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Another "Casualty" Of BBC Political Correctness
The BBC's editorial executive has over-ruled a script for a drama series which included a suicide attack by Muslim extremists.
Long-running hospital drama series Casualty begins a new season in the Autumn. Its opening episodes were to be based on the aftermath of a bomb attack by Islamist terrorists on a crowded bus station. However, insiders say that the story was blocked by the Beeb's top committee, which is anxious to halt "stereotypes of young British Muslims."
Instead, the storyline will follow a bombing carried out by those well-known mass murderers, the Animal Rights movement.
Yes, it is true that various animal rights groups have sent incendiary devices to laboratories and bombs to the homes of scientists who work in animal-testing clinics. It is also true that some of these groups merit the description "terrorist" because of their methods and their aims. But it is an enormous leap to go from letter bombs on doorsteps to bombing a bus station causing mass casualties.
Nevertheless, it is not the first time the BBC's drama department has had to adjust reality to fit with its political obligations. Spooks is another popular drama, entering its sixth season on the BBC. It deals with the lives of MI5 officers investigating large-scale terror plots and plans to unbalance the British state.
In the real world, since the ceasefire in Ulster, the vast majority - perhaps, in fact, all - of these plots have emanated from Islamic terrorists of one shape or another. However, a relentless diet of Islamist schemes being busted by our heroes would be difficult to swallow for the BBC, so the show's producers have treated us to plots by animal rights activists, right-wing "militants" and even rogue military men.
The most recent series had an "environmentalist terror group" called Divine Earth planning to flood London by blowing up the Thames Barrier; another series of episodes painted Israeli agents as the villains. The Americans (of course) and the British Establishment play regular roles as villains in the show.
Perhaps the BBC wishes organisations or groups it opposes planned the atrocities that usually emanate from the Muslim Community?
For the sixth season of Spooks, EURSOC confidently predicts the team foil a "dirty bomb" attack by the Countryside Alliance while Ulster Presbyterians plan to fly planes into Canary Wharf.
Perhaps it is true and we - or the BBC at least - cannot bear too much reality.
