Darren Grimes: Respectable Journalist or Shape-Changing Alien Invader?

The Sunday before last, August 23rd 2020, Zelo Street put up a piece reporting the outrage when Sunday Morning Live decided to hold a debate about education. Unfortunately, one of the so-called ‘experts’ they invited on was professional Guido Fawkes windbag was Darren Grimes. A man, who can fairly be said to be one of the most ignorant people in journalism, and that’s against stiff competition like Sarah Vine, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Harry Cole, political editor of the Scum. Way back in the 1930s when the great Surrealist painter Salvador Dali fled to America to escape the Spanish Civil War, he declared that his mission was to cretinise the public. Well, Dali passed away in the late 70s, but he left his great mission to the Tory party. Back in the 1980s Private Eye reviewed one book by the new Tory thinkers that were coming through. I think it was by the late Roger Scruton, but I’m not sure. The book stated that Conservatism, based as it is on tradition, is silent and incoherent until forced into action. This was a clear statement of the anti-intellectualism that’s at the heart of Tory politics. It forced the Eye to ponder whether there was an optimum level of cretinisation. Had Prince Philip reached it? And one those seeming to carry on this mission to misinform the public spreading lies and sheer ignorance is Darren Grimes.

How Grimes gets invited onto the Beeb as any kind of authority is something of a mystery. He’s working class, and has something of a chip on his shoulder about his origins, feeling that he is looked down upon because of this and the fact that he has a northern accent. But this is what happens when you support a party run by elite public school types on behalf of elite public school types. They have elocution lesson at school deliberately to lose any regional accent they have. And this automatic connection between received pronunciation and leadership is explicitly stated by the British military. One spokesman for the British army, quoted in an article back in the 1980s stated very clearly that if you want to be a British officer, you should lose your regional accent otherwise you wouldn’t be respected by the troops. I’ve met a lot of squaddies, and in general they don’t respect the officers because of the bullying, sneering attitude so many of them have towards their men and women, along with stories of stupid orders that have led to disaster given by commanders against the advice of their NCOs.

Grimes also feels he’s despised because he didn’t complete his degree. He’s a failed fashion student. Okay, academic intelligence doesn’t automatically equate to being generally well-informed and intelligent. It’s just one form of it. When I was at school we were told that only 5 per cent of the British population went to university. That changed rapidly with the expansion of higher education in the 1990s with the creation of the new universities out of the older colleges and polytechnics. Then came Blair and New Labour, who wanted 50 per cent of the population to attend university. The result is that something like 46 per cent of the school leavers now go on to university. But this also means that there are plenty of older people, who are naturally very intelligent, but didn’t get a chance to go when they were children. Their intelligence shouldn’t be underestimated. But Darren Grimes isn’t one of them either.

In one of his pieces, he praised the Tories for breaking out of the old New Labour Oxbridge elite. It’s another falsehood, and the truth is exactly the opposite of what he said. New Labour senior figures came from a range of different universities. Blair attended Aberdeen, Gordon Brown Edinburgh. Another senior cabinet minister went to Newcastle Upon Tyne, I believe. It is the Tory administrations of Dave Cameron, Tweezer and now Boris Johnson that’s stuffed full of the Oxbridge elite. And then there’s that little incident of Grimes’ interview with David Starkey, in which he let the Tudor historian get away with all manner of racist nonsense. Including the really offensive statement that slavery couldn’t be a holocaust, because there are ‘too bloody many of them’ now around. Grimes’ appearance on Sunday Morning Live resulted in a number of peeps going on Twitter to ask the obvious question: how did someone as stupid and ignorant as Grimes get invited onto the Beeb. Zelo Street quotes a number of them, beginning with Mic Wright, who said  “I studied Education at Cambridge University (2:1). I am a school governor. I have written about education issues for 15 years. I am the first in my family to attend university. I have lots of broadcast experience. And now on [SML] … Darren Grimes, an expert in nothing”. Rosa P asked

“What the hell does [Darren Grimes] actually know about anything? Surely you should have some expertise in any area to give an opinion on the BBC. Grimes, you had little to offer to the discussion other than telling us you did an apprenticeship in media studies … Made the mistake of putting [SML] on. Their expert panel discussing education includes Darren Grimes, whose sole qualification is that he once attended a school. I try to defend the BBC but they do themselves no favours with this nonsense”.

‘Pad’ pointed out the hypocrisy of Grimes himself for appearing on the Beeb when he wants to defund it. “Is Brexit gobshite Darren Grimes, whose Twitter header is a photo of him appearing on the BBC and who was, once again, on the BBC this morning talking utter bollocks, still a part of the ‘grassroots’ campaign to [Defund the BBC]?”

