 Owen Jones was on the BBC's Politics Live show this week to discuss the fallout from Jeremy Corbyn's reinstatement to the Labour Party. Also on the panel was editor of the right-wing spectator magazine. Now, both were asked to comment on Labour anti-Semitism. That meant we heard another right-winger ring their hands about racism when, in fact, they are its biggest promoter. Luckily, Owen brought the receipts. Let's take a look. But I must say this. I must say this. One of the things that complicated the attempts to deal with a genuine problem that existed on the left were people with no credentials to talk about racism coming on national television to grandstand of the way Fraser Nelson has, and I'll just quickly explain. Fraser Nelson is the editor of the spectator. One of his leading journalists, Wadledal, was booted out of the Labour Party for racism. He's still published by the spectator, good enough for the spectator, booted out of the Labour Party for racism. No, no, no, no. Well, no, because I've got to get Fraser to respond. He published his articles, which praise Greek neo-Nazis. He published one article entitled In Defence of the Wehrmacht. Other articles which say there's not enough Islamophobia. I will let Fraser talk about this, but people might think, is this a bit of you doing what about you? We're discussing Jeremy Corbyn today. What the point was, anti-Semitism is a genuine problem that Labour failed to address, and it was complicated by the fact that when people like myself said more action needed to be taken, people without the credentials to do so came on television and made people feel defensive and under attack and compromise those. Let Fraser respond. Well, there's been no articles defending Greek neo-Nazis on the constitution. Yes, there has been. Hang on, hang on, let's just let it... I mean, the thing is, Owen, though I admire him very much as a writer, doesn't strike me as a spectator reader. And I think he might have been misled by what he sees on Twitter. No, no, no, no. You're tacky. Your columnist wrote articles defending Greek neo-Nazis, the Golden Dawn. That's a fact, Fraser. We'll come out with a phrase or a sentence here or there. You put it out on Twitter and there's a kind of inverted pyramid of outrage. Everyone just Googled the fact that the Golden Dawn was praised by the spectators. It's impossible to reconcile the sort of, sort of, Twitter-y things that Owen's saying with the magazine. And there's a difference between an opinion he doesn't like and racism and fascism. Now, you know, one of the problems right now with the Twitter debate is that people are just so keen to take an opinion they disagree with and say, this guy's a racist, this guy's a fascist, without anything really, based on what? Fraser, I'm sorry, I can't let... And that is a pretty strange way to end up. No, no, no, no, no. The debate is good for social media. It's not so good for television. Fraser, it's good for YouTube. So maybe Owen wants to give us a little limbs feel. Fraser, anyone who Googles the fact that the spectator published an article, articles defending the Golden Dawn, which has been banned in Greece as a neo-Nazi organisation, to Google it now and you will find that's the case. And this is the problem. But this is the problem. There is a problem of left... There is a problem of anti-Semitism on the left, which melds with conspiracy. And the problem is... Let Fraser respond to that article. People like you with no moral authority... Because you made a bold claim, let's... But it's just a fact. It's a fact. Well, Fraser... And you can't deny it. And in defence of the Wehrmacht. The article... The article he's referring to... Which is headlined in defence of the Wehrmacht. Where we had a Greek writer saying he could understand, talking about why the reasons why Greeks would support the far right. Now, I'm afraid to say that if you want to understand the evil of modern fascism, you need to also discuss the reasons why people are looking to it. That's factually untrue. The other article he's referring to was... There's no point... Well, we can go down to Owen's Twitter rabbit hole if you want. But what he will not find is any actual article that fits the description he's laying out there. That's not true. This is a social media game, one that, you know, he can knock himself out if he wants to play it, but it is impossible to reconcile with anything which is published in the magazine. And this sort of strange council culture where you tried, rather than debate articles, you come up with shrill misrepresentations what the other person's saying. All right, was Jeremy Corbyn the victim of council culture? This is absurd, Miss Easton, it's own council culture. All right, listen, guys, I'm going to stop it there, because we, I think we've had... Lovely contrast, shrill social media... I think you've both had, no, I think you've both had a fair crack of the whip. Thank God Owen Jones brought the receipts. You saw Fraser Nelson there at the end saying, this is just council culture. Did he say that when they were talking about Jeremy Corbyn's suspension from the Labour Party? Just because he said that anti-Semitism exist, but it was also exaggerated by certain political opponents, the extent of it was exaggerated by political opponents. That's the ultimate example of council culture, because someone is just saying, someone is giving it an analysis, an analysis which is very common sense, which is very reasonable, and suddenly because they've said that they should be suspended, it's completely inconsistent. But the thing I want to focus on, obviously, is when Fraser Nelson was denying all these things, when he was saying, what Owen Jones is coming here with, this is untrue, this is untrue, was he right? Did Owen Jones really go on national television and