announces Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (aka ‘The Yazzmonster’):
“It is personal guys. Several BBC broadcasters tell me they are not interested in ‘Guardian and Independent’ points of view. We are passé, irrelevant, annoying, elitist, too middle class and soft. Fashion moves on, the culture is now noisy and intolerant and the Beeb follows, is too feeble to stand up to ugly populism.
Many of us have-beens are no longer invited on to the robust debates on programmes where intelligent political debate should take place. Belligerence is sought- bring on the alpha right wingers like William Shawcross and bombastic Jeff Randall. Soon a Jeremy Clarkson mascot will replace Pudsy. Have a box of pins ready.
It is serious too guys – it will shape the nation over the next ten years. They diss the only consistently left of centre papers in the country – and so ditch the European Union, internationalism, multilateralism, fair immigration policies, equality, regulation, redistribution, legitimate (as opposed to illegal) wars”.
So what do we think? Does Yazza, as always, have her finger on the pulse? Is it time to close down the blog? Or should we hand it over to the leftoids so that they can take over? It’s a difficult one.
Hilarious! Jeff Randall appears on the BBC a few times and all is lost for the left!
This buffoon even asks:
Should we, the unwanted and unloved Indy and Guardian sorts get the right to opt out of the licence fee?
Funny, I don’t remember the Yazzmonster thinking we Daily Telegraph types should have that option when the BBC was, by her own admission, left-leaning.
I just left a comment there to the effect that rebalancing the BBC from where it is, is not the same as it being taken over by right-wingers.
I think she massively overstates the degree to which non-Left views are expressed on the BBC but I think the fact that she is hurting on this issue is a good sign of progress.
Like the way she presents intolerance and leftism as opposites, and then proceeds to show just how intolerant she actually is.
Hang on, I’ll just click through to the link to see if that’s what she said or if its a “wider truth” lol
Well, she absolutely doesn’t understand ‘radical impartiality’, if that’s what she thinks it is, although the term I hear used is ‘impartiality with attitude’.
For evidence of the “wider truth” displayed by the BBC, click through to these environmental stories:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7089963.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6238357.stm
rofl, David.
@Sarah-Jane
oooh, I like that. I might get it on a t-shirt
@ David Gregory
charge it to the telly tax then!
David Gregory: “Hang on, I’ll just click through to the link to see if that’s what she said or if its a “wider truth” lol”
A “bit rich coming from a man who presents impressionistic transcripts as “pretty much verbatim”.
We are passé, irrelevant, annoying, elitist, too middle class and soft.
Hmm. “Elitist” doesn’t sound like the complaint of a right wing BBC producer. (It makes one giggle even to type the words “right wing BBC producer.”)
They diss the only consistently left of centre papers in the country – and so ditch the European Union, internationalism, multilateralism, fair immigration policies, equality, regulation, redistribution, legitimate (as opposed to illegal) wars.
As good a list of the BBC’s deepest obsessions as one could wish to find.
As my colleague Johann Hari wrote recently: ‘the BBC’s most famous and high profile presenters today are figures on the right and make increasingly little effort to hide it’.
Presumably he and she mean Jeremy Clarkson, rather than Jim Naughtie, Kirsty, Paxo et al (not even Johann Hari and the Yazzmonster could think that the BBC News and Current Affairs presenters/journos are right wing.) In which case I agree with her that Jeremy Clarkson is on the right and makes little effort to hide it. JC’s views on those matters on which he expresses one of his trenchant opinions are probably in step with getting on for half the male population.
Whereas, just to pluck one from hundreds of examples of lefties on the BBC who are on the left and make little effort to hide it, Jeremy Hardy’s views are probably shared by fewer than 5% of the population. In the BBC canteen however, I expect JH’s views are more mainstream than JC’s.
Lee Moore – wrong I am afraid, Clarkson is quite a hero among the programme-making staff because he is a voice against all the PC and other bureaucratic bollocks that gets in the way of making programmes.
Most young programme-makers wouldn’t have a clue who Jeremy Hardy was. And their lives are richer for it IMO.
