It says plenty about the BBC values when even a Labour Minister in the shape of John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, comes across as an economic libertarian! We’re talking John Humphrys again folks, and an interview he conducted with Hutton this morning on the “Today” programme. It started off on the topic of the planned strike at the Grangemouth refinery but then it moved on to discuss a favoured BBC topic – the need for government to take action to punish “the rich.”
The Archdhimmi of Canterbury Rowan Williams has been using the Today programme to waffle on about the growing gap between “the rich and the poor” in the UK and clearly Humphrys has much sympathy with this view – all good socialists together and all that. He kept trying to get Hutton to accept that those who make large amounts of money using other people’s money needed their actions further regulated, if not their incomes capped. Hutton, to his credit, pointed out that it was not the role of government to dictate how private companies rewarded their employees, to Humphrys obvious chagrin. I found Humphrys obvious disdain for those who work in the City amusing, given that last time I checked the BBC itself was in receipt of £££billions extracted under threat from the UK TV owning population. Maybe it’s the BBC fatcats such as dear John that need their incomes capped, and their activities further controlled?
Lets not forget huh,comrade Humph earns – ooo let me guess £100000 a year including bonuses and other appearences/books and after dinner speeches?
Bet he wont be striking like me to get a better deal for a decent days pay?
Maybe “champagne socialist” is more apt.
I hate these people more than tories,at least most tories tow the line and stay with there core politics – this bunch take the cash and then complain someone else shouldnt do the same.
Take a look at this post and the one below it.
Don’t get me wrong, I like what you guys write about. I love your passion.
But I swear to the Lord God Almighty, if you keep using italics every second sentence, I’m going to track you all down and throttle you.
Less is more.
According to the BBC, an Eton educated Conservative politician will always lack the ability to understand the common man. Is it Eton or Conservatism as the cause? As toff, Humphry Lyttelton was loved by all (quite rightly).
The BBC’s Mark Thompson said Lyttelton would leave an “enormous gap” in British cultural life as a whole and in the lives of many millions of listeners.
Italics are used for quoting (although I wish I knew how to do it – I use quotation marks). And as an atheist, all I can say is go and threaten someone who is scared, boyo.
Cameron: £100,000 a year !! are you kidding?
Beeboids like Humphreys are on over £1 million a year.
When that dopey horse faced bint Natasha Kaplinsky moved to the BBC from Sky she was on over 1/2 a million a year.
Most Beeboids earn a six figure salary even the lowest Beeboids.
The only minimum wage earners at the BBC will be the black cleaning staff.
Socialists have always wanted to milk those that earmt he wealth the most. Look where you find socialist scum working
The BBC (TV Tax)
THe Guardian (subsidised by the tax payer)
Teacher (say no more)
Students
Local Government
State funded lobby groups (like Enemie sof the earth)
I’m sure there are more
I was a teacher for many years, although not any more, so I am grateful to be informed so reliably that I am ‘socialist scum’, which I never knew.
Martin, you are an ignorant asshole. Go fuck yourself.
(Radio 4 Today, Shakespeare baddies.)
Humphrys the Hamas Hamster.
“Hi children, Now that everyone is P.C. we’re not allowed to say how nasty those Jews are any more. But we know, don’t we, children that they are. That’s why Shylock is not allowed to be called a villain anymore, isn’t it children? Yeeeessssssss. ”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_20080426bond.ram
NO: Are you telling me that Teachers are not Socialists? Every teacher I’ve met has admitted to being “left leaning”
I’m sure none of us are surprised to find you are an ex teacher.
Nearly Oxfordian (you socialist turd), you use < i> at the start and < /i> at the end of the passage you want to italicise but with out the spaces before the ‘i’ in the first tag and before the ‘/’ in the second tag.
I work for one of those money sucking, successful banks who made billions and billions of pounds in profit last year.
Now, when that geezer says “its not the governments role to dictate how employees are rewarded” is a complete and utter pile of bollocks!
How much money could the Government save if it actually allowed companies to look after its employees? THings as simple as providing free or subsidised (cheap) meals attracks punitive government “fringe benefit” taxes. If you have a share scheme at your work (and what higher loyalty and confidence can your staff show in your company than to get them to invest in your company), but no, the government will only allow an individual to invest £3000 a year from a bonus (I know, not everyone gets one but still, for those of us who do…).