make up a load of things about the spectator just hoping that the audience wouldn't Google it? No, he didn't. It was Fraser Nelson who was just barefaced lying about the magazine which he edits. So let's look at these articles which were defending Greek neo-Nazis. So first there's this piece from 2013 about Greek neo-Nazi party in Golden Dawn. So the headline. A fascist takeover of Greece, we should be so lucky. Now Fraser Nelson is trying to say, this was not a defence, this was not a defence of Golden Dawn. All you have to do is read the headline. A fascist takeover of Greece, we should be so lucky. Now it's worth it, you know, all fours of us said, ah, you've just looked at the headline, you've taken the article out of context. You can say that if you're the writer, by the way, it hasn't really, but you can say that if you're the writer, you can't say that if you're the editor, because the editor, your job is the headlines. You have put that headline, we should be so lucky a fascism takes over in Greece, in your magazine. That means you don't have a leg to stand on when Owen Jones calls you out for it. We can go to some of the quotes from this article, which is by Taki Theodora Coppolis and he writes, Golden Dawn came into being because of PC, which I think is political correctness, poor Greeks at times getting fewer benefits than African illegal immigrants. Then Golden Dawn became very popular with certain poor Greeks, while it defended them from being mugged by Albanian criminals and drug dealers, and for safeguarding older folk after bank withdrawals. Later the article said, Golden Dawn members might need some lessons in social etiquette, but when the bien pensons, need much more is to get off the pot and their double standards. Golden Dawn members are mostly laborers, martial artists, cops, security personnel, and good old fashioned patriotic Greeks. It's worth pointing out, Golden Dawn, this organization which he is saying is mainly good old fashioned patriotic Greeks. It's important to say this is also Golden Dawn members. He's talking about Golden Dawn members, not Golden Dawn voters, Golden Dawn members. Now, Golden Dawn has recently been banned as a criminal organization. If you are a member of Golden Dawn, it's criminal to be a member of Golden Dawn because it's so violent. This was after a court had ruled them to be a criminal organization based on states of violent attacks. They're committed against left-wing activists and migrant workers in response to that. So obviously now they've been banned, now they've been banned by a court. They're a criminal organization. The spectator is no longer writing articles saying these are just good hardworking patriotic Greeks. Now they've changed their tune. The fall of Golden Dawn, the party may have imploded, but the dangers of Creek Neo-Nazism haven't gone away. They've changed their tune because in 2013 they were saying they would be so lucky. They would be so lucky. If fascism took over in Greece, not the same offer, but in the same magazine. Taki though, this is the same offer, had this piece published in the spectator in 2018. This was one that, again, Owen Jones brought up in that intervention, in that debate with him and the editor of the magazine, in praise of the Wermacht. The real story of D-Day is the heroism of the German soldiers who were vastly outnumbered, but fought nobly and to the death. After people pointed out it was pretty grotesque. You're talking about saying in praise of the army of Nazi Germany, the online version of the headline was edited to the other side of D-Day. So obviously a much more acceptable headline, but the first one is what went out grossly offensive to title an article in praise of the Wermacht. Again, I sort of point out to you that this is not one of those situations where the offer can say, oh, the headline was misleading because Fraser Nelson is the editor of his magazine. He has ultimate responsibility for things such as headlines. This is not the only writer, of course, as well. I probably don't need to tell you this is not the only writer at the spectator to put out racist columns. So this is just this one writer. It's just this one writer and a rogue sub-editor who is putting these incredibly offensive headlines on them. No. I'll remind you of Rod Liddle. So Rod Liddle, obviously the resident racist at the Sunday Times and the spectator. He put out this article. The headline was again altered after publication, but the original said, my own view is there is not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party. Now that is disgraceful. I imagine if someone had written there is not enough anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, would that have been published in a mainstream British magazine? I doubt it. Nelson might, again, yeah, he'd say this is just the thing being taken out of comment content. He cannot do that. Let's have a look at Fraser Nelson's response to that. This is earlier. This is in 2013. He says, you're right. Are readers like diversity in well-written pieces that they disagree with? We have no party line. There are some limits, though, aren't there? That was in response to the now deleted defence of Greek neo-Nazis, saying we should be so lucky for fascists to take over in Greece. It's interesting the way in live TV, isn't it? Where the guy, Fraser Nelson, could just say, no, didn't publish that. No, didn't publish that. No, didn't publish that. And he can hope that fundamentally, at least the audience who sort of identify with him and don't identify with him in Jones will basically just believe him. So he just denies it. There's no sort of... He doesn't even bother trying to justify it or trying to make amends or anything. He just says, no, no, no, didn't happen. You're a liar. And he hopes that enough people in the audience