Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - back off my deathbed for another hour of questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet. We start at 3pm North American Eastern - which, across the Atlantic, is back to its usual hour: 8pm in the British Isles and 9pm in western and central Europe.
Lots going on in the world, including a letter from Donald Trump's Florida lawyer to the BBC threatening to file a defamation suit for one billion dollars! The Beeb establishment reacted with its usual invincible smugness. Its World Affairs Editor John Simpson has been a fixture on UK telly screens for almost six decades (he accompanied the Ayatollah Khomeini on his flight from Paris back to Teheran) and thought this an appropriate response to the resignation in disgrace of the Director-General and his Head of News:
The above is a screenshot because Mr Simpson has since deleted his tweet. Which it was very foolish of him to post. If the charge is that the improper editing of Trump's J6 speech - splicing two comments an hour apart into a single soundbite - was the Beeb's attempt to put its thumb on the scale of the 2024 election, the World Affairs Editor has just confirmed they have a helluva thumb and can reach half the US electorate. That greatly assists the President's standing to sue in Florida, because it makes America the scene of the crime. More broadly, Simpson's boast underlines one of the anomalies of the modern BBC:
*Within the British Isles, the Corporation is a state broadcaster funded by a "license fee" payable by anybody who owns a television capable of receiving programmes as they are being broadcast - or, indeed, owns a laptop or telephone capable of accessing video-on-demand services.
*On the other hand, within the United States, the BBC is a straightforward commercial enterprise, licensing its branding and products to the likes of AMC and selling advertising on its very America-oriented "World News" channel. It operates offices and studios all over the US - something I know a little about because half-a-lifetime ago I used to do a weekly show for the Beeb from their Yank HQ in Rockefeller Center.
There is no good reason why the state broadcaster of a hostile foreign power should be permitted to operate very profitably throughout America without even the modest government licenese required of WZZZ-AM in Dead Moose Junction. I also know a little about defamation suits, my own in the dismal American capital now being well into its fourteenth year. The case was permitted to proceed in the District of Columbia because, by being published in a magazine that is available for purchase in DC, I was deemed to be "doing business" within the jurisdiction. The BBC, with its vast array of US-based employees such as "State Department Correspondent", rises to that bar effortlessly: it has far more interests and assets at stake in the US than your humble "niche Canadian" does.
So I'm happy to take questions on Trump, the Beeb or anything else that tickles your fancy. For the moment you can listen to our show live from almost anywhere you chance to be on this turbulent earth. Starting next week, in compliance with John Simpson's demanding standards on broadcast impartiality, Clubland Q&A will be distributed exclusively by fax machine. So install yours today!
Membership of The Mark Steyn Club is required only if you wish to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and especially appreciate those who are having such a grand time around these parts that they've signed up a chum for a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Among the additions to our ranks in recent days are newbies from around the planet - from New Jersey to New Zealand, Alberta to Australia, Essex to Uzbekistan. If you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter, do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.
But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in. So see you back here at 3pm North American Eastern - which is, once again, 8pm in London and Dublin, 9pm in Paris and Berlin, 10pm in Kiev and Jerusalem; 11pm in Moscow and Riyadh; half-past-eleven in Teheran; 1.45am in Kathmandu; 4am in Singapore and Honkers (sorry about that); 7am in Sydney and Melbourne; 9am in Auckland, and an even more civilised hour for the kippers and kedgeree in His Majesty's Dominions eastward across the Pacific, where you're so far ahead Michael E Mann's probably lost his appeal by now...