If you work for a financial institution, that instition can only give you a mortgage at .5 below the base rate. Any lower and once again, you will get taxed by the government.
To me, it makes a lot of sense to shift care from the government to companies (after all, they are closer to their people than the government)…but no, we cant have that simply because labour has generate a massive civil service that HAS to be inefficient to retain its size!
Sorry, this is a bit of a rant and yes, Im all for socialism…as long as I dont have to pay for it! 🙂
Mailman
Martin, your ignorance and stupidity are breathtaking. I was never remotely a socialist, and a majority of my colleagues through the years, in a variety of educational establishments from middle school to technical colleges, were not socialist.
Gibby, thanks, you sad turd (intended in the same spirit you meant it. V. s.)
We all know what scale of values operates at the BBC. Is Jonathan ‘w*nker’ Ross worth the wages of 60 family doctors or hundreds of nurses? According to the BBC he is. When it comes to money the BBC hasn’t a clue, perhaps because of the unique way it is funded.
Ross is one salient example, indeed. The salaries of Humphrys, Dimbleby, Abramsky, Yentob et al may not be quite so obscene, but they are still nothing but a bunch of greedy, lying pigs jostling around the trough (and are ‘socialists’ in the same way that their counterparts in Animal Farm were).
Guys,
Desist with the ad hominems please – it distracts from the substance! Thanks in advance.
Martin.
I am a right-of-centre, Israel-supporting, America-appreciating, Nu-Labour-despising, Old-Labour-despising, Castro-and-Saddam-loathing, Iraqilly-Optimistic, Gore-Bored kind of person who has just been accepted onto a PGCE course and intends to teach as a career.
I look forward to the transformation that teacher training will inevitably bring about. I am being fitted for a donkey-jacket as we speak, and keenly anticipate browsing for a nice designer keffiyeh in which I can attend islamist demos and show solidarity with the Paris rioters by burning Thatcher in effigy. It’s inevitable, right?
There seem to be fewer and fewer people on this site who can describe those with whom they disagree without bringing words like “scum” into the equation. It’s a shame. It’s a poor substitute for substantive argument, and makes the person look simultaneously weak and fanatically dogmatic.
Nearly Oxfordian:
I was a teacher for many years, although not any more, so I am grateful to be informed so reliably that I am ‘socialist scum’, which I never knew.
Martin, you are an ignorant asshole. Go fuck yourself.
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I’ll second that. I have a daughter who desperately wants to be a teacher but can’t get onto a PGCE course because Nu Liebour (“education education education”) have butchered the budget so there is now in the region of 14 applicants per course place for the PGCE.
Why does she want this? Because she’s socialist scum? No. She isn’t the slightest bit interested in politics but basically because she has a deep passion to teach, especially English.
So before you post such a pile of festering shite next, stop and think, before you make yourself look the the utterly uninformed loud-mouthed prick you obviousely are…
The idea of David Dimbleby as a ‘socialist’ jostling at ‘a trough’ is so misplaced.
DD (like Boris and Dave) was a member of the Bullingdon while at Christ Church. He’s married to a toff.
He trousered £12m when he sold off the family firm (where he’s took no prisoners in his dealings with the unions).
He’s far too grand to jostle for anything and is v. picky about what work he will deign to do (hence his v. rare appearances outside QT and elections).
Last of the Tory squirearchy more like.
I stand by what I say. Most teachers and other public sector workers are left wing losers.
The teaching unions are some of the most radical of the lot.
Before they stick their noses into things that don’t concern them, perhaps they should try teaching kids to read, write and add up?
And in my opinion Socialists are SCUM. Why is it that if I called the far right scum, no one would object? Call the far left scum and all you sad little lefties lose your rag?
You lot are the first to use threats of violence when you don’t get your own way and in my book that does make you scum.
I’d also add that in the NUT protests the other day, there were an awful lot of anti Israeli prop Palestinian flags present. What has that issue got to do with teachers pay?
Debrett: Can’t agree. Many vile Socialists are rich wealthy people. Just look at the number of Oxbridge educated elite in McLiebour that are trying to destroy the few good state schools that we have left.
