The Spectator's Notes | 5 February 2011

Last week, I was airing to a sceptical Cabinet minister this column’s moan (see Notes, 4 December) that the BBC is so obsessed with the Israel/Palestine question that it ignores what is happening in the rest of the Muslim world. ‘Why,’ I complained, ‘does it tell us so little about the state of Egypt?’ I was more to the point than I knew. On leaving the meeting, I heard that trouble had started in Cairo. Since then, we have had a week of demonstrations, violence and political crisis, but I still have heard nothing from the correspondents of the BBC that would suggest they know very much. Camera shots (the same ones often repeated) show large protests, and reporters speculate, but I have yet to hear a sustained analysis of the political parties, the power of the army, the strength of the religious leadership, or the price of food. On the Today programme on Friday, the Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, was asked about the Muslim Brotherhood. They ‘are a fairly moderate force here’, he opined. ‘They don’t want to rock the boat too much.’ I like to imagine Mr Bowen covering the first of the two Russian revolutions in 1917: ‘Jeremy, we hear that the Bolsheviks may be players. What’s your take on them?’ ‘Well, Sarah, they are, as their name suggests, the party of the majority, and they’re a force for moderation. They’ll be content to have a watching role.’ If there is a revolution in Egypt, you can bet that the BBC will soon be complaining that western governments are refusing to ‘engage’ with the Brotherhood.