I think people like that Indy journo say Paxo is ‘on the right’ because he is ‘part of the establishment’. Right = establishment. The fact that he has a big country house and goes fly-fishing are yet further evidence 🙂
If Paxman is a part of the establishment, how are journalists like the Yazzmonster not also a part of the Establishment?
Blithering Bunny: Oh dear. One more time I said “allowing for my touch typing that’s pretty much the interview verbatim”
Pretty much! But as you point out I left out the words
“In black and white”
“right back”
“I mean”
“off” and “quest”
“here”
“as my best sense of Chris’s life”
“true for”
“film” for “movie”
Missing out the word “really”
Now most of those are from the part of the interview about the film… which I didn’t really think was the important part of the original post. None of what you raise there makes any difference to the sense of the interview. Verbatim? Pretty much as I said. It certainly doesn’t make any difference to the point under discussion. And I’ll just remind you what that was.
That a post on the front page of B-BBC appears to quote Sarah Monague as apparently saying “But President Bush wouldn’t say that [that people have a shared humanity presumably]”
Very different to the actual quote “But President Bush would say that just look at the leader President Ahmadinejad this is somebody who is a danger to the world.”
“Most young programme-makers wouldn’t have a clue who Jeremy Hardy was. And their lives are richer for it IMO.’
[Sarah-Jane]
Comment of the week because it contains one of the most delicious put-downs I have seen for some time. 🙂
I quite like Jeremy Hardy, actually.
Yazza is quite bonkers, isn’t she?
Lee Moore | 14.11.07 – 10:30 am
Hmm. “Elitist” doesn’t sound like the complaint of a right wing BBC producer.
Well spotted. You’re right – there’s something rather contrived and bogus-sounding about all this.
Interestingly, one of Yasmin’s readers has a very different take on BBC America from David Preiser of this parish.
The BBC has a clear agenda here, and it’s “BBC America”. Auntie’s viewers and listeners in the UK will barely be aware that the BBC has an entire TV service in the USA, where it is (of course) pay-to-view. This means that whilst Licensepayers in Britain have no choice about whether they cough-up for the Beeb, the corporation is now on a suck-up to Uncle Sam mission in search of US subscribers. Those US subscribers, of course, aren’t going to pay their fine money to be told that their nation is ever wrong about anything. So all BBC content which might be re-used on their American networks (ie all of it) must now be Bush-friendly. And since Mr Brown told us at his Mansion House speech, that means Brown-friendly too, as the terms are now interchangeable.
Nonsense, of course. But a different kind of nonsense than I’m used to seeing here.
Haversack:
If Paxman is a part of the establishment, how are journalists like the Yazzmonster not also a part of the Establishment?
Haversack | 14.11.07 – 11:05 am | #
Well of course they are. I am merely trying to suggest how it is possible for her to make a comment along the lines of ‘nearly all main BBC presenters are of the right’ or whatever the exact words were.
The other explanation is that anyone even slightly to the left of her is therefore right. Even if they are impartial in the most old-fashioned sense of the word.
“fair immigration policies,” She thinks letting criminals stay here is fair ?
“redistribution,” A good idea how about taking from single mums and giving to workers.
Thought you made a nice comment on that site The Admiral.
I do hope people aren’t using the phrase “impartiality with attitude”.
The last thing we need is more macho, Mailer-like behaviour.
Radical impartiality is just what the BBC should be doing anyway. Good old fashioned “impartiality” will do.
How about “impartial and proud of it” on a t shirt?
I’m partial to what?
Yas could be onto something here, I must confess I have always found her irrelevant.(Well, more having suffered a reality by-pass!)
It would be nice to think that intelligent life at the top of the beeb, has seen which way the wind is blowing politically and is trying to trim its sails acordingly. However
a) a leopard doesn’t change its spots.
b) you’re all doomed, its break up time.
Let’s not foget the mass-murder apologia the BBC trundled out in the aftermath of 7/7.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was given sanctuary in England at the time that Idi Amin Dada was poised to seperate her head from her shoulders and end once and for all her mewling and pukeing.
Saved indeed by the very alpha right wingers she now disses (to use her own unlovely phrase).
