That’s a rather neat summing up of the BBC attitude according to Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times. Something backed up, at least the part about women, by the former Today programme editor Jenny Abramsky who says that the BBC has a ‘huge responsibility’ to employ more women.
Liddle says:
‘This is an open letter to a man called James. This particular James is white, middle-aged and public school and Oxbridge educated, and he’s running the important bits of the BBC.
All the top people of the BBC are called James and are white and public school and Oxbridge eductaed, except for the Director General, who is white and public school and Oxbridge educated and called Tony.
That’s the BBC: No blacks, no dogs, no Irish. No women, either, or very few, nor indeed anyone called “Keith”.
Anyway, it is perhaps because they are called James and middle class that they seem terrified of telling the news as it is. If there were a few more people called Tariq or Keith or Harbinger, then there might be a little less tiptoeing on eggshells, less of this absolute terror of giving offence to the people the Jameses definitely are not.
In Sweden there are riots…almost all the people doing the rioting were, to adapt Nick Robinson’s phrase, people of non-Swedish orign. These were…are..race riots.
It was not the ordinary Swedes rising up against the oppressive Swedish state; it was immigrants. Come on James – why not tell us the truth?’
What ever happened to “equality” i.e. the best person for the job being employed regardless rather than positive discrimination quotas.
Interesting that this article should pop up just after I had watched a video posted today of a white woman carrying the Union Flag in a shopping centre in Oldham being ARRESTED and taken off in a police van for carrying the Union Flag.
Since when was it a criminal offence to show the Union Flag in Great Britain?
I wonder if the BBC will report this?
I’m trying to find out if she was *arrested* or put into the police van for her safety. Whatever happened the video shows quite clearly many police surrounding this one pregnant woman and leading her away to the police van.
I sincerely hope that she wasn’t arrested for carrying the Nation’s flag?
The video is on *Live Leak* web site.
Liddle’s article is poorly researched. I happen to know that at least two of the white, public-school, oxbridge-educated men running things at the BBC are too young to be considered middle-aged and are both named Ben.
Yes, and allegedly an Airedale Terrier reads the News at the weekend on 5 live.
Though admittedly it was Cambridge educated.
Like Dave666 I too am fed up for calls on the BBC for more women, older women, muslim women (I think that is how we got Mishel Hussein as a newsreader) and black men by anyone connected to the BBC. Everybody should be considered by who they are not what they are. Even briefly watching the BBC’s coverage of the Chelsea flower show I saw a black man being interviewed (sorry I don’t know who he was) – it may have been valid but I saw few black people in the crowd. If it was a valid interview then I am wrong on this occasion – but it is because the BBC tries so hard to ensure that black people are shown at events where they are obviously in such a minority they become the ‘token black’ and insults them as well as the BBC audience.
“Everybody should be judged by who they are, not what they are” – says the poster who presumes Mishal Hosain did not get her job purely on ability, or that any interviewee on a gardening show who isn’t white must have been chosen through tokenism.
Funny how nobody with racist views is ever honest enough to own up to them.
Scott Mathewman
”Funny how nobody with racist views, blah, blah, blah,”
Groan, the mind numbingly tiresome ‘R’ word, anti racist is just code word for anti white.
Time you quit squealing the cultural marxist script, no one is buying it anymore.
“anti racist is just code word for anti white.”
So are you going to deny that there’s an inherent hypocrisy in Deborah’s post?
She wants people to be judged on merit alone, but suggests Mishal Husain did not get her job on merit – with no evidence to suggest why, other than her gender and her race.
“Everybody should be judged by who they are, not what they are” – but if they’re black, they’ll be judged as being interviewed because of their skin colour, and not because of their skills or abilities.
It’s hypocrisy. It’s stupidity. It’s racism.
Calm down, you’re being very hysterical and melodramatic, bit like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford in some old 1940s black and white film.
So, no substantive point from you at all. How steadfastly predictable.
Matthewman
Once you say something sensible, instead of the usual, tedious, ‘waaycist’ piffle, I will take you seriously.
