I wonder if you read this report about the freebies bonanza that afflicts those senior executives in the BBC? They have to endure being provided with the likes of Rugby Final tickets, Elton John concert tickets, even freebie cookery lessons with a Michelin-starred chef, poor dears. Naturally they take all these onerous tasks on the chin, such is their commitment to providing us with a public service without compare. Raise a glass of champagne to the pigs with their snouts in the trough of your financial largesse.
AIN’T LIFE GRAND?
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The parallel world of the beeboids, another spectacular example :
Farming today , looks at expanding sales of Game. Manages to do whole slot without mentioning BASC or Countryside Alliance , who have been largely responsible for the large increase in game sales, as a result of their fantastically successful ‘Game to Eat’ initiative – providing recepies, cookery demos and marketing to supermarkets on a national level. But apparently these organisations ( with a higher memnbership than the labour party, ) are non organisations in beeboid land.
Its a bit like reporting the Ken Livingstone mayoral campaign, without mentioning the corruption and cronyism, you couldn’t do it. Oh, wait a minuite !!
Grauniad Job Pages
Your BBC needs YOU
Are you a smug, self-satisfied, prolier-than-thou left-winger who doesn’t challenge the establishment?
Do you think conservatives are best never seen and DEFINITLEY not heard on the public air-waves? Except on a panel were they are outnumbered 5 to 1 so they can get the pummelling they so richly deserve?
Are you all for more social cohesion, social justice and every other euphemism for socialism with the word “social” in it. Are you so PC the pips squeak?
Then the BBC wants you.
Join the BBC where life is sweet, the pay packets are fat, and you’ll get more freebies than a hooker at a Porn convention.
It’s YOUR BBC… send your application to:
Not sure if this is quite as terrible as the Mail’s SHOCK HORROR style would have us believe. Corporate jollies are a fact of life , everyone enjoys themselves (except me – can’t stand the things), and they provide useful additional revenue for perfectly worthy commercial organisations and their shareholders. It’s not the Beeb spending money on these things, it’s the other parties.
However, there’s three reasons why companies do these things:
One is furthering the relationship with the individual to generally help working with them run more smoothly and efficiently for both parties. No problem.
A development of this networking of the individuals concerned is that if they move onto other organisations there’s a good chance of getting more business. Again, absolutely no problem in the Beeb context.
However – less important but still there is the outside chance that decision makers might commission more and unnecessary work through their firm to score themselves some more freebies. In the Beeb’s context this is a real risk. I think if senior management are going to take up these things there should be full public disclosure of work commissioned from the firms involved, so that licence fee payers can make their own minds up.
Cockney,
But this one corporation that demands you fund it and so a higher standard must apply.
Every large company receives freebies from sporting venues, music hospitality, amongst other partners and the like. This is such a non-story it’s laughable. The Daily Mail shouts about this like it’s some groundbreaking story of corruption that they’ve managed to expose, but a first year student could get this info simply by asking for it. It’s all declared, none of it’s shady.
IF, on the other hand, the Daily Mail had used this info to correlate back to the awarding of some huge contract, ie, Thompson receives enormous gratuity from O2 and a month later O2 get a big fat cheque to provide all Beeb journos with phones, THAT would be a story.
Like I said, ALL big companies get this. I used to work for Debenhams and we got two tickets for each home game for the local footie team to give away to our employee of the week or whatever. We got discount at the gym around the corner. We got a sharesave scheme. We got a discount at the insurance company that insured all our buildings and cars (I forget which one).
These perks – as far as I can tell – are not paid for by the licence fee so I don’t get what the problem is. There’s no hint of corruption. No evidence of wrong-doing. WHY is this a story? It just shows that while the BBC has its faults, although the journos don’t always abide by their own editorial guidelines, papers like the Mail make the Beeb look positively superb.
Surely you would not deny the denizens of the beeb some of lifes finer things to relieve a little stress? Betraying the British people does come with some costs I would imagine so a little pampering should not be begrudged.The odd freebie for a beeboid is a great investment…leaving the recipient refreshed and ready to plunge back into the world of pandering to terrorists and kissing up to the tattered remnants of nulabour.
Barry –
Afraid I can’t agree.
As the BBC never tires of telling us, it’s in a unique position for so very many reasons. At the very least, its impartiality should therefore never be in question (yeah, right), and so the organization ought to be “above suspicion”, as some DWEM playwrite once said.
