robert Peston. Of course there are some questions left unanswered by the report and in a later piece Peston identifies them.

What I found both predictable and infuriating is that when the report was published BBC News yet again turned to Migration Watch to comment on the report and spin their all too predictable narrative. Migration Watch's Sir (soon to be Lord thanks to the PM) Andrew Green seems to be on speed dial for BBC producers when it comes to anything to do with immigration. Green is hardly ever challenged but simply consulted as a self-appointed expert on the subject. This was true on the Today programme when they put Green up against one of the report's authors.

So I thought it was time to remind myself of the contribution made by immigrants to this country and here are three people you would be hard pushed to condemn as foreigners sponging off the state. In fact they have made significant contributions to the country which welcomed them and in which they have made their home.

Mr Alp Mehmet MVO Arrived from Cyprus 1956 aged 8. Educated at Parmiter's Grammar School in London's East end and Bristol Polytechnic. Immigration Officer (1970-79); Entry Clearance Officer Lagos (1979-83); Diplomatic Service (1983-2008), serving in Romania, Germany and Iceland (twice). Ambassador to Iceland (2004-2008).

Dr Ahmed Ibrahim Mukhtar DL FRCP Retired consultant paediatrician and former Medical Director of an NHS trust in Northamptonshire. Member of the governing council of the University of Northampton. Associate of the General Medical Council. Member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal. Born in the Sudan and educated Khartoum and Edinburgh Universities. Resident in the UK since 1972.

Mr Hazhir Teimourian A writer on Middle Eastern history and politics. He was born in 1940 in the Kurdish region of western Iran and came to the UK in 1959 for his higher education. He stayed on and has spent the last 35 years in journalism, mainly with the BBC World Service and The Times newspaper.

As I say, three people, all first generation immigrants, none from an EU country, who  have clearly made admirable contributions to the UK.

There is just one thing that puzzles me. All three are members of Migration Watch's Advisory Council and these brief biogs come from MW's website.  Mehmet was put up by Migration Watch to rebut the UCL report on the BBC News at One which is what led me to find out a little about him. I find it somewhat baffling that people who have both received from and given so much to this country are so committed to preventing others from having the same experience.

Error of judgement.

The news has been full of horrific images from around the world over the last couple of weeks and thanks to modern communications we are able to watch much of the reporting from these scenes in real time. One particular piece of journalism has attracted a large amount of attention and criticism. Sky News reporter Colin Brazier was reporting from the MH17 plane crash site and he began to rummage through a passenger's suitcase while speaking to camera. Part way through the reporter suddenly says 'we shouldn't be doing this... this is a mistake' and stops. However, the video went viral, in some versions without the final comment from Brazier, and the full force of social media instant rage came crashing down upon Brazier's head. Today in The Guardian Brazier explains how he came to make the error of judgement in his broadcast and in so doing gives us an insight into what many journalists are confronted with when reporting from these scenes of devastation.

The incident raises several issues for me. The first is that I am not sure why we need to have so many reports from these situations in order to understand what has happened or is happening. Did we really need reporters standing in the middle of the wreckage to convey the horror of what had occurred? Whenever a disaster, tragedy or atrocity takes place the default seems to be to send one of our well known news presenters to stand at the scene, breathlessly telling us what we already know. Are they really better placed to inform us from the field rather than from the studio? Often they are simply anchoring the programme and introducing other reports. Is this about creating a sense of tension and immediacy rather than helping us to gain insight into the events?

In Brazier's case the situation was different. He and other journalists had been allowed access into the heart of the site, where normally they would be excluded to the perimeter, as Brazier observes in his piece. We also had an insight into the shambles around the site as investigators and journalists where herded around by the Ukrainian rebels and we were able to observe the failure to secure the situation, protect the evidence and enable a proper investigation to take place. There are times when the on the ground reporting does bring a perspective that would otherwise be missing.

What is also revealed in Brazier's piece is the toll that this type of 'in the field' reporting has on the journalists. I guess we have become so familiar with seeing these reporters speaking to camera against a backdrop of mayhem, that we can forget they are human beings, struggling with their own emotions as they engage with the devastation around them. Brazier speaks of the sudden connection between what he was seeing and his own family as the context of his error of judgement:

And so during that lunchtime broadcast I stood above a pile of belongings, pointing to items strewn across the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a pink drinking flask. It looked familiar. My six-year-old daughter, Kitty, has one just like it. I bent down and, what my Twitter critics cannot hear - because of the sound quality of internet replays of the broadcast - is that I had lost it. It is a cardinal sin of broadcasting, in my book anyway, to start blubbing on-air. I fought for some self-control, not thinking all that clearly as I did so.