I don’t care whether you take me seriously or not. It seems that your whining about “waaycist” comments is just an excuse for you not to engage like an adult, so why should I care what you think?
Scott, the words of Andrew Marr:
The BBC is ‘a publicly-funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities & certainly of gay people, compared with the population at large.’
Do you think that the use of the word ‘abnormally’ might, just might, hint at a policy of ‘affirmative action/positive discrimination’?
Some years ago it was reported in the press that Harriet Harman was suggesting that the BBC selected a newsreader who wore the hijab. Now maybe Mishal Hosain did get her job on merit but the very fact that Miss Harman was calling for someone to be chosen by race/religion rather than ability has weakened Mishal Hosain in her role. Scott – you have re-inforced my point – because the BBC chose who to interview, zoom into when in a mixed classroom, or chose to interview at Chelsea based on their colour then it leads viewers to question whether they were chosen on ability or what they said.
“Muslim Women Power List”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2009/mar/25/muslim-women-power-list
Rod would know, seeing as he was once a favoured son at the BBC…he does , though, largely get it right these days.
James, Jeremy?…their Oxbridge liberal arts backgrounds? private schools and 68 student postures?
And they accuse the Tories of only getting Eton ex-pupils!
Toynbee? Monbiot?…all those Chakhrabhaits, Saddiqis etc?
Cosy-oh, so cosy!
And wouldn`t it be great if we knew that Adrian Childs was married to Jane garvey-but everybody likes to keep different surnames?
Nepotism?…happy families and the old school ties?
Or just for specific tax arrangement structures eh?
Liddle is being contrarian, and is actually wrong about the BBC not admitting that what’s going on in Sweden is a race riot. The BBC has been wringing its hands over the racism and discrimination and difficulties immigrants face in Sweden for quite some time.
Hi Scott,
Congratulations on the following:
Oct 12, 2012 – Having been awarded the title of Best Political Blogger from The Guardian in 2004, Scott Matthewman now concentrates on writing about TV, …
Why thank you. And congratulations on mastering the act of copy and paste, I’m sure your mother will be very proud.
Now, care to explain how that’s applicable to the topic?
It is further confirmation of the parasitic relationship between the Guardian and the BBC. And how through that, a bourgeois elite minority seek to manipulate the public debate on issues close to their blackened hearts so as to manufacture an ersatz consensus
I’ve never worked for either the Guardian or the BBC. Never received money from either. How on Earth is my biog evidence of anything? It’s pure conspiracy theorist poppycock.
the unhealthy BBC/Guardian/Labour
axis has been demonstrated on this blog many times most recently with the appointment of Ian Katz.
Had your Blog not entirely supported the Guardians moral relativist pseudo theology (shared their common purpose) it would, how ever good, have been ignored (or more likely dismissed as conspiracy theorist poppycock.)
No conscious conspiracy required, even though I have come to believe there is one
Scott, unfortunately my mother is dead and thank you for your kind words concerning my competency on cutting and pasting.
You didn’t answer the question about how it was relevant.
Sura 9 Scott?
Edited out of the BBC/Channel 4 bits of film taken of the Nigerian lads last Wednesday?
You write for TV apparently if the quote above is correct…so tell us why the Sura-al Tawba(Repentence) was excised from the “narrative”.
Until you have an answer-you working in TV and blogging freely for the Guardian an` all-I would rather that you did something more suitable with your time than concern yourselves with the likes of us.
Get busy Scott-lot of mopping up for Common Purpose type purposes to be done elsewhere.
Tower Hamlets require a Press Officer, so I understand…it could be YOU!
I don’t get it?
If there were a few more people called Tariq or Keith or Harbinger, then there might be a little less tiptoeing on eggshells, less of this absolute terror of giving offence to the people the Jameses definitely are not.
OK I get the Tariq. The BBC will be even more pro Islamist and anti Israel. Is that possible?
Is Keith a class identifier? What eggshells won’t Keith trip over?
Harbinger????
I feel I’ve missed an in-joke. Will someone please explain?