“Every large company receives freebies from sporting venues, music hospitality, amongst other partners and the like.”
Apart from the fact that the Beeboids claim expenses on these things.An ex Beedoid friend of mine,far higher up the food chain than the minions who post here,never paid for anything.Retirement was a shock to the system.
“Apart from the fact that the Beeboids claim expenses on these things”
I don’t understand this? The entertainment is provided and paid for by KPMG or whoever – it’s nothing to do with the BBC as an organisation (except from a business relationship perspective)?? Are you saying that Beeb employees received freebie tickets from whoever then claimed the face value back from the BBC??? if so that’s just outright fraud
thud:
Surely you would not deny the denizens of the beeb some of lifes finer things to relieve a little stress?
When they are getting the salaries quoted in the report then I think they can probably afford their own counsellors to relieve their stress. Or just light up a spliff? Or buy a few ounces of the white stuff? No?
WHY is this a story?.
Barry | 13.05.08 – 10:56 am | #
Because the BBC isn’t anything like a large shareholder owned organisation. If it was it would have been dead and buried long ago.
Humbert Wolfe’s famous lines, slightly amended:
“You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God! the Beeboid journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
Off topic, but Caroline Flint walked into a Cabinet meeting with her speaking notes in her hand, which were clearly legible in the photographs. Apart from the content and the utter idiocy of it, according to Guido’s blog it’s a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
Times? Front page.
Telegraph? Lead story
Sun? Front page
BBC? Third item tucked away on the Politics page
“I don’t understand this? The entertainment is provided and paid for by KPMG or whoever – it’s nothing to do with the BBC as an organisation”.
Doesn’t stop them claiming overtime,taxis,using the BBC phones etc.
Most unlike getting a free plug for one’s new book, of course!
well it’d be pretty crap corporate entertainment that didn’t pick you up and i’m not sure why you’d need to use your work phone while watchinh elton john – if they’re claiming overtime though it’s a scandal
The BBC is not a private-sector commercial company – it is a public body more like a government department and as for all other public servants, there are – and certainly ought to be – strict rules about acceptance of, limits on and declaration of gifts by our …ahem…publio servants at the BBC.
I think it a shame that Boy Thompson cannot afford a razor or didn’t at least manage a freeby shave and polish at the barber’s.
So this is why the BBC big-wigs fight tooth and nail to keep the licence fee.
“Naturally they take all these onerous tasks on the chin, such is their commitment to providing us with a public service without compare. Raise a glass of champagne to the pigs with their snouts in the trough of your financial largesse.”
Wow David, you use your tongue purdier than a twenty-dollar whore.
Cockney,
Say you were the producer, presenter or DJ of a taxpayer subsidizes TV or radio show.Your show is the lifeblood of the music industry,record companies,agents,managers, music publishers fight for your favours.
Need free concert tickets,free records,free books,”I’m from the BBC”.
You have to see it in action to believe it.
Or alternateively,”Let the BBC pay”.
Really need a whole new ‘topic’ for this –
Eddie Mair has announced that NIGEL WRENCH will, apparently, present a report later in the PM programme (13 May).
Considering his reportedly cocaine-fuelled life style, and accusations of homosexual rape, I expected that he would no longer be on the BBC’s payroll.
“I expected that he would no longer be on the BBC’s payroll.”
Why not? With his qualifications he is a shoo in.
Martin,
I think Peter has made the key point but must cover this since it tells us the je ne regret rien mentality of Al Beeb.
Wow David, you use your tongue purdier than a twenty-dollar whore.
Alex | Homepage | 13.05.08 – 4:07 pm |
Alex – the wannabe James Carville.
Keep trying son – he’s an arsehole too.
Typical BBC pigs in a trough!.
Seriously, the BBC must have to follow corporate compliance rules, this normally forces any company employee to refrain from accepting gifts, indeed the company I work for (200,000 employees in the automotive industry) has very strict rules on any freebies that other companies may wish to offer.
Indeed any gift with a value of over 30 euros has to be reported and normally the employee is forced to decline the gift.
Paradoxically the DG and his board accepting free hospitality is to my mind perfectly acceptable, the problem arises in the middle manager area, this is where the BBC should be very careful in not allowing conflict of interests to occur.