Many of McLiebour and others (such as Polly Toynbee and Diane Abbot for starters) don’t even use state schools for their own kids.
Martin:
I stand by what I say. Most teachers and other public sector workers are left wing losers.
——————————————
And I stand by what what I say: that you are a loud mouthed uninformed prick.
You’re ex-forces aren’t you? Figures. They’re all crypto-fascist thugs, the whole lot.
Sorry? What’s that? Don’t like me generalising? Smearing the whole with the actions of one or a small number? Well, I’m merely doing exactly what you did: opening my mouth on a subject I know very little about.
It’s always great to learn from a true master.
Sutekh, I couldn’t agree more!
OK, maybe Dimbleby doesn’t ‘jostle’, but he is still a pig at a trough, the one I am paying for.
Oops, sorry, I deserve it all, being socialist scum.
Martin, you embarrass and demean this site.
sutekh: Say whay you like I really don’t care what people like you think.
Martin:
sutekh: Say whay you like I really don’t care what people like you think.
—————————————–
That’s right. You go and sulk in the corner.
And I thought I just did say what I like. Or didn’t your teachers teach you to read? Too busy being ‘socialist scum’ to a man or woman, no doubt…
And exactly what are “people like me” hmmm? People who don’t go shouting the odds about stuff they know naff all about? Well, you’d be right there.
Martin: “And in my opinion Socialists are SCUM.”
Ooh – capital letters!
“Why is it that if I called the far right scum, no one would object?”
You’re wrong. I would object. The far right are many things, but calling them nasty names is easier on them than confronting them with arguments that demonstrate their errors or their malice. Would that be beyond you? If so, just shout “SCUM” in capital letters.
“Call the far left scum and all you sad little lefties lose your rag?”
I’m confused. Which sad little lefties would that be? If you think I’m one (and you must do, because it is I who objected to the word scum), then this another thing on which you are completely 100% wrong, of which you are rantingly ignorant. If you believe that a preference for rational debate with the left rather than hate-filled name-calling makes me a sad lefty loser, then you are frankly not worth reading, let alone responding to. But let me guess – you don’t give a toss what anyone else says anyway!! Because anyone who disagrees with you is a communist!!!
“You lot are the first to use threats of violence when you don’t get your own way and in my book that does make you scum.”
I have no idea who you are talking to or about. Teachers? Your fellow critics of the BBC here on this famously left-wing site? Who or what the hell are you even talking about? You sound frankly irrational.
Don’t forget now, anyone who disagrees with Martin is, by definition, “left-wing scum”.
That has me rolling on the floor laughing, especially the bit about using violence, though I must admit I DID get a little stroppy with the idiots at Virgin last week, when they persisted in sending me their bills in my late wife’s name. Maybe that qualifies me?
Sutekh & Gharad Tree: Keep going. More please.
Sutekh, I’m sorry you too have suffered the incompetence of the Virgin billing system, especially that in this instance it sounds upsetting. Still, that will teach you to be such a communist scumbag. Not that I can talk – evidently I’m one too. Now, who can I threaten with scummish violence…
DD (like Boris and Dave) was a member of the Bullingdon while at Christ Church. He’s married to a toff.
He trousered £12m when he sold off the family firm (where he’s took no prisoners in his dealings with the unions).
He’s far too grand to jostle for anything and is v. picky about what work he will deign to do (hence his v. rare appearances outside QT and elections).< /i>
Sounds like archetypal NuLabor to me.Still the BBC will always have a hereditory Dimbleby
Martin: any rational response to make to anything I said? Any explanation as to who those lefty losers threatening violence might be?
gharqad tree:
Sutekh, I’m sorry you too have suffered the incompetence of the Virgin billing system, especially that in this instance it sounds upsetting. Still, that will teach you to be such a communist scumbag. Not that I can talk – evidently I’m one too. Now, who can I threaten with scummish violence…
—————————————-
lmao! I now retire, suitably chastised, and take my scummy communist self off and let yer man rant to his hearts content.
Sutekh – me too. Cheers.
What psychedelic drug is Martin on? He has definitely lost it.