John Traynor’s answer to this conundrum was succinct: “BBC has arsehole Darren Grimes on because it doesn’t understand balance in broadcasting”.

Zelo Street concluded his article with this:

‘What, one has to ask, is the point of inviting pundits with some expertise, who are prepared to research their subject, just to find they have to debate with Darren Grimes, whose USP is to whine about people calling him an idiot. Because he is one.

Having an opinion is not the same as knowledge. Know the difference, BBC people.’

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/08/bbc-and-darren-grimes-oh-dear.html

 

The mention of Grimes reminded of the very brief description of an evil alien race in Ed McNab’s The Alien Spotter’s Handbook or How to Save the Earth. This was a children’s humorous book published in 1982, which mixed real astronomy with a less than reverent treatment of astrology, as well as Fortean phenomena like frog falls and the Devil’s hoof prints in Devon, the Mary Celeste and so on, with simple stage magic tricks and instructions how to make your own simple telescope and periscope around the fictional narrative that there is an alien plot to take over the world. This was discovered by the fictional Dr. Qwax. Evidence for this malign plot came when experts examined an alien probe that landed in Peterborough. Ostensibly friendly, further investigation revealed that it was far more sinister, with a secret compartment containing computer games like ‘Kill the Human’. It’s written as a guide to uncovering these covert alien invaders, including those who have taken over members of your family, like your dad or granny. There are plenty of the kind of daft jokes children of all ages love, and 2000 AD and the mighty Tharg also get a mention. One of the jokes is a spoof list of pop songs secretly written by aliens. And one of them is The Grymes They Are a-Changin’ by the Metamorphs. This has a footnote helpfully explaining that they are ‘Shape-Changers from a very dense planet. Grymes specilise in Heavy Metal Rock musicians.’

Gyrmes/Grimes – this must be it then. Grimes is really a Gryme, a shape-changing alien from a very dense planet, who has disguised himself as a human as part of this insidious alien plot. It has to be! It can’t be because he actually has any real journalistic talent.

Hypocrite Guido Fawkes Defends Italian Fascists from Jewish Labour MP

The Sage of Crewe at Zelo Street has put up a very revealing piece showing exactly where Guido Fawkes real sympathies like when it comes to the question of anti-Semitism. Staines and his far-right crew were as zealous as the rest of the lamestream media in pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. But this time the mask has slipped. He has sided with a group of Italian football ‘fans’, who made Fascist/Nazi salutes, against the Jewish Labour MP for Warrington North, Charlotte Nicholls. This isn’t the first time Guido’s been responsible for a bit of Jew hatred. The Sage reminds us how, when Ed Miliband was leader of the Labour Party, one of his underlings, Simon Carr, wrote two anti-Semitic pieces about the Labour leader. Which delighted his employer so much, that he and fellow Fawkes’ employees Harry Cole and Alex Wickham that they embraced Carr on camera.

This time, Fawkes has been greatly indignant that Nicholls should be in favour of the Fascists being given a good kicking. Another one of Staines’ minions, Tom Harwood, has written a piece with the delightful title ‘Labour MP Continues to Endorse Kicking Heads In’. Harwood has apparently written

“Festive cheer was somewhat lacking from one Labour MP over Christmas, who took to the BBC to defend her conjecture Italian tourists should have their heads kicked in. Distancing herself from Labour’s pro-EU stance already.

“Back in October, Nichols had originally tweeted that fans of the Italian club S.S. Lazio should ‘get their heads kicked in’ as they performed fascist salutes before a football match in Glasgow”.

They quote Nicholls Tweeting “You shouldn’t be doing Nazi salutes on the streets of Britain if you don’t want your head kicked in”.   Tim follows her in considering that the Italians were making Nazi, rather than Fascist salutes. In fact, at this time there’s precious little difference between the two. The Fascists adopted the raised right arm, calling it the ‘Roman’ salute in order to evoke the memory of the Roman Empire, which they aimed to restore.  They weren’t originally anti-Semitic, but they followed the Nazis in passing anti-Semitic legislation in 1937. They weren’t as harsh as Nazi legislation, and 80 per cent of Italian Jews managed to survive the War. But Fascism was nevertheless still a brutal, racist dictatorship with laws against Jews and Black Africans, and their army committed atrocities in the Balkans, north Africa and Abyssinia. And contemporary Italian neo-Fascists are still racist and anti-immigrant, as well as hostile to democracy, liberalism, socialism, Communism and anarchism.