“It’s all declared” –
this is such a non-argument it’s laughable. I would fail a first year student for trying to muddy the waters by bringing up this non sequitur.
The BBC is the STATE BROADCASTER. It’s not ITV, it’s not Channel 5, however much you are trying to argue that it is (“Every large company” blah blah). It’s not ‘a large company’: it levies a tax by virtue of being the state broadcaster. As such, it’d supposed to abide by a charter, not simply by what people can force it to do through the courts.
Therefore, your argument is a non-starter. The BBC’s fat cats can be influenced by such largesse – no, I’ll say that I have no doubt whatsoever that they are being influenced, since I refuse to believe that the pigs running it are all Persil white, every last man jack of them. Not in this actual real world. And we have seen plenty of evidence that they are not.
Indeed, Patrick: more and more companies (not the BBC: real companies), to my personal knowledge, are drawing up corporate ethics manuals that specifically forbid accepting anything beyond a promotional pen.
Alex, the one with his mind in the sewer, proves this once again.
Check the comment above:
Alex | Homepage | 13.05.08 – 4:07 pm
This is the pro-BBC ‘argument’, that is to say, no argument at all. They have nothing apart from insults with which to retaliate.
Check the comment above:
Alex | Homepage | 13.05.08 – 4:07 pm
This is the pro-BBC ‘argument’, that is to say, no argument at all. They have nothing apart from insults with which to retaliate.
The BBC isn’t biased, you’re biased, you’re all a bunch of Daily Mail readers, everybody is naturally biased, stop complaining.
That pretty much sums it up.
Alex,
Being a Daily Mail reader does not bar people from having opinions, indeed even Guardian readers are allowed to have opinions.
You are right to say that everyone is bias, this is normal human behaviour, yet you miss the difference between individual bias and that of a public funded company which is not allowed to show bias towards any political viewpoint.
And Alex for the record I read both the Daily Mail and the Guardian, and if you think that the Guardian is somehow less bias than the Daily Mail than I really pity you.
For rhe record, I doubt that I have EVER read the Daily Mail in my entire life. Alex is a jerk.
“Wow David, you use your tongue purdier than a twenty-dollar whore.”
How does she know?
Why not relocate the whole of the BBC to Salford? That would bring the TV tax down by a few quid. Better still, move it to India. Trash like Eastenders could be manufactured much more cheaply there, and perks for BBC staff would cost less too.
“Every large company receives freeies, etc…” Barry
Utterly disingenuous.
The BBC is not a private company, it is a public service corporation.
Even for private companies there are strict rules – go ask the taxman and companies house for starters.
If you want to substitute organisation for company then fine, but you include all organisations then, including all publicly funded ones, like the BBC, or like local government or the civil service, are you really happy for whitehall mandarins, MP’s, councillors and the rest to get these ‘perks’. That is the logic of this position.
As usual there is a rush of senior BBC executives going to the world cup, the olympics, the West Indies, China, but not too many going to public service broadcasting such as disabled games from Doncaster, what a surprise – not.
Hand on heart, never bought the Daily Mail, never read it.
Then again so what if people do, it doesn’t invalidate their right to have and express an opinion.
Up yours Alex.
Your ignorance must come from your constant reading of the Morning Star.
Nothing ever brings the TV tax down. Moving the greedy pigs to a new pen wouldn’t alter anything. They have too good a thing going to give it up.
Has anyone noticed that our population has been going up by leaps and bounds over several years?
That means that the cost of the TV tax (per individual licence) should have been coming down, assuming that not all the population gain comes from age groups that do not pay for a TV licence and that there has been some growth in households with TVs.
Has it come down? Er..em..um…no. It merely grabs more and expands in its grotesque way like some rampant weed.
The greedy boy that is the BBC works on the same principle as government departments: spend all that you were given and put in for more next year.
Spending it all this year would demonstrate your impoverished state and dire need for even more next year, whereas not spending all of this year’s, would demonstrate that you could do with less next year and thus jeopardise your hold on this sweet gravy train.
The “cuts” we hear about from time to time are not actual cuts but the merest sliver of figleaf to make them look faintly decent. They can look downtrodden and full of woe and suffering in public for the benefit of mugs like you and me, while in private whooping it up and grinning from ear to ear like the cat that got the cream. For they surely have.
