Unherd published a piece from me on the spat about Krish Kandiah’s piece on thought for the day….
“…Thought for the Day, the “God slot” on BBC Radio 4’s flagship breakfast-time news show Today, has added to its fine old tradition of political spats. Krish Kandiah, a Baptist theologian and refugee charity director, used Wednesday’s five-minute slot to have a go at Robert Jenrick for xenophobia after the Shadow Justice Secretary wrote in the Daily Mail that a series of incidents involving residents in refugee hotels “made him fearful for his daughters’ safety”.
“Kandiah’s speech was barbed and personal enough that it was edited retrospectively for use on BBC Sounds, while the BBC’s Director of Standards wrote to apologise to Jenrick without a complaint even having been made.
“Thought for the Day tends to share the BBC’s broadly liberal-Left tendencies, and during the Eighties it was regularly criticised by the Tories as a politicised bully pulpit for Left-wing bishops such as Tom Butler and Jim Thompson to attack the Conservative Party. Yet the programme has also showcased more than a smattering of trenchantly Right-wing contributors over the years, from Bishop Bill Westwood, the overtly Thatcherite father of former BBC DJ Tim, to agony aunt Anne Atkins, who caused a furore in 1996 when she used her slot to savage Southwark Cathedral for hosting the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.
“Of course, a politicised programme is not in itself a bad thing. The alternative isn’t necessarily spiritual depth, but instead trivial blandness…”
