Rumbling on
The headlines today are, well, challenging for the Beeb:
- My grandfather is distraught…now sack these sickos, says the Sun
- Brown turns up heat on Ross, at the Mail
- Brown demands action from BBC over lewd stars, says the Telegraph
- Clamour grows for BBC to act over radio insults, says the Times
And that’s just those that lead with it on their front page.
Much of the ire is, understandably, being directed at Ross and Brand, but for my money Iain Dale has it right here, where he points out that since it was pre-recorded much of the responsibility must lie with producer, editor and station controller. Sky also have a good interview with former DJ Roger Gale, arguing against making a scapegoat of out of a junior staff member. As he puts it, It’s the people at the top that set the trend, not those low down the food chain.
This Guardian piece also has some interesting background that helps explain why this could be be good news for those that want to see reform at the Beeb:
Unfortunately for the BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, the furore has coincided with the endgame in a debate about the future of public service broadcasting post-2012. Ofcom will deliver its conclusions in January.
Critics said the BBC’s slow response and the confusing reviews now in motion showed the weakness of its regulatory system, which was overhauled after the Hutton inquiry, and its compliance regime, supposed to have been tightened after last year’s fakery rows and phone-in scandals.
Who knows, it could even lead to suggestions that the BBC actually monitor compliance with other charter commitments, such as to impartiality.
UPDATE: Brand and Ross have been suspended – and after three days the Beeb has managed to find Mark Thompson. The number of complaints has now topped 18,000. Even the Guardian’s Michael White suggests the Beeb tends to be a little slow to admit its mistakes.
UPDATE 2: Brand has quit.
UPDATE 3: Sorry, but just one final thought on this: the Beeb are making much of the fact that Radio 1 listeners don’t see what the fuss is about – it’s a generational thing, innit – the logic being that if enough people think it’s funny then it’s okay to ring up someone to inform them that you’ve f***ed their granddaughter. And then broadcast the results against their wishes. I think I understand the principle the Beeb is trying to develop, but I’m a little unsure of how it’s meant to be applied: is it only former cast members of Fawlty Towers we can do it with, or any license fee payer? And is it just granddaughters, or are they allowed to ring me to inform me that one of their staff members has f****ed by daughter – provided, of course, that the youth audience chortle?
Archduke – i post as an individual, with no allegiance to any party or media organisation. The liberal in the moniker (once wine, now mike because jeffd will tell you that is my BBC name) is part of an insult i’ve heard leveled at liberals.
Chubby Brown has been on the bbc though. He played the mayor of Royston Vasey, which is of course his real name. Sorry to fact you so hard.
Well, much as it pleases me to see a Beeboid kicked out, can we know all mourn the fact that political correctness has finally taken over this country for good?? How do we go about reversing it?? I am almost scared to even open my mouth now for fear of offending someone (hope that doesn’t offend anyone).
c4 news tonight seem to be enjoying it… top news item.
love it.
after all the bbc poo-pooing of their dispatches series, this is revenge well worth savouring.
billybob | 29.10.08 – 8:06 pm
you’re missing the point ..
the andrew sachs call was P.C. – because he’s just a retired jew and fair game.
this is a kick in the balls for the P.C. crowd.
get my drift?
and heres something to mull over – and was pointed out elsewhere – how come brand and woss never did a prank call to Omar Bakri?
answer is : he’ll send some thugs to chop their heads off.
oh right – lets pick on andrew sachs..
it touched a nerve with the british public – that sense of “fair play” .. and being decent.
and the nerve was deep DEEP down…
if anything – this episode has reaffirmed my love for my adopted country , which is England.
just shows that there are decent folks out there..
and that woss and brand are not representative of their country.
i for one, will sleep easier tonight. england has made its voice known. long may it continue.
I notice there is a Facebook group to support Ross and Brand. Apparently Georgina Baillie was boasting about being mentioned on the Russel Brand show and even posted links to it on the Satanic Sluts site. Odd how she suddenly found it offensive. Still, the PC furore has certainly helped her career.
billybob: I hate the BBC and the scum that works there. Today is a good day for me. May there be many more.
Smoke and mirrors. Brand is going nowhere. You seriously think he quit from his own volition?
No. Brand has been cut a nice cozy deal and asked to walk the plank so he can resurface in some later BBC output like a turd in a sewer.
They also think that this will stop everyone baying for Ross’s blood, which is who they are trying to protect.
Expect the BBC to start the suggestions that Ross will be penalised for it monetarily, and they will then suppress FOI so no-one finds out that Ross will be paid exactly the same as always.
And none of this has had ANYTHING to do with the British public or the blogsphere. This is all down to the true controlling force of British action – the media.
Martin – It too hope there will be many more, but I hope it doesn’t have the side-effect of promoting an entirely politically correct society. That would be a real worry.
billybob – opposing Political Correctness does not have to mean abandoning a sense of decency, respect, and justice.
Ahhh….but Bland HAS GOT AWAY WITH IT!!!
He is on tour in America as from next week, no doubt laughing all the way to the bank.