Not umtil we get a government that sees that we don’t actually need this greedy monster with its comical and outdated ambition to rule the world, will anything effective be done to clip its wings. There is no government, even on the far horizon, that will do that, I’m sorry to say.
The BBC (when it suits it) positions itself above commercialism. Indeed, its liberal-luvvie disdain for capitalism and the real world of business, precludes it from having a seat at corporate jollies. Being a wholly Govt-funded organisation, it does not have to endure the commercial rigours of the real world so any justifications using that analogy are ridiculous.
Why don’t we just stop paying them ?
A campaign of non-compliance would topple the whole sorry edifice.
I have never paid the TV license fee – 18 successful years of ‘evasion’ so far, which has only come to an end because I’m emigrating.
All it takes is the courage to tell some stupid officious little worm from Crapita he can’t enter your house.
Apply some Molon Labe to the situation, baiting minor bureacrats with clipboards should be your duty as a free person.
“Has anyone noticed that our population has been going up … That means that the cost of the TV tax (per individual licence) should have been coming down..”
I can’t believe that all those drivers without tax or insurance are paying their BBC Tax very year. If you aren’t bothering to pay one, you probably aren’t bothering to pay the other.
“Every large company receives freeies, etc…”
It’s not the “company” (i.e. the BBC)that’s receiving anything, it’s the INDIVIDUALS.
There’s no tax/benefit implications for them (although there might be for the company paying) – it’s a gift – and in most if not all cases it’s not a handing over of tickets, it’s corporate entertainment. i.e. the staff of the company providing it go along as well and everyone has a good chat and some champers. Some commentators seem to think this is a brown envelope Neil Hamilton thing?? This is absolutely standard stuff to oil the wheels of business – some idiots might moan from a quasi-socialist screw the rich perspective but this stuff benefits all firms concerned.
The ONLY objection here is from the public service perspective – whether taxpayers money might be misspent AFTER the event because someone has got pissed and commissioned something dodgy. And in the circumstances I think that makes it at best fully discloseable and at worst ill-advised for BBC staff to partake in.
But to suggest its some sort of hugely controversial scandal…..
“This is absolutely standard stuff to oil the wheels of business”
Drivel. As I have said, and you clearly are incapable of grasping, this sort of thing is frowned on more and more in the real world of business, which you know nothing about (cf. the ethics manuals I’ve mentioned) – and the BBC is NOT ‘BUSINESS’. It’s a STATUTORY PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTER funded by a TAX.
“some idiots might moan from a quasi-socialist screw the rich perspective” –
some ignorant tossers like you might moan that we are smearing your holy BBC, having been incapable of reading and understanding the arguments posted above and trying to explain this to you in vain.
To call me, and others like me who own and run companies, ‘quasi-socialist’ who want to ‘screw the rich’, is dumb and ignorant. No surprise there, then.
NO – you’re talking absolute and complete toss.
The process of business entertainment goes on every day and is completely above board. It’s a reasonably pleasurable way of keeping in touch with your clients.
Presumably in your imaginary ‘real world of business’ the executive boxes at Stamford Bridge, the corporate boxes at the O2, the hospitality tents at Wimbledon and Henley are all being crushed under the disapproval of ‘proper’ business. You’ve never taken a client to dinner (or been taken)? Gone to an event? Done some activity together? Well I guess it depends on what your company does, but some of us work in industries where it’s absolutely essential. I don’t need anything ‘explaining’:-D
I am aware that the BBC is a public service funded by a tax, hence the caveats which I very clearly set out in my post. I guess the other side of that view is that if socialising with providers (at their, rather than taxpayer’s expense) improves that relationship it may well free up more valuable management time for other issues?
Excuse my flippancy re: ‘screw the rich’ but some objections really seemed to come from the perspective that a Beeb bloke got to see Elton John for free and the taxpayer didn’t, coupled with a fundamental misunderstanding as to how this stuff works and the benefits it provides.
I guess the other side of that view is that if socialising with providers (at their, rather than taxpayer’s expense) improves that relationship
Cockney I’m afraid the situation in UK indistry has changed somewhat dramatically from what you may be remembering from past experience. Many Companies including my own now are paranoid about the ethical issues surrounding the acceptance of anything more than the minimum hospitality. The Code of Conduct reads:
Do not accept gifts, hospitality or other entertainment of a nature that would be open to misinterpretation if publicly disclosed.
