BBC Brands Sunak-Meloni Festival a “Far-Right Rally”

The BBC has been criticised by Conservatives for describing a political festival hosted by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and attended by Rishi Sunak as a “far-Right rally”. The Telegraph has more.

The broadcaster is facing a fresh impartiality row for “happily” using the phrase to characterise the summit while refusing to call Hamas terrorists.

The Prime Minister spoke at the four-day event on Saturday, hosted by his Italian counterpart and close ally Giorgia Meloni.

It was attended by a wide range of Right-wing politicians, as well as centrist and centre-Left figures such as Matteo Renzi, the former Italian Prime Minister, and Edi Rama, the Albanian leader.

Mr. Sunak used the platform to warn that hostile states will increasingly “drive people to our shores” to destabilise Western nations unless leaders crack down on illegal migration and revamp asylum conventions.

The BBC went on to describe the gathering as a “far-Right rally” during its coverage on Sunday.

The phrase appeared on screen, with the presenter adding: “Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been talking to a far-Right political festival, which she actually started many years ago.”

The Tories said the editorial decision raised “serious questions” about the BBC’s policies, accusing it of “careless categorisation”.

A spokesman said: “The Beeb will happily brand democratically elected politicians like Meloni and (Javier) Milei (the newly elected president of Argentina) far Right at the drop of a hat, but they won’t call Hamas a terrorist organisation.

“BBC bosses should rethink their careless categorisation and stick to reporting the facts.”

The term also prompted a backlash from Tory backbenchers, who accused the BBC of disrespecting the Prime Minister and not knowing the difference between a “far-Right rally” and “a congress of democratic conservative parties”.

Worth reading in full.

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Dinger64
2 years ago

Oh my goodness 😳 how much more does the BBC have to do before serious action is taken against it? Impartial my a#se!

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Dinger64

They’re just following the science which presribes boundless immigration as only cure for so-called demographic change.

RW
RW
2 years ago

The only acceptable standpoint on immigration is The more, the merrier. Anything else is far right. Eg, one of the reasons why the German AfD is routinely referred to as far right is because its manifesto proposes seriously extreme stuff like actually deporting rejected asylum seekers (in Germany, they’re usually allowed to stay the nevertheless which is called Duldung, literally, tolerance).

TheGreenAcres
2 years ago

Anyone who thinks Sunak is even vaguely ’far right’ needs sectioning for their own protection.

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
2 years ago
Reply to  TheGreenAcres

Absolutely. Like most of the parliamentary “Conservative” party, he’s a Lib Dem wearing a blue rosette.

JohnK
2 years ago

Depends what they mean about the term “far right”. Perhaps they’re reading things like this: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/834424/Ben_Lee_-_Overview_of_the_far_right.pdf

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

The defining characteristic of the far-right for this paper is:

A narrative of racial and/or cultural threat to a ‘native’ group arising from
perceived alien groups within a society.

That sounds awfully like the decolonisers of today, eg, the proponents of The Voice in Australia. Their whole narrative is about a native group under racial/ cultural threat from groups alien to this society.

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Bullseye! Very well spotted.

Steven Robinson
Steven Robinson
2 years ago

Whenever the DS refers to the BBC from henceforth it should routinely refer to the far-Left BBC.

RW
RW
2 years ago

We could perhaps invent the terms BBC, far BBC, extreme BBC and ultra BBC, the first one referring to mildy disagreeable ‘centre-left’ believers in climate change and progressing to the likes of Attenborough or Ellwood from there, with Ellwood being located somewhere between far BBC and extreme BBC and Attenborough between extreme BBC and ultra BBC.

Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
2 years ago

Why not the Biased Broadcasting Clowns or Batshit Broadcasting C***s?

GroundhogDayAgain
2 years ago

Similarly the Germans are going swivel-eyed because an AfD candidate became mayor of a small town called Pirna. “Democracy is on fire” apparently.

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/alternative-fur-deutschland-candidate

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
2 years ago

For the Left, democracy is fine – just so long as it comes up with the “correct” result.

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan M

Reality is much less melodramatic: Members of the established parties are used to neatly dividing all public offices and associated perks among them. And the absolutely last thing they want is new contenders for any of these goodies.

transmissionofflame
2 years ago

I caught up recently with some Italian acquaintances that I hadn’t seen since before lockdowns. They spent time telling me how they’d all been forced to get jabbed otherwise they would have lost their jobs (they work in the public sector) then told me how Meloni (elected AFTER the forced jabs) was a “fascist”. I despair.

RW
RW
2 years ago

Meloni has – in the past – made patriotic noises about Italy and because of this, she’s naturally Mussolini reborn as Medusa, especially to the professional German anti-fascists seeking to save democracy from people voting for candidates of the wrong parties. And she even talked about combatting illegal immigration. That should turn her into literally Mussolini and him into an unimportant forerunner of her who was probably really called Meloni.

CGW
CGW
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

I think she was voted into office because she was determined to combat illegal immigration. She has turned out to be another another globalist in disguise.

Mogwai
2 years ago

Wow, Katie Fanning is badass! 100% concur with what she so unapologetically states here, which is all truth. Worth <7min of your time. She would defo be labelled ”Ultra-right” by the Bullshit Broadcasting Cockwombles;

https://twitter.com/Joshua_M_Mlinek/status/1736723631198347451

EppingBlogger
2 years ago

I can’t tell any difference between any of the Westminster parties, otherwise collectively known as Uniparty.

varmint
2 years ago

The Liberal Progressive Media seek to make right wing thought illegitimate and even want to criminalise it. The BBC are one of the main leftist cheerleaders waving their pom poms for every progressive cause. But they are funded by one half of us who are NOT Liberal Progressives. They then take these funds and use them to control the minds of the viewers. They don’t report News, they indoctrinate. The only real news you get will be “A Volcano has erupted in Iceland” or “A plane has crashed into the Atlantic”. ——Everything is politicised. One of their main tactics is “omission”—-ie anything contradictory to their Progressive narrative will be left out. The purpose is to highlight one point of view while diminishing the other. When you hear the News on BBC you are actually hearing the BBC’s world view on EVRYTHING, which is all to the Progressive left. —Listening to the News on BBC we are all to pick a side. So one side has to be slandered as racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, Intolerant, Ignorant, or far right people who think there are only 2 genders. ——-You may only think mass immigration is way too high and there are not enough… Read more »

NeilofWatford
2 years ago

Meanwhile, the Tory Government will do absolutely zilch to cancel the licence fee.