Aint life Grand!
The BBC’s bias is not merely for the left over the right, that has always been too simplistic.
If this apalling woman sees some biases for the right over the left that does not surprise me.
Biases like pro EU anti US, pro Arab anti Israel, pro islam anti Christian, pro MMGW, pro statism, pro liberal agenda, etc are mostly not to do with left or right.
I do not want to see any biases (or at least them kept to a minimum).
However that bias free solution is but a utopian dream I fear.
The only solution is to end the compulsory television poll tax and give us choice, then the bias that is the BBC, like that of the Telegraph or the Guardian, can be chosen or discarded.
Stop making me pay for bias, scrap the licence fee!
I hope the moderator will forgive me for this digression, but I must say that I am charmed by her description of William Shawcross as an alpha right winger.
And I wonder how many at the BBC share her view of Shawcross.
(John Miller is less colorful, but more accurate when he says that many on the left view Shawcross as a traitor.)
Yep, they are getting the wind up them and not before time.
the tide is turning but we will have to keep up the pressure as these liberal talking heads have all the time in the world to whine and plot whilst we centre right and right wing people have to go out and earn a living and to pay for the whole show.
It is astonishing how Yasmin can complain when the BBC have spent the last decade promoting and protecting her viewpoint. To the extent they censor anyone who disagrees with her politically correct form of racism, e.g.:
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/news/nr015.htm
Nick Reynolds (BBC):
I do hope people aren’t using the phrase “impartiality with attitude”.
The last thing we need is more macho, Mailer-like behaviour.
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | Homepage | 14.11.07 – 12:46 pm | #
It’s from Evan Davies. I am trying to think if there is anyone more unlike Norman Mailer 🙂
I think you’re all being beastly to poor Yasmin.
I’s obvious that since she’s not getting the work from the lefty talking-head shows any more – she’s decided to branch out into cutting edge satire.
Seriously, I think her piece is the perfect manifestation of Jeff Randall’s sidebar quote:-
“….It’s visceral. They think they are on the middle ground”
Yazza – a perfect example of Beeboid cognitive dissonance.
But isn’t it great to hear this kind of Beeboid squealing… we must be winning!
Dr R – I might be wrong but I would be pretty confident that ‘Yazza’ will not have a BBC email address and therefore is strictly speaking a ‘lefty’ rather than a ‘beeboid’.
If she is a beeboid, so is Melanie Phillips 🙂
S-J
You may have a point, but I see Beeboidism as a kind of north London disease, rather than a specific cndition related to a formal employment structure. So Tom Paulin, the dreadful Stephen Poliakoff, Yazza and all the other luvvies who routinely profit from being part of the Beeboid preferred circle are part of the condition.
Why else would la Yazza be so flustered by this? Her arrogant presumptiousness says it all, really.
Dr R:
“But isn’t it great to hear this kind of Beeboid squealing… we must be winning!”
No, it just means that lefties like this are so self-important and bigoted that two seconds of Jeremy Clarkson on the TV is enough to have them throwing their toys out of the pram and screaming like a little baby.
S-J
The Melanie Phillips point was cute, clever… and of course silly. Melanie constantly puts the boot into the BBC, entirely to her credit. I see her more as an “entryist”.
Dr R:
“But isn’t it great to hear this kind of Beeboid squealing… we must be winning!”
No, it just means that lefties like this are so self-important and bigoted that two seconds of Jeremy Clarkson on the TV is enough to have them throwing their toys out of the pram and screaming like a little baby.
Jonathan (Cambridge) | 14.11.07 – 4:48 pm | #
I think that is more opinion than bias (though you are of course perfectly entitled to it).
Personally I find Clarkson a prejudiced talentless clown.
Please tell me there is more to offer in response to the toy throwing lefty beeboids than that.
BJ
I wholly agree with you about Clarkson… another ghastly Beeboid celeb. Out with them all!
Dr R – I think you are wanting to have your cake and eat it 🙂 Nothing wrong with that, and there is some merit in having a defintion of beeboid that means you can work for the beeb and not be one – but if you are stretching beeboid to include a whole load of lefty pundits then it is painting a rather different picture than one might logically assume.