I would add that the threshold for acceptance is low. You also have to beware of the taxman. If Company A donates seats at the Opera to Company B who then gives them to an employee, the employee will be deemed to have received a taxable benefit from the employer.
However, we know that those in the BBC will not be evading tax on any of their freebies and that the provision of set freebies does not influence the member of staff in any way, shape or form.
Sorry Cockney I just don’t buy it.
If you follow your logic then MPs, local councillors, council chief executives, whitehall mandarins and the like, all paid for by tax to do public service, would get these benefits as standard too with no complaints – but they definitely should not.
If the BBC employees concerned want such ‘freebies’ they should work in the commercial world, go work for ITV, Virgin or Sky, not a public service.
Also I suggest you look up the tax rules for the acceptance of gifts and the rules of many organisations on the acceptance of gifts in the commercial world.
You will find it is much less widespread than once it was and it almost always has to be justified to a much higher standard.
Cockney,
Let us hope that the BBC do not have any investment/property interests in the US or Germany, if they do then local laws will have to be adhered too, that means that any hint of inproprierty such as cashing in the difference between the supposed cost of the air ticket purchased and the real cost would fall foul of local laws.
The nature of my job means that I spend plenty of time travelling around Europe, and I am given a set limit per day for food, can you guess what it is?………21 euros!, if I am visiting a subsidiary of my company, I am not allowed to even accept lunch in the canteens as it would be a clear breach of the compliance rules.
These compliance rules are used by ALL multi-national companies and most large national companies, perhaps public sector organisations do not have to adhere to these rules, however, it is clear that the BBC really needs to get it’s house in order and formalise some for of Ethics and Compliance guidelines, without these guidelines I fail to see how the BBC can be correctly audited which means it cannot achieve it’s ISO certifications.
Arthur, PKB
I’m now getting confused whether everyone is referring to public servants specifically or industry generally. If the former I’m in agreement that it’s inappropriate to accept hospitality. Whilst the Beeb is a special case, transacting as it does with private firms on a regular basis I’d certainly be tighter than seems to be the case.
If more general – dunno what industry everyone else is in and obviously there’s certain circumstances where ethical concerns apply (the more immoral venues and four figure lunches have dropped off considerably 🙁 ) but there’s no decline in wholesome evenings out at the footy/concerts etc. I was at the Champions League semi the other week unless I dreamt it, off to Switzerland for the Euros next month and am currently desperately trying to get out of the horror that is a day at Wimbledon.
FYI if you attend such an event at the request and cost and in the company of another firm it is a non taxable gift (it’s very rare for tickets just to be handed over). If you attend at the request of your own firm to host clients that’s not a taxable benefit – it’s work. The COMPANY however does not get a corporate tax deduction for any costs attributable to client or third party entertainment, although the lines are pretty arguable usually.
“The nature of my job means that I spend plenty of time travelling around Europe, and I am given a set limit per day for food, can you guess what it is?………21 euros!”
Patrick (Bonn) | 14.05.08 – 1:50 pm | #
And I’m sure it’s exactly the same for the board! Sounds to me like some people are either working for the wrong company or aren’t quite as successful as they’d like to think.
Cockney posts the usual tosh:
“NO – you’re talking absolute and complete toss”
No, Cockney: it’s actually you talking drivel. Read Dent’s post, and indeed my previous ones. You are living in some parallel reality. In recent years, I have come across dozens of new corporate ethics guides drawn up by my customers and suppliers. All of them devote page after page to hammering home the point that employees are NOT permitted to accept gifts above the value of a promotional pen. This includes NO tickets to events, NO expensive meals, no valuable gifts.
As Dent correctly points out, American legislation is VERY strict on this kind of thing (I know less about the precise situation in Germany, but from what I do know about Germany I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even tighter).
Furthermore, company employees must declare these things to the board, which is appointed by the shareholders. The BBC is NOT a commercial company, which is the analogy you are desperately and misleadingly trying to push – it’s a PUBLIC body. Therefore, it is ultimately answerable to the public. But the BBC quite openly tells the public every day of the week: F*** you, we are NOT going to comply with the charter, we are going to behave corruptly and do anything and everything we f*** well please.
If you are OK with this state of affairs, it tells all of us who are not beeboids everything we need to know about you.