There are of course situations where the journalists cannot gain access. At the moment reports are coming out of Iraq that Christians in Mosul are being driven out of their homes or murdered for their faith. The story is gaining some coverage but is largely being drowned out by the situation in Gaza and the Ukraine. What is noticeable is the lack of on the ground reporting from Mosul, presumably because it is too dangerous for journalists to go anywhere near the place, and so there is little visual imagery to convey the atrocity on our televisions. Perhaps if we could see something of the tragedy that is unfolding in Mosul more attention might be given to it by news agencies, the public and our politicians, who seem to be almost silent when it comes to anything to do with Christian persecution in the Middle East.

I confess I was appalled when I saw Brazier's Sky News video clip. Looking back at my Twitter timeline I see I didn't make a comment at the time or RT anyone else's comments. though I easily could have - it only takes a click. I'm grateful to Brazier for his openness and honesty about what happened and for the reminder that those reporting the news are affected by what they encounter and can make mistakes, just like the rest of us.

I agree with George...

The Daily Mail seems to be having a bit of a thing about people named George at the moment. It has got itself in a pickle with George Clooney by running a completely false story about his future mother-in-law. When George challenged The Mail they offered an extremely rare apology. This apology turned out to be another piece of journalism which George has rejected as disingenuous if not dishonest. George Clooney deserves great credit for being prepared to take on a newspaper that trades in this type of journalism, particularly on-line, on a daily basis.

Today the Mail has published another article, this time penned by George. However, in this case it's George Carey the former Archbishop of Canterbury. This George is making a bit of a habit of dropping bombshells on the Church he used to lead at the most inappropriate of times. So while General Synod meets in York, George takes the headlines with an article explaining why he has shifted his position on the issue of Assisted Dying. It just so happens that George has decided to take a position on the Assisted Dying Bill before Parliament at the moment which is diametrically opposed to the official position of the Church of England on the issue. So no surprise what took the headlines in the media this morning. Let's set aside the complexities of the arguments about this sensitive and important issue for a moment; I have blogged on this in the past and will do so again and you can read about my views here and here. And before anyone lectures me, as has happened today, that this is an issue about compassion verses cold theology, I can assure you that this is an issue that directly affects my own family circumstances. I would simply make the point today that it is unhelpful and inappropriate for a former leader of the Church of England to make life so difficult for the present incumbent of that office. George Carey was fortunate to be preceded by an Archbishop who, upon retirement, on the whole held his counsel on contentious matters affecting the Church; George Carey's successors have not been so blessed.

So to be clear: I agree with George about The Daily Mail article. George Clooney that is, not the other one.

Update: Some good responses to George Carey's article being posted today. I found +Nick Baines' critique particularly lucid: Dying matters.

P.S. I tried to find an unflattering picture of Clooney so as not to unduly influence this post but to be honest I couldn't find any!

This little tweet of mine

I was getting ready for bed on Tuesday evening when I caught part of a news report that a vicar had been found dead under suspicious circumstances in the South West. Saddened, I offered up a prayer and then my wife asked if I knew who it was because the vicar had recently moved from Witham which is not far from Chelmsford. I asked if she had heard the name and Kate said it was John Suddards. My sadness tuned to shock because I had known John for quite a few years and we were colleagues on a particular diocesan working group. I tweeted a brief message about the news and then went to bed. Here’s the tweet:

Shocked and saddened to learn of the death of a friend and clergy colleague John Suddards on this evening's news bbcnews.

The next day I headed off to Norwich with the family for a few days break and on the way happened to phone the parish office to check on a couple of things. It was then that I discovered the national and regional press had been trying to get hold of me because of my tweet. I didn’t respond to any of the messages as I was on holiday and I didn’t want to discuss the matter with the press anyway. Over the rest of the week I’ve followed the story as it has gained prominence in the news but felt it unwise to comment further about the matter via social media.

So why have I put up a post about this on my blog? Simply as a reminder to me and my colleagues that everything we publish is out there, can be read by anyone and we need to be alert as to who might pick up on it.

I give thanks to God for John’s life and ministry and pray for all who mourn his death; especially his family, friends and brothers and sisters in the churches where he served so faithfully.

Prophetic painting

This picture was painted by Alan Storkey over a year ago and the background to it is described by Alan’s son Caleb on his blog. I love Caleb’s description of the way his dad would turn the tables on Sky spam callers. I doubt if Alan, like most of us, can believe the speed with which the whole empire has begun to come crashing down around the feet of this latter day Ozymandias and his clan.

I posted some reflections on the News International and phone hacking scandal a few days ago in a post entitled The Thunderer Whimpers.

With thanks to Caleb for permission to post the painting.

The Thunderer whimpers

I was wound up about the News of the World phone hacking story long before the latest acts of gross indecency erupted from the stinking sewers of the fourth estate. One reason was the apparent indifference of the media, with a few honourable exceptions, and the police towards blatant illegality until they could bury their heads no longer. Now everyone is suddenly appalled and journalists who laughed the whole thing off as part of the job have come to realise what a loathsome spectacle colleagues have made of their profession.

Earlier today one journalist tweeted a quote from an editorial in her paper which seemed to claim some kind of moral high ground over the whole squalid #hackgate affair. Here’s the tweet:

'Beyond reprehensible.' Leader article in The Times today #notw and Milly Dowler.