Nicholls added to her comment “Of course, right wing rag Guido refers to Lazio fans doing Nazi salutes on the streets of Britain as ‘Italian tourists’. My granddad didn’t risk his life in WW2 to beat fascism ‘in the marketplace of ideas’ and as a Jewish person I’d rather drop dead than apologise to Nazis”.

Absolutely. Presumably Guido is horrified by the Jews, socialists, Communists and trade unionists, who beat the living daylights out of Oswald Mosley and his thugs when the British Union of Fascists were marching up and down the country trying to intimidate them. Many British Jews also had family murdered by the Nazi during the Holocaust, and so, like most people in this country generally, they don’t take kindly to displays of real Fascism. I don’t want to encourage violence against anyone, but you really can’t blame Nicholls for feeling that the Lazio fans deserved a beating for their behaviour.

The Sage also reveals in the post that Staines was also a close friend of Tory MP Aidan Burley, the MP for Cannock, who decided not to seek re-election after the Mail on Sunday revealed that he was part of a Nazi-themed stag party in Val Thorens. Staines was so upset about Burley’s participation, that he went out for a consolation drink with him.

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/01/guido-fawkes-backing-nazis-not-jews.html

In fact, Staines seems to have always had a certain sympathy for Fascism. He’s a libertarian, and in the 1980s he was a member of a libertarian faction in the Tory party that invited one of the leaders of a real Fascist death squad from El Salvador to be their guest of honour at their annual dinner. The same outfit also, I believe, feted South African pro-Apartheid politicos. And a decade earlier, in 1975 the Libertarians across the Pond devoted a whole edition of their magazine, Reason, to Holocaust denial. I am not accusing Fawkes of denying the Holocaust. I am simply saying that it very much appears to me that Staines’ own politics have always been little short of real Fascism. And it says much about the moral squalor of the lamestream media that Staines is considered somehow respectable, despite his far right background.

But if Staines carries on with articles like this, perhaps that won’t be for long.

Andrew Neil’s ‘This Week’ BBC Show Axed

Last week was not a good one for Andrew Neil, the presenter of the Beeb’s politics shows ‘This Week’ and ‘The Daily Politics’. It was reported on ITV News on Friday that his show, ‘This Week’, was being axed. The article about it in this weekend’s I for 16-17th February 2019, by Keiran Southern on page 16, entitled, ”This Week’ ends as Neil quits his late-night show’ read

The BBC’s long-running politics show This Week is to end after presenter Andrew Neil announced he was stepping down.

The BBC1 show, which airs on Thursdays after Question Time, will be taken off air this summer when its current series ends, the corporation said.

Neil has fronted the show since it began in 2003 and regular guests include the former Tory MP, Michael Portillo, and Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott.

Fran Unsworth, BBC’s director of news, said: “We couldn’t imagine This Week without the inimitable Andrew Neil, one of Britain’s best political interviewers. After 16 years, Andrew is bowing out of late-night presenting on the show, at the top of his game.”

Neil will continue to present Politics Live on Thursdays, Ms Unsworth added, and the BBC wants to keep the 69-7ear-old “at the heart” of its political coverage.

This Week is known for its informal look at politics, while Ms Abbott and Mr Portillo formed an unlikely TV double act, despite being on opposite sides of the political divide.

The announcement comes amid uncertainty surrounding the BBC’s news output – it is under pressure to cut £80m from its budgets and to attract younger audiences.

Earlier this week, BBC journalists wrote to the broadcaster’s director-general to oppose the decision to shorten its News At Ten programme after it emerged it would be cut by 10 minutes to make way for youth programming and Question Time.

Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and other foreign correspondents have asked Lord Tony Hall to reconsider.

Last year, Sunday Politics, hosted by Sarah Smith, was axed and replaced by Politics Live, which airs Monday to Friday.

Other people, who are sick to death of the Beeb’s right-wing Tory bias, including Andrew Neil, are actually quite delighted and amused. The good fellow at Crewe, who does the Zelo Street blog, posted a piece on it on Friday, whose title said it all ‘Andrew Neil Nearly Out the Door’. He noted that despite Hall defending Neil over his ‘crazy cat woman’ remark to the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr, the cancellation of one of Neil’s vehicles shows that the comment and the outrage it sparked has had an effect.

The deputy political editor of the Heil on Sunday, Harry Cole, was furious, tweeting

“A bloody outrage. Will only give succour to Corbynistas and sad sacks like Jukes and Carole who are modern equivalent of green ink dickheads who pester management. Since when did boss class start listening to loons before the viewers? Bring back #ThisWeek and make @afneil DG”. Which brought forth the reply from Peter Jukes

Harry Cole defending Andrew Neil, and desperately trying not to look like a member of the boss class.

