BBC faces Trump test

ENEMIES of the BBC will demand that Tim Davie’s successor as director general be someone who supports US president Donald Trump, rejects the notion that Is­rael has carried out genocide in Gaza, and is generally sympathetic to right-wing politics. A BBC that looks more like GB News would be perfect.

Any normal person reading Trump’s en­tire speech on January 6, 2021 – which pre­ceded the riots at the Capitol by his support­ers, whom he had egged on by falsely claim­ing that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him – would acknowledge that the two things were cause and effect.

And , Tim Davie

Unfortunately, the Panorama documen­tary spliced together two quotes 50 minutes apart to have Trump saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol... and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

But he did say: “You will have an illegiti­mate president. That’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.”

What does that mean?

He also said: “We won in a landslide. This was a landslide. They said it’s not American to challenge the election. This the most corrupt election in the history, maybe of the world.”

And: “We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outra­geous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to hap­pen again.”

I recall a speech we had to memorise at St Xavier’s School in Patna (India), – Mark Anthony’s very clever way of manipulating the crowds who were initially in favour of Julius Caesar’s assassi­nation. In Shakespeare’s play, Antony tells them that he can­not tell them they are the ben­eficiaries of Caesar’s will be­cause that would enrage them into taking action against Bru­tus and the other conspirators (“such honourable men”).

Antony words are worth reading in full to understand the underlying meaning of Trump’s speech:

ANTONY: “But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar;/ I found it in his closet, ‘tis his will:/ Let but the commons hear this testament – / Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read – / And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds/ And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,/ Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,/ And, dying, men­tion it within their wills,/ Bequeathing it as a rich legacy/ Unto their issue.”

Fourth Citizen: “We’ll hear the will: read it, Mark Antony.”

All: “The will, the will! We will hear Caesar’s will.”

ANTONY: “Have pa­tience, gentle friends, I must not read it;/ It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you./ You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;/ And, being men, bearing the will of Caesar,/ It will inflame you, it will make you mad:/ ‘Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;/ For, if you should, O, what would come of it!”

Possibly a riot at the Capitol? My guess is that Caesar’s will was fake news – it probably didn’t even exist.