A Place to Stand

I first heard of Mr Singh Kohli when he was asked to write a Guardian article in which he was introduced as a Sikh alternative comedian, living in London & hence chosen by them as the right person to tell the Guardianistas what the typical Scot feels about the union.

Shortly thereafter the BBC did a Question Time from Scotland in which the 5 guest places were filled by the 4 party leaders (actually Jack McConnell had a stand in) & a typical Scot in the street for balance. Two guesses who.

He now seems to be popping up everywhere & was on Andrew Marr's this morning introduced as a political columnist (in the Scotsman) & cook. Alternative comedy's loss then. His contribution was to say that he didn't know much about foreign affairs & didn't understand why Israel was allowed to attack other countries. Surprising that such a respected political columnist (I assume that unlike many celebrities he does write his own column) is unaware that Gaza has been attacking Israel for 8 years - admittedly with far fewer civilian deaths than they would like but that is what makes the difference between aggression & self defence.

Looking up wikipedia on him I see that he started his career at the BBC on their "diversity graduate production trainee scheme" where he produced the comedy Meet the Magoons which I will admit to never having heard of but the critics raved "woefully unfunny" "once was enough", "your sides will be safe from harm" which classes it as alternative.

Now I know nothing personal against him & am perfectly willing to believe he is a nice guy. He is not the first person to rise to something close to celebrity status with no visible talent. But it is quite clear that his media visibility is entirely because he is something the BBC/Guardian/PC crowd running the media would like the typical Scotsman to be - while being perfectly certain that he will never say anything which doesn't fit their agenda. Not like David Bellamy.

And that is what is wrong with a state controlled media, completely divorced from ordinary people, where political approval matters so much more than competence.

UPDATE 23rd Jan - Last night the question Time MC said that next week the programme will be from Fort William in the Highlands & that the non-politician guest, once again representing the typical Scot will be London cook/alternative comedian/non-political columnist/diversity graduate Hardeep Singh Kohli, for the 2nd time.

What a pity that Question Time do not think there is more than 1 typical Scot in Britain.

UPDATERER Yep he was on with 4 party representatives. During the programme he said that while Conservative MP Teddy Taylor was very good & respected (not least by the electors) he would not have voted for him while he had a breath in his body (or presumably thereafter). Thus, by introducing their "typical" vox pop the BBC achieve balance.

UPDATEIST I have received this from Mr Kohli which is phrased in terms perhaps more restrained than I have used:

hi there. Just came across your blog. Thought you might want to correct a couple of factual inaccuracies.

"Looking up wikipedia on him I see that he started his career at the BBC on their "diversity graduate production trainee scheme" where he produced the comedy Meet the Magoons which I will admit to never having heard of but the critics raved "woefully unfunny" "once was enough", "your sides will be safe from harm" which classes it as alternative."

The training course I attended at the BBC was in fact The Graduate Training Course. It was NOT a diversity training course. The other six graduate trainees were white in terms of their ethnic origin. 1500 people applied for 6 places. I have never attended a diversity training course.

Meet the Magoons was produced for Ch4 some seven years after I had left the employ of the BBC. Your quotes while accurate are selective. There were plenty of positive crits, even from AA Gill and Nancy Banks Smith. The series rated more highly than Peep Show.

"once again representing the typical Scot will be London cook/alternative comedian/non-political columnist/diversity graduate Hardeep Singh Kohli, for the 2nd time."

I do live in London and was forced to come here because there was so little work in Scotland. The issue is about the centralisation of the media in London and you are quite right to rail against that. More media power needs to be decentralised then maybe some of us can come home. I am not an alternative comedian. Never have been. I am not a stand up comedian either. I have written comedy but have never been paid to perform stand up comedy in public. by extension therefore i cannot be an alternative comedian. unless the alternative is never having been one. I also have never been described as a political columnist by anyone other than you. I wrote a column and sometimes write about m politics, but I have no training or qual;ification in politcal journalism and therefore have never been so described. I am simply a columnist.

And i have appeared on Question Time on three occasions.

I look forward to your corrections. I am reassured by your reference to there not being any personal antagonism harboured against me. I realise you are carrying out a valuable public service for which you receive no fee. this is why i am so keen that you carry fact rather than fiction in your blog. I await your reply

BW

HsK


I did indeed rely on Wikipedia for your career details & having previously complained about Wikipedia's wholesale lies about Srebrnica, Milosevic & co am perfectly willing to accept that you know the facts infinitely better than they do. I note also the Wikipedia entry no longer says these things though there is, currently, another unflattering review quote which I will be polite enough not to repeat. I therefore also accept that the BBC programme, whatever it was, was not an official diversity graduate one.

On my main point, that you are not a representative Scot, which is what the BBC presented you as, but a representative of those who control the media who can be trusted to say what they want while being portrayed as a representative Scot I'm afraid I cannot change my mind. That you do not claim to be a political writer, though there is a regular column in SoS & a number of Guardian articles, makes it even more statistically improbable that you would be chosen as a representative of Scotland on a major political programme 3 rather than 2 times (& I first ran across you writing on an article in the Guardian as a representative of Scots just before the earlier QT episode). From memory you were intriduced on QT as an alternative comedian but I grant I haven't seen that used since.

My problem is not just that media control is concentrated in London but the broader point that it is concentrated in the hands of people who will censor any fact & tell any lie to promote state power (which is not quite the same as party power). That real alternative views are completely excluded & people like you used to provide the illusion of diversity. That such facts as the Dragodan Massacre (as bad as My Lai) or even the dissection of 1,300 teenagers while still alive for their organs (as bad as any act of Hitler's) by our "police" are wholly censored by media so keen to give you space. It may be hypocritical but if, next time you are on QT, you accuse Mr Dimblebey & all the politicians present of being personally complicit in these acts of genocide I would be happy to consider you a representative Scot. However I suspect, like Professor Bellamy, telling the truth would mean the end of your media career.

I very much appreciate your comment about me providing a valuable public service - having myself been banned from Guardian & C4 discussion groups I am quite certain there are a number of people there & at the BBC & MSM generally who do not share this appreciation. I appreciate your correction since The BBC generally do not respond when errors of fact are pointed out (or obviously correct them). Indeed the only time they did so was to ask for evidence of the Dragodan Massacre which they had censored & when I did so their communication ceased.

I am also happy to confirm that I bear no personal ill will to you. Indeed I have said worse, on another blog, about recent QT guest Monty Don "as somebody who can be relied on to say the right duckspeak - He duly obliged by being one of the 4 to say that freedom of speech was less important than stopping Geert Wilders getting into the country & by saying that "99%" of scientists support the global warming lie." (in fact no warming alarmist document bears nearly as many signatures as the 31,000 scientists who signed the Oregon Petition saying CO2 rise is a good thing - this has gone unreported by the whores running the BBC). Though this was not, I fear as bad as Mr Devil's Kitchen had already said of him.

Also on my blog 22nd Feb