On the other hand EG Poliakoff is a lot more than a pundit, he will be paid handsomely for his efforts, fawned over and courted by all sorts of Execs and Commissionners etc so this kind of person might not be directly on the payroll, but is definitely part of the family.
That’s just my opinion of course.
Blimey, she could do with a bit of training about punctuation.
Sarah
I think the power of the BBC has enabled it to breed a pernicious first estate that exerts a uniquely powerful and negative strangehold over the cultural life of the whole country. There are of course individuals who may have succeeded without the largesse and favour of the BBC (Stephen Fry, Melvyn Bragg, Paxman etc) but my point is that the BBC not only corrupts the political debate of the country by its bias, but – even more importantly – it debases our cultural life by its court rule.
Did you SEE that ghastly Poliakoff play? I rest my case.
Chuffer that should be “Blimey! She” and “training on punctuation” if we are going to be like that – but what is a semi-colon between mild adversaries 😉
However, I sense The Moderator’s finger hovering over the delete key…
Dr R, let’s not forget it does some good stuff too – Nature programmes, Life on Mars, Higgledy House 🙂
I must admit I find Poliakoff’s stuff pretty dull. To be honest I would feel far more comfortable saying ‘Gosh Islam is a load of bother isnt’t it?’ or ‘I shot a fine brace at the weekend’ than admitting that in W12 though 😉
To be fair, I too have detected a subtle change in the BBC. Certain members of the Corp, I believe, have realised the inherent bias and are trying to do something about it (eg the dropping of the Climate Change progoganda concert). I think Biased BBC can be proud of having had some effect. However, given where the Beeb is starting from, there is still a long way to go.
In response to Sarah-Jane, I’d like to say that the BBC’s Higgledy House is (to use a cliche) worth the licence fee alone. Maybe SJ can ask Poliakoff to be a guest writer one week – that would be fun. Except please please get rid of that fat bloke.
Anyway, I think we shouldn’t be too harsh on YAB. She’s got her views – that’s OK – and she asks “Should we, the unwanted and unloved Indy and Guardian sorts get the right to opt out of the licence fee?” Which is precisely the position of many BBBC contributors.
I think we should be welcoming her to the club.
A
Sarah-Jane
I think I’m falling for you…. but sorry, the BBC’s still gotta go.
😉
PS Damn right about nature shows, but surely these could be done independently?
Problem is that while I rather like old Jezza Clarkson, he’s rarely funny, bless his opinionated socks. Whereas I also like Jeremy Hardy because (lord help us) he is actually funny. And yes, the same with Marcus Brigstocke
All it says to me is that while the Devil may not have all the good music, the left certainly have the funniest comedians. The right have none of note.
So, when listening to Brigstocke on one of his rants, just switch on your own mental filter and enjoy. This lefty feller can sometimes be rather funny…
If they get this hot under the collar about Clarkson – anti-American, pro-EU – no wonder we never see PJ O’Rourke or Mark Steyn on the BBC.
I’d love to see more PJ O’Rourke on the Beeb. Time was whenever he had a new book out, he’d do a slot on Steve Wright’s pm show on Radio 1. Always a good guest, iirc. No chance of that these days.
Steve Wright on R1. Which shows how long ago THAT was.
Oh, I feel old…
Dr R be careful – all is not what it may at first appear hehe
I find Richard D North’s ‘Media National Trust’ hypothesis quite seductive – the argument being that the good bits of the BBC; nature programmes, Cbeebies, R4, a news service focussed on the things that its core audience values, Pride & Prejudice, the website, etc are of sufficient value that enough people would be happy to pay.
Of course, it would be become much more audience-focussed (the ‘much more’ may be superfluous in that statement) as a result of having to organise itself like, heresey, a proper business but I cannot see this being a bad thing.
There is a complex ‘welfare’ argument against this, but I am not Evan Davies and find it difficult to understand.
That will be the day!
How often do you see the likes of Richard littlejohn or jon Gaunt on Questiontime or the BBC paper review?