Rather more damaging to Brillo and his supposed impartiality was another photo Carold Cadwalladr unearthed, showing Neil in the company of the former Ulster Unionist MP, David Burnside, who was formerly the PR man to Cambridge Analytica shareholder, Tchenguiz, who was in his turn the publicity man for Dmitryo Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch wanted by the FBI. And Nigel Farage, now desperately trying to claw his way back into British politics with his wretched Brexit Party.

Zelo Street also noted that this was in addition to the discomfort Neil was bringing the Beeb with his continued association with the Spectator, now increasingly Alt Right, which specializes in climate change denial, pro-Brexit propaganda, and vicious islamophobia from pundits like Douglas Murray. As well as the snobbery and elitism of James Delingpole and anti-Semitism and Fascist propaganda from their other long-running contributor, Taki. Who a few weeks ago embarrassed the magazine by praising the Greek neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn, as just ‘patriotic Greeks’, who were just a bit rough around the edges. Like when one of them murdered left-wing journalist, perhaps, or when the attack and demolish market stalls belonging to illegal immigrants and attack and beat asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East.

The Zelo Street article concluded

In any case, Andrew Neil should be grateful that he’s been allowed more or less free rein to reinvent himself as a broadcast journalist after falling out with Rupert Murdoch. Now he’s got more dosh than he knows what to do with, it’s time to yield to youth.

He’s at the top of his game? Good. Then he may be remembered well. Time to go.

See: http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/02/brillo-almost-out-of-bbc-door.html

Unsworth’s cancellation of his show, rather than handing it over to someone else to present, also says something about the show’s audience. It’s viewers are clearly people, who want it to be helmed by an older White man, whose backgrounds is very much in establishment, centre-right journalism: Neil was editor of the Sunday Times and The Economist. And Zelo Street has quoted other journos at the Spectator that he is another Thatcher cultist, who wishes Maggie was still around running the country. Presumably it’s the same kind of audience that avidly supports John Humphries on Radio 4’s Today programme, another massively overpaid, right-wing White man of mature years. Which would indicate that the audience for these two is also largely made up of right-wing, very establishment White men who are middle-aged to elderly.

It seems to me that Neil’s show needn’t be axed, but could easily be handed over to someone else, someone younger, who was rather more impartial, or at least less publicly biased. It struck me that the team on the Beeb’s breakfast news could probably do it, Charlie Stayt, Naga Manchetti and Louis Minchin. And the rise of the new left-wing media on the internet has show what very incisive minds there are well outside of the establishment media. Like Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar, and The Canary’s Kerry-Ann Mendoza and Steve Topple. They’re all young, Sarkar and Mendoza are both BAME, while Topple definitely had a countercultural appearance with his Mohican coiffure. But they’re all very shrewd reports, who keenly analysed and dissected the news. And their example shows that out there is a vast pool of talent, which is currently being ignored by the current media political establishment.

Of course the Beeb’s refusal to appoint someone else to present the show may also be partly based from their experience of what happened to Newsnight after Paxo left: its audience collapsed. But rather than cut back on current news reportage and analysis altogether, the Beeb could actually launch a replacement instead, presented by younger people and aimed at younger people. You know, all the millennials and younger, who are trying to make their voices heard in a political climate dominated by the old and middle-aged. The people a genuinely functioning democracy needs to get involved and interested in political debate.

But I’m sure this would be a step too far for the Beeb. You’d have the establishment media whining that the Corporation was dumbing down, that it was ‘Yoof TV’ after the various tasteless disasters in youth programming spawned in the 1990s by Janet Street-Porter and others of her ilk. As well as the more serious fact that the establishment is absolutely terrified of millennials and what the Victorians used to refer to as ‘the rising generation’ because they’re generally more left-wing than their elders in the political establishment. You know, all those pesky kids in America and Britain, who are backing Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn against the corporatists in the Democrat Party, Trump and the Republicans, and Tweezer, the Tories and the Blairites over here. Young people, who want socialism rather than the tired, destructive Neoliberalism of the past forty years.

But the political, media and industrial establishment is absolutely petrified of them and their views. They don’t want them to be heard. And so they’d rather axe one of Neil’s shows than hand it over to them. Which shows how paralyzed the Beeb is in trying to hang on to its aging, establishment audience at the expense of trying to bring on board young, and potentially radical talent.