are going to believe him. I mean, it is... I mean, there's that to comment on, but also just how grotesque it is to have all of these people rolling out their trauma and their anger that Jeremy Corbyn had, the temerity to say that maybe anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, whilst it was real, was also exaggerated because when asked, the public thought that a third of Labour Party members had been investigated for anti-Semitism when it was only 0.6%. This guy who's published this stuff is getting on his high horse about racism. Well, you know, they're saying they've got somebody, Rob Liddle, who said there's not enough Islamophobia. Just a few weeks ago, a young girl, I think she was an Iranian girl, was trying to come to this country in an inflated boat, a number of other people died along with her, but the idea that that kind of discourse feeds into very clear policy outcomes, like immigration, like our resistance to naturalised, you know, undocumented migrants, like what Pretty Patel is saying about a wave machine in the channel to push these people back. That has consequences, the things those people write. And as somebody who's Iranian, if I... I mean, we can't say that, you know? And the reality is there was a major complaint put forward to Kirstama this week, a third of Muslim... I'm not Muslim, my father's Muslim, most Iranians are Muslim. A third of Muslims in the Labour Party have either observed or experienced Islamophobia around half of them don't believe that the leadership will do anything substantial about it. That's astonishingly bad, and it's clearly something that should concern the leadership, but they're not talking about it. And why didn't Joe Coburn jump in there? I like Joe Coburn, but I think she's much better than Andrew Neal. But why didn't she come in there and say, but that's not factually correct, is it, Fraser? Well, because she works alongside Andrew Neal, who is the chairman of the spectator, right? The spectator, you Google spectator summer parties. It's the summer party which includes the great and the good of the Westpins, the media and political establishment every summer, right? So is she really going to say, yeah, Fraser Nelson, you've published these articles in praise of the Vermont, that happened, right? This is not up for debate. It's not a point of view. It's not, oh, we're going to have two sides of this. It happened. It's like gravity. You throw something at, it's coming back down. The spectator published an article called in praise of the Vermont, amongst other things. She should be saying that. And it's worrying, you know, you saw CNN recently, they're cutting off Donald Trump for one of his spokespersons when they say things which are factually inaccurate. She should be saying, well, that's not true, or she should say, stop Owen, is this true Fraser, was that headline published? Yes or no? But we're in a really dangerous place with the BBC because it's been institutionally captured in many parts by the right. That's just a fact in many parts by the right. The BBC effectively houses the politics of the right and the sort of socially liberal centre, which is definitely not interested in socialism and is not particularly good on migrant politics. And then you've got the fact that we can't really, you know, they've got 80% of the broadcast news, market share, 80% of radio news, market share, online news. So people like Joe Coburn or Fiona Bruce on BBC Question Time, no, they can't avoid this. They need to take this very seriously. If people say things which are untrue on a BBC platform, BBC journalists, particularly presenters, need to know, I think this needs to come from the very top, from the, you know, from the director general, you need to establish what is and is not a fact. There is not a point of view about whether something was published or not, whether it was or it wasn't. And that's concerning. And I think that's partly an outgrowth of the BBC's culture right now, which is not good. But like I say, people like Andrew Neal, he was the chairman of the spectator. Boris Johnson was his editor. Hey, who was meant to interview who in the last general election? It was Andrew Neal was meant to interview his former employee, Boris Johnson. And yet, you know, he doesn't turn up for an interview. And yet Jeremy Corbyn did an interview with Andrew Neal on the understanding that Boris Johnson would do the precise same thing. Now that may not have been coordinated, right? Andrew Neal may not have known that was going to happen in the way that it did. But this is clearly not an adequate way to run an organization which is effectively given a monopoly on broadcast media in this country, broadcast news media. It's not good enough. And so, yes, Fraser Nelson, he looked ridiculous. He's just outright lying that the BBC has to do better than this too. They can't talk about fake news and post-truth if they're not even going to say to somebody who's clearly lying, you're not being honest. No, I totally agree with that. And I mean, yeah, I mean, just thank God he was there to sort of point out the hypocrisy that was going on there. And yet the excuse as well to just say, oh, we publish all sorts of things, people disagree with. I mean, there's clearly a limit, right? If Fraser Nelson seriously saying that, no, we will publish literally anything because there are loads of disagreements. I mean, has he even published anything? If he's saying that Jeremy Corbyn, or if he's agreeing, if he's nodding along to say that Jeremy Corbyn shouldn't be readmitted to the Labour Party because he said that potentially the extent of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was exaggerated. I mean, is he even brave enough to put that in his magazine? No, but in defense of the Worm Act, that apparently is very much allowed.