TLDR The media have many inventive tools at their disposal if they wish to affect the climate of opinion. Here are two examples from the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme.

Part 1 - Trans friendly robots

In recent years, attentive listeners to the Today Programme on Radio 4 may have become familiar with certain themes that the BBC seems to like to return to. One is “woke” and another is “trans issues.” On the 18th February 2025, at 06:52, a seemingly routine political interview was taking place on the subject of raising defence spending in reaction to the bombshell from Donald Trump that American defence cooperation with Europe was in doubt. The interview was between Nick Robinson and Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government.

Robinson asks predictable Today Programme questions like,

Now the key to this is that if you promise a share of the national economy - that's what it is isn't it? - 2.5 % of gross domestic product and you promise to get to that quickly. something else has got to give: some other spending has got to be cut - you've been looking at what that might be.

Setting aside the obvious restriction of the “choice architecture” as marketers call it, to exclude the possibility of raising more money either by borrowing (how funds for World War II were mostly raised) or taxing the hyper rich, this is how most of the interview went, a sort of Socratic dialogue in which a need for a greater proportion of military budget was presented as being a matter of cutting rather than borrowing or taxing, but with the addition of a seemingly superfluous coda at the end when Nick Robinson posed the following strange question:

A quick last one if you would Doctor White, the Sun has, for the second day on its front page an attack on what it says is government waste including 8 billion pound research used for trans friendly robots I mean 8 billion isn't even a fiver is it in the national finance isn't it -- these sums are meaningless aren't they compared with the sums needed for defence?

It seems difficult to assess why this should be a compelling question in the national debate, to be put to the director of the Institute for Government: an article in the Sun presenting in inflammatory tone a piece of anti woke, and anti government spending agitprop, railing at taxpayers’ money being spent on the common good, by the 55 Tufton Street think tank, the Taxpayers’ Alliance. What could be the aim of identifying something that doesn’t cost much and adding up to barely a rounding figure in the proportion of GDP being spent by the government? Of 10 pieces of “woke” expenditure identified by the article, only one had been chosen by Nick Robinson and that was one he chose to refer to as “trans friendly robots.” Here is part of the article that lists the projects.

The Sun had presented, in its usual lurid tabloid tone, a report from the 55 Tufton Street based think tank, the “Taxpayers’ Alliance” on “woke” spending it had identified that was to be cut. Of about 10 items in that report, only one could be referred to as being for “trans friendly robots” and then only by stretching the wording that could describe that particular project. The tabloid gave the largely DEI-based projects the 4chan “lolcow” treatment.

In the list of projects, the one that fitted the description given by Nick Robinson was this:

UKRI also funds private-sector research. Software firm Clusivity received £214,330 into using AI robots to help make companies more accessible to non-binary and LGBTQ+ minorities.

The project turns out to be by software developers called Clusivity, and far from “robots” these appear to be data driven agents or applications aimed at helping employers monitor their own activities in terms of Diversity Equity and Inclusion in employment. That would be item number 9 on the above table. It appears to be LGBTQ+ related and my guess is that non-binary is mentioned only because that group is not identified in the acronym. So it takes a lot of inventive thinking for this to become “trans friendly robots”

So for the soundbite of “trans friendly robots” to appear on the Today Programme, required a chain of decisions.

1. Choosing the Sun article.
2. Choosing the only group that could contain the word “trans.”
3. Choosing the most lurid of descriptions of that project within the article: “trans friendly robots.”

This, it would appear, is how news is made at the BBC.

Part 2 - Has Scouting gone “woke?”

During the Christmas period, guest editor, the UK’s Chief scout Dwayne Fields, had to address both of these issues simultaneously after being ambushed by Today presenter Nick Robinson. Robinson was very tenacious while asking about this, asking three questions one after the other.

Question 1

So many people listening will have their own memories of the Scouts, when they were in it, or indeed their kids or their grandkids, and they believe in the values but you're aware there are some who say, and I put the word in inverted commas, "Scouting's gone 'woke.'" Scouting's [mocking tone]too keen [/mocking tone] to fit in with the ideology of the day, there are some who say that the Scouting movement talks about people who are using their preferred pronouns, that this is, and I'm reading a post here, "gender ideology being pushed onto young people" -- what would you say to them?

This is perhaps the most well planned of the questions. It begins by priming the listener with nostalgia, and with imagery of vulnerable children, perhaps their own children. Just the thing to stimulate the protective parental instinct. Then there is a notion of a much needed urgent debate, provoked by “some who say” (who?) which seems to ba a favourite turn pf phrase of Nick Robinson, particularly when talking about what he calls “traans issues.” The wholesome good old days are contrasted with the “ideology of the day” combining a picture of faddishness with a word (ideology) that has connotations of Maoist oppression. This is further rammed home by the very explicit “gender ideology being pushed onto young people” which converts a situation of understanding shown towards a trans or nonbinary child into something that oppressive adults are doing to the other children who are now being oppressed by being forced to be – checks notes – understanding of the trans child.

Question 2

I think lots of people would be comfortable with that but they might think, "I don't want the Scout leader to tell my child that they ought to use she/her or they/them" -- that is imposing a kind of value set rather than merely being tolerant.

This question is just a repetition of the last part of the previous one.

Question 3

There's quite an influential right wing blogger -- a guy called Matt Goodwin -- there's a headline on the piece I've been reading: "How Scouting Went Woke" -- is he wrong?

This is when the issue of society being oppressed by being required not to be oppressive, is expanded from the focus on trans children, to “woke,” and this time with an actual reference. The obsession with the word “woke” is a feature of Trump’s openly far right second presidency, and with presenting trans acceptance as a threat to family values. The reference given here is astonishing in its uncustomary candour. It came from Matt Goodwin’s blog, and Matt Goodwin is right wing. However the article was written by an anti trans campaigner of long standing, James Esses. This is interesting reading material for a BBC News presenter and journalist to be reading, let alone boosting on the flagship radio programme of BBC Radio 4, especially given that the ability to read it requires a subscription.

As we see with the previous case of “trans friendly robots” there is a peculiar idea at the BBC, of the national debate that must be had: the question of what Nick Robinson means by “there are some who say…”

What this strange and hostile focus on trans people achieves, is a background subliminal hostile noise that empowers transphobes and habituates the climate of opinion to cruelty and potentially violence against trans people. In liberating latent intolerance and atavistic prejudice, there could well be a knock-on effect for other minorities. It might even help to explain this.

Links

Full Fact : The government has not spent £8 billion on ‘woke projects’ Govt squander £8bn on TikTok dancing, ‘queer animals’ & pro-tran robots