Well, in the absence of any rational response to questioning, I think maybe it’s best to let it lie. It gives me no pleasure to argue with people, or to flog dead horses. I was just sorely amused to find myself being called a loser leftie with violent leanings, on the strength of objecting to name-calling and demonisation. It takes all sorts I suppose. Essentially I think he is taking the predictable standpoints of lefty trades unions and extrapolating from that that 100% of teachers are treasonous lefties. Which is absurd, and he probably knows it is, but he has shouted himself into a corner and work out a dignified exit. That’s my last word unless the chap has anything rational to say.
Back to the main theme:
“Paxman makes around £940,000 for Newsnight and hosting University Challenge. Humphrys’ six-figure salary is undisclosed, though Today sports presenter Gary Richardson recently taunted him, saying: ‘At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.'”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20070826/ai_n20524372
(5th item down)
… hosting University Challenge – which is a dog’s dinner under his hosting.
gharqad tree: You are entitled to your opinion. The teaching unions don’t do themsleves any favours. What on earth makes them think that THEY are worth more in terms of pay? There was a report out the other day that said something like 1 million kids have been failed by the education system. Don’t you think teachers should be more concerned about that than how much they get paid?
I suggest a wage cap for all Beeboids, right up to the DG and Chairman of £50,000/year.
I wouldn’t suggest this for any private sector broadcaster – Rupert can pay his employees whatever sum the market can sustain. But the BBC – well that’s different, telly tax and all that. If it gets Jonathan Wanker Woss off our screens that alone will be justification. I wonder if Humphrys would stick around if it was implemented?
Martin, as usual, is talking unmitigated nonsense. He asks: What on earth makes them think that THEY deserve more pay? What he really means is that they should be the only ones NOT allowed to strike for more pay, because (as we know) every single one of them is socialist scum.
In a free country, every profession should be permitted to strike. In Martin’s fascist paradise, he has the power to ban strikes by teachers.
Just changing the subject to something BBC-Bias related.
In common with many bosses sons parachuted into positions of privilege and authority, I’ve often thought of James Murdoch as a jumped-up little shit but for once I agree with him:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/04/26/cnmurdoch126.xml
It is plain wrong that in a democracy, the state-funded BBC, with its vast resources should be allowed to crush the competition in this way.
Andy: The iplayer is quite a good service. I do have a problem with the digital rights thing. After all if I record an episode of Top Gear onto DVD I can then rip the DVD to my PC. Yet if I download it from the BBC it only lasts for a few days.
I can understand that the BBC has an issue with say films or programmes they don’t produce, but restricting products we’ve already paid for via the TV tax seems a bit rich.
move the power from government to companies?
what,companies like Tesco for instance? Tesco do so well because they are so cheap right and benefit everyone with such low prices they simply have to open more stores to benefit us – what tosh. tesco is the ultimate example of greedy robbing bastards. Like the water companies,gas companies etc etc -see the pattern? when its privatised etc – the price ROCKETS and there is no competition – so nationalisation isnt any different……
“In common with many bosses sons parachuted into positions of privilege and authority” – you mean, like Peter Snow’s son? One idiot now followed by his son …
Cameron: You have a point. However, ask the smaller independent shops why they struggle and one big reason are the local taxes (like rent and rates) that Councils extract from them. Why do so many town cenre shopping centres all look the same? Because only the large retail chains can afford the rent.
You also have to look at why so many Conncils give planning permission for so many supermarkets. What’s going on there?
They are all socialist scum, natch.
I have absolutely no sympathy for the whinge from sky tv! I would have more sympathy for them if they had an ad free service (why do I pay £40 a month for the priviledge of watching advertisements on pay tv…which all air at the same time!) I would support them…but they dont.
Mailman
Martin, to be fair, that’s an entirely different argument. Throughout my education in primary school, secondary school, and two universities I have come across precisely two teachers who could be described as socialist, neither of whom on that basis deserve the epithet “scum”. Both were teachers at a prominent art college. That’s two out of… perhaps a total of thirty people who have taught me.
Anyway, this is a tiresome discussion. You have evidently no comment to make regarding whether or not your were personally insulting some of your fellow commenters as the “you lot” or the “people like you” who are losers and who resort to threats of violence (which is not a trifling accusation to make after all), and so I have nothing to say on your comments on the efficacy of teaching methods or teachers.
I can’t understand why Rowan Williams would be considered an authority on fiscal matters.