Andrew Neil Disgraces Himself

                               Not Ben's best performance, but Andrew Neil disgraced himself

All sorts of people are crowing over Ben Shapiro breaking off an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil. The consensus seems to be that wunderkind Ben couldn't take the heat, and fled from the forensic brilliance of our 'Brillo'.`

What a laugh it was many commented that conservative Ben accused a British conservative of being a leftist with an agenda before 'storming out' of the interview.

But I'm with Ben on this one. Andrew Neil was unprofessional and strongly biased to the left. So much for Andrew Neil's famous even-handedness.

If it looks like a duck, quacks, and has webbed feet, it's a duck. 

And similarly.

If a journalist interviewing a famous conservative thinker about his new book gratuitously throws out the assertion at the start that conservatives have 'run out of ideas' he's gonna look a bit like a leftie, particularly if he's working for the notoriously biased BBC.

If that journalist then challenges his subject to refute fake news stories written by leftie activists, it's now definitely odds on he's a leftie.

And if he tries to slur the interviewee with accusations of things he clearly hasn't done, this will tend to confirm the earlier impression that he is, to use Ben's expression, 'badly motivated'.

And finally if that journalist then goes on to use tweets and articles out of context from close on a decade ago that the interviewee only vaguely remembers if at all to get a gotcha moment, there is no doubt that you are dealing with a leftist hack.

That's when Ben upped and left. What was the point? 

It's worth looking at some of these points in more detail to fully appreciate just how unfair, unprofessional and biased Andrew Neil was.

Here's Neil deploying his fake news: 

'Some of the ideas that are popular in your side of politics, er, would seem to take us back to the Dark Ages. Georgia new abortion laws, which you are much in favour of, that a woman who miscarries could get 30 years. A Georgian woman who travels to another state for an abortion procedure could get 10 years. These are extreme hard policies!'

A lot to unpack here.

First off these stories are entirely untrue. Planned Parenthood, the biggest US abortion provider, has confirmed and so have others that women will not be even charged much less jailed if the Georgia abortion law passes.

Andrew Neil was quoting scare stories written by far-left activists which are entirely untrue. 

Then there is Neil's description of attempts to reduce the number of abortions carried out as taking us back to the 'Dark Ages'.  Who but an extreme leftist could view reducing the close on a million abortions carried out each year in America as a bad thing, much less a return to a barbaric age?

Here's an exchange where Neil makes false accusations:

AN, 'Maybe it's also part of your problem too, cause we have from your YouTube videos "Ben Shapiro Destroys the Abortion Argument", "Ben Shapiro Destroys Transgenderism and Abortion". Is that not a kind of coarse public discourse?'

BS, 'Well, Are those videos labelled by me?'

AN, 'I have no idea.'

This exchange is quite frankly astounding. Does this distinguished BBC journalist really believe that Ben Shapiro is responsible for how other people label videos featuring him when they upload them to YouTube?

Either the erasible Scot is ignorant beyond belief or a malicious hack who cares nothing for truth.

Then later Andrew Neil trawls up one of Shapiro's articles (along with several tweets) from years ago. 

This bit is better heard than read to appreciate Neil's incredulity at Shapiro criticising the sainted Obama:

'You described Mr Obama's State of the Union Address in 2012 as "fascist mentality in action"'.

First of all, why not choose a more recent article? Ben runs off several a week. I guess it's because lefties like Neil view Obama like Nelson Mandela as utterly beyond criticism. 

Second, how could Shapiro defend himself here? There is no time to explain the context of the article or its contents. Or indeed how Shapiro states at the beginning of the piece that:

'I am not suggesting Obama is a Nazi; he isn't. I am not suggesting that he is a jackbooted thug; he isn't.'

There's no time for that. 

The idea of this 'gotcha' style of questioning, so popular with BBC lefties, is to brand the interviewee as evil without giving them the opportunity of explaining themselves. That Andrew Neil should use such a shoddy tactic only underlines that in this interview he is indistinguishable from a rabid leftie.

No wonder Ben Shapiro walked out.

Shame on Andrew Neil. 

Pathetic too that he subsequently preened himself over his debating skills as he fielded praise on his great victory.

Tactical victory for Andrew Neil as Ben Shapiro himself acknowledged.

Strategic defeat for the better angels of Andrew Neil's character.



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