I happened to have read the Leader in The Times and ‘beyond reprehensible’ just about sums it up, the Leader that is not the overall scandal. I ought to put on record that I don't buy The Times or pay its tariff to view on line and the same goes for the rest of News International’s nasty empire of sleaze ridden rags. Like many football fans I remember the Hillsborough tragedy, The Sun’s disgraceful trampling over the bodies of the dead and I despised its commercially driven faux apology a couple of years later.

Back to that Leader: What a miserable piece of disingenuous self- serving apologetic it is. Here’s a taste:

Before today, The Times, which, like the News of the World, is owned by News International, has taken the view that it ought not to comment on the issue of phone hacking. We have sought to report the story straight, in good faith, without taking any editorial view…

The only thing that has a scintilla of sincerity about it in this statement is that The Times is a sister paper of the News of the World. The Times, along with the rest of the Murdoch owned press, has kept as far away from this story as possible, with the briefest of coverage deposited well inside the paper. Only when the story began to lead on bulletins across the networks and the globe did News International’s stable of British papers begin to grudgingly give it some prominence, but you still couldn’t find it on their front pages. At every stage these papers, including The Times, have parroted the party line about the odd ‘rogue journalist’ and there being nothing else to know. They assured us that internal investigations had been rigorous and all wrongdoing exposed. Their assurances were about as worthy as the initial statements spouted by the Metropolitan Police, whose woeful investigation has set back their reputation for decades. In short The Times didn’t report the story, wasn’t straight about it and showed as much good faith as a FIFA executive promising to support England’s bid to host the World Cup.

The rest of the leader is a pile of sanctimonious nonsense going on about how the truth must out and the police investigation be rigorous, though everything is tempered with the reminder that ‘these are all only allegations’. Yes, they are only allegations, but when has that ever stopped News International’s scandal sheets trashing someone’s reputation? And those allegations are coming thick and fast with virtually no repudiation from NI HQ, save for the pathetic utterances of a hapless chap called Greenberg who is a walking PR disaster every time he appears in front of the cameras.

The focus of the Leader is entirely on the journalists. Not one word about those in positions of oversight or management including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. No mention of the culture engendered in the News International organisation that allowed or encouraged the disgraceful behaviour the Leader now fulminates against. Extraordinarily, Brooks has been put in charge of investigating the affair, in other words she has been asked to investigate herself and her colleagues. Can you imagine how The Times would thunder if any other body operated in such away? You don’t need to imagine, read their coverage of the MPs expenses scandal or the FIFA ethics committee.

‘Beyond reprehensible’ doesn’t only sum up the activities of the journalists and investigators who hacked the phones of the abducted and the grieving. The phrase applies to the newspapers who employed them, the editors who oversaw and funded their exploits, those who failed to investigate them, the politicians who turned a blind eye and cocked a deaf ear to evidence of illegality and the owners whose only concern is to sell their product whatever it takes.

the balloon goes up

It’s been a weekend for balloons. First the story of a young boy feared to have been carried away by his father’s home-made helium filled balloon. Then footballer Darren Bent scores for Sunderland against Liverpool on Saturday, the ball being deflected into the goal by a stray balloon/beach ball on the pitch.

Falcon Heene is the six year old who prompted a panic search in Colorado after his brother reported that he had taken off in a balloon. The events were covered live on U.S. television as police tracked the balloon during its two hour flight. When the balloon landed Falcon was nowhere to be found and a search ensued tracing the balloons trajectory. However, young Falcon was at home the whole time and over the coming hours suspicion began to mount that the whole incident was a not so elaborate stunt set up by his parents to court publicity. It is likely that the parents will face police charges and also a large bill for the cost of the chase across the state. There is much speculation as to the parents’ motives for setting up the scenario and the most popular explanation is that they were seeking publicity in order to attract a lucrative reality T.V. contract.

I guess the question most people will ask is why parents would make up a story about their child being in jeopardy? It seems that some people will do whatever it takes to court publicity, fame and wealth. This is a rather extreme example but there are many others, not least the pushy parents who ‘hot house’ their talented children on the sports field or stage. There is a fine line between wanting to encourage a gifted child and exploiting them in the quest for fame and fortune. We are all too familiar with the tennis prodigy burnt out before her twenties, or the young film star found dead from an overdose before their potential has been fulfilled.

It’s not just the gifted who are encouraged to expose themselves to the glare of publicity in the hunt for success. The plethora of reality T.V. shows demands an ever increasing supply of ‘talent’ desperate to become the next big thing. There is something pathetic about the young lad dismissed by the celebrity panel because he can’t dance or hold a note, only to be filmed being consoled by his mother who maintains the delusion that he is the next Michael Jackson.

When will the balloon go up about the perils of the desperate quest for fame?

As for the other balloon incident, I guess Nena’s 99 Red Balloons won’t be the most popular request at the Liverpool Football Club Christmas party this year.