Nicholas Barrett

During the height of the panic on the streets of London last week cowardly riot police dragged cerebral palsy suffer Jody McIntyre out of his wheelchair, the footage can be seen here. Later Mr MacIntyre was interviewed on BBC news. The interview, hosted by Ben Brown is amazing because it contains what might be the most ridiculous question in the history of journalism.   

Theirs a suggestion that you were rolling towards the police in your wheelchair, is that true?

Think of that.  As if by any stretch of the human imagination a man in a wheelchair could justifiably warrant being taken down by a handful of fully equipped riot police because he was ‘rolling towards’ is a concept that is beyond any acid trip.  So we are left to wonder how anybody could think that a question worth asking with a straight face?  

When confronted with Rodney King would Ben Brown ask if he was cowering in fear in an aggressive manner?  Perhaps Brown could become a clairvoyant and ask Martin Luther King if his stance on his hotel balcony was in anyway inciting the sniper opposite.

Well it might be the dumbest question a BBC news presenter has ever asked, but here’s why he had to do it.  The BBC follows strict rules when it comes to partiality.  Basically  if you report for the BBC you have to be as critical as possible in any interview that can be considered political.  In this case the question of ‘who is right and who is wrong’ was so obvious that he had to ask something stupid to give the impression of critical analysis.  Ben Brown had to be subjective, in 99% of his interviews that is a appropriate but when things are as black and white as this then he has little option but to make a fool of himself.   Now that I’ve defended him, for the sake of balance I will use the last sentence to childishly insult the stupid cunt.