BBC - honest reporting or myth recycling ?

Is Dominic Casciani choosing his words carefully here ?

Take the 2001 Bradford riots, for example, which had everything to do with a corked bottle of pent-up anger that exploded on the streets.

Crucially, the clashes themselves are popularly thought to have been triggered by white racists deliberately provoking young Muslim men to fight back. And when they did, the situation quickly got out of control.

Now I lived in Bradford full many a year and still return to visit friends, some of whom live in the areas where the rioting took place. I've searched news sources, asked people who were in the town that day, and there seems to be no credible evidence that 'white racists' triggered the riots.

Note that 'are popularly thought' get-out clause. Keep the liberal myth going, without actually lying. Yet the suceeding sentence, 'And when they did' implies the truth of the first sentence.


Here's another little example, from Islamic Affairs analyst Roger Hardy, asking "whether British-style multi-culturalism is succeeding or failing."

Muslims have lived in Britain for centuries, but only relatively recently have they become the focus of controversy.

Muslims have lived in Britain for centuries, have they ? We're back in 'A Nation Of Immigrants' country. I think I'd better quote from Migrationwatch.

There has always been some migration to and from Britain. While people from many countries have lived in Britain for centuries, numbers have generally been small. The historical episodes that are well known - the Huguenots of the 16th and17th century, the Ashkenazi Jews of the late 19th century and others - have been demographically relatively insignificant. Until the1950s there was no really substantial immigration into Britain, except from Ireland, for nearly 1000 years.

There have been Muslims in Britain for centuries, alright - namely the diplomatic staff representing the Ottoman Empire. You could say with just as much truth that there have been Russians in Britain for centuries.

So Roger Hardy keeps another liberal myth in the air, while sticking to literal truth.