So today is a “victory” of sorts, but until the telly tax is abolished/reformed, they will remain small victories 🙁
“Well, much as it pleases me to see a Beeboid kicked out, can we know all mourn the fact that political correctness has finally taken over this country for good??”
What has this got to do with political correctness? Do you think that BBC employees can telephone license fee payers,for such is Andrew Sachs, and take the piss out of them in furtherance of their employment?
Sorry,but if they did it to me I would shove Brand so far up Ross’s arse you’d never get the smile off either of their faces.
Beeb still trying to defend what happened on their website with remarks like the following:
“….many younger listeners are asking what the fuss is about. Calls and texts to Radio One’s Newsbeat have mostly been supportive of Brand and Ross, saying they found the remarks funny.”
Don’t you understand, Beeb? No one gives a toss what a few spotty kids think. They can have their say when they are adults, paying taxes and working. They don’t rule the world – yet – and they don’t pay telly licences.
The British public in its fury at how our economy has been trashed demanded a resignation – and got Russell Brand’s. Well played, Gordon Brown. I reckon that righteous fury at Ross and Brand’s dreadful behaviour has been stoked somewhere by Campbell and Mandelson. Is anybody keeping an eye on the economy, our jobs etc. or has Nulab done us over again?
Allan@Oslo,
Be of good cheer,the peasants have pulled one of the bastards down,the next will be easier.Time to get the tumbrels rolling.
None of the BBC’s staff has resigned, and none would do so because it would set a dangerous precedent.
In the name of ‘pushing boundaries,’ maybe our spoilt, over-indulged multi-millionaire heroes should’ve phoned Omar Bakri and given him the same spiel. Brand’s probably shagged his daughter too – she’s a bit of a sort apparently.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1736666.ece
What saddens me is that people are defending this.
Think about it.
What if they did that to any old Joe Public about their granddaughter.
These highly paid BBC employees with a £3 billion a year corporation to back them up.
Family are humiliated in front of friends and neighbours.
The gossip, the nudges, the whispers.
Where is the humanity in doing that to anyone?
What come back is there for the family?
How can anyone defend it?
“Oh but I thought it was funny…”
I say it again, it saddens me.
Newsnight was a classic tonight.
Apparently 27,000 complaints signifies a mob mentality.
But later on Maitlis tells us that R1 listeners had been in favour of Brand’s prank by a ratio of 6:1.
So let’s be clear: when it’s not in the BBC’s favour it’s called “mob mentality” but when it is then it’s an example of democracy in action?
The edition was marred by the usual bias: three comedians all agreeing that it’s a mob mentality orchestrated by The Daily Mail (despite most other newspapers leading on the story, along with BBC News itself.)
Anyone catch Newsnight tonight? Unbelievable – four disgusting Beeboids blaming some hapless middle manager… and of course the Daily Mail!
I hate the fucking BBC!
Let’s simply stop paying for it. Refuse to pay your licence.
I wonder how the Beeb would have reported it if there had been 27,000 complaints about something Bernard Manning had said while he was alive, on a different channel? Would that have been “mob mentality” too?
Blimmin’ heck, it’s like a Poujadist meeting in here. So we’ve established:
a) Andrew Sachs isn’t baying for anyone’s blood, and wants the tabloids to piss off and stop pretending he is;
b) Georgina Baillie didn’t mind the call at all at first, but is now playing the scandal up for the fame;
c) literally everyone who hates the BBC has no sense of humour. Seriously – if Roy Chubby Brown, Russell Brand, the shade of Bernard Manning, or any other halfway-amusing offensive comedian rang me up and made lewd comments about my family, I’d find that extremely funny. If you wouldn’t, that’s an excellent indication of someone with no sense of humour.
d) the fact that when they remade Fawlty Towers into Spanish, they needed to make Manuel Italian to avoid offending viewers, is a pretty clear illustration of the fact that he is an offensive caricature. If you can’t see that, then you’re an idiot. If you’re not an idiot, then you’ll understand that FT is both funny and offensive, like *every* decent piece of comedy ever.
(oh, and whoever said that because I’m not baying for the crucifixion of Brand and the abolition of the Beeb, I therefore must be a Beeb employee can clear right off. Private sector all my life, never paid a penny of public money, pathetic you need to make up smeary lies to dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree with you.)
Dr R
Yes I saw the Newsnight panel discussion. Absolutely no attempt at impartiality as ever. They don’t know when to stop digging do they.
I can’t take the humiliation anymore of being forced to pay for these creepy tossers. I canceled my direct debit today. screw them. I wont pay any more until Ross quits. Let’s see what his real market worth is.
I hope this affair might just give pause to those whose routine use of foul language and imagery so troubles many parents trying to bring up their children to reject the increasing coarseness and bullying masquerading as entertainment that disfigures our country.
The best thing any parent can do is throw the TV into a skip.
It’s influence on our children is wholly pernicious. It has no merit at all. It destroys childhood and risks exposing even the very small to the horrors of the world via graphic news which should not be part of childhood. What is the point of television?
