Jo Brand and the BBC: One too many in what constitutes incitement to violence

Jo Brand and the BBC: One too many in what constitutes incitement to violence

Jo Brand and the BBC

Speaking on Radio 4, Jo Brand made a comment that constitutes incitement to violence. We are not going to mention the comment she made because what she suggested is basically promoting criminal violence for political purposes.

Telling jokes is one thing. Using the BBC to promote violence is quite another and nowhere in the BBC Charter it is suggested that the public broadcaster can or should engage giving a platform to individuals to promote criminal activities.

Sooner than later, laughing at the act of throwing milkshakes against people merely because of not sharing their views was bound to lead to what Jo Brand laughed about. We have seen elderly people thrown out to the ground by angry mobs shouting expletives and being insulting.

An NHS nurse lost her job looking after people with mental health problems because she lost the plot right in front of the Houses of Parliament and ended up apologising for what she had done. She had the excuse of being driven by crowd madness but Jo Brand had no excuse whatsoever to say what she said. She knew exactly what she said and the potential repercussion of what she said.

When Jeremy Corbyn's supporters shouted at this young black man holding an Israeli flag and supporting President Trump saying that his black man is racist, Nazi, Fascist and the like, something is very wrong. Who encourages people to engage in such behaviour? We should ask journalists and activist like Owen Jones about it, as one the most vociferous individuals on print, on television and on the streets. His ideological stances go all over the top and this has consequences in an increasingly tense political environment in which unstable individuals can easily get carried away by the messages he is sending out. The careless attitude in terms of what they say and do is something that Jo Brand shares with Owen Jones. They are agitators that don't seem to care about the consequences and especially when other people can get hurt. 

Owen Jones