To corrupt and deprave. And Ross Brand and the rest of the foul mouthed talentless bunch deserve to rot in hell.
The young the BBC is so desperate to enlist to excuse it’s decadence know no better.
Their opinion is worthless.
Indeed, Ross Brand sounds like a nasty piece of work. A bit off-topic though, no?
Loving the ageism on this thread. We’ve already got ‘someone aged 78 can’t have a sense of humour’; now we’ve got ‘someone aged [young enough for R1 – so I guess under 30] can’t hold a valid opinion.
John B
Is that all you can say- I missed out a comma?
Yes their opinion is worthless. Sorry but that is the way it is.
oh and in your earlier comment 1.24 point c- I just do not believe you.
In my family an insult to one is an insult to all. Just like most families in the whole wide world.
Of course you might be different.
As you say you have a sense of humour.
We’ve established that one preening gobshite moonbat is off the public teat for now and that’s a good result.
Hopefully a few more of the sneering lefty media elite will have to fall on their swords before the dust settles. If it takes the assembled ranks of ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ to apply the pressure then who cares.
I’m enjoying it greatly, although not as much as I would enjoy punching Woss and Brand right in their smug taxpayer funded faces.
As far as I’m concerned everything is a good subject for humour; the best response to an insult is humour; and those who don’t accept that are brain-dead drooling Neanderthals. Why the hell would anyone with an IQ above that of a pot-plant react to an insult in any other way than laughing dismissively at the idiot who made it?
(oh, and this Oscar Wilde quote is an excellent summary of the whole business: “the British public is never so ridiculous as when engaged in one of its periodic fits of morality”. Anyone who’d pick the Disgusteds of TW over Oscar is pretty damn limited in the ‘humanity’ department, no?)
(finally: missed HSLD’s last comment just now. What a surprise to learn you’re the sort to react to jokes with physical violence… didn’t your mum ever tell you the rhyme about sticks and stones?)
[brand_and_ross] …or was she too busy f—ing the milkman? [/brand_and_ross]
(sorry, Laban. Not at all sorry, HSLD.)
Dear John, I’m a member of the ‘decent’ working classes. We don’t view the world in the same way as metrosexual urban web designers.
In our neanderthal universe being rude to a harmless old bloke for no reason is something which hopefully earns you a smack in the mouth.
We don’t use words like ‘edgy’ and ‘challenging’ to describe that sort of behaviour, we call it ” acting like a twat ”
Thanks to the antics of your kind, tens of thousands of us will be voting for the BNP soon, mainly to spite arrogant, girly gobshites like you, who think you know best.
I hope you enjoy the unintended consequences, I’ll hopefully have emigrated before that happens.
john b – no, It never remotely dawned on us that you might be a Beeb employee. I don’t think they employee fifteen-year-olds!
Okay, so, according to Newsnight, Radio One’s listenership supported Brand and Ross in the ratio 6:1.
What does this tell us? It tells us that Radio One’s output has resulted in a coarsening of its audience. That’s what.
It’s another example of cause and effect. With not one person of standing (to my knowledge) defending Brand and Ross’s behaviour, it’s hardly a fact to cite in either their defence or the Beeb’s but one of the most powerful indictments of the Beeb’s irresistible, corrosive role in bringing about Britain’s “broken society”.
@ John B
“if Roy Chubby Brown, Russell Brand, the shade of Bernard Manning, or any other halfway-amusing offensive comedian rang me up and made lewd comments about my family, I’d find that extremely funny.”
Post your phone number then. I’ll make sure it gets sent to some EXCELLENT comedians.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt 30.10.08 – 7:52 am
What does this tell us? It tells us that Radio One’s output has resulted in a coarsening of its audience. That’s what.
Exactly.
The fools have given us the proof we need: Radio 1 has a proven tendency to deprave and corrupt minors.
Now will the Conservative Party please promise to close it … along with Radio 2…and BBC3…. down?
John b:
Can I just say that last week I fucked your mother, and I had your grandmother up against the wall. You might want to kill yourself now, but that’s fine.
If you can e-mail me your phone number I’d be happy to ring you up and leave more information about the rest of your sexually promiscuous family. Because you’re clearly up for a laugh.
Sorry John, when you read the above post can you do so in a Russel Brand type voice and also mispronounce all your ‘R’s’
You might not take it as a joke otherwise.
KtB: that was quite a good effort of you last week, considering my family situation – could I get the number of your necromancer?
(also, your email address doesn’t seem to be visible, and I’m slightly reluctant to give my phone number to a bloke who wants to punch me in the head – but if you post it I’ll give you a shout and see if you can keep up the good work in answerphone form…)
that’s “post my phone number in a public forum also read by a BNP-supporting thug who wants to punch me in the head”, in case you were wondering.
john b:
How’s the “BNP supporting thug” going to get your address from your phone no.?
In fact, from your posts I’d reckon your average “BNP supporting thug” has more sense of decency than you seem to possess, so I doubt what you think would happen actually would.
Go on post your phone no.
I’d bet all that happens is….nothing.
Thug I might be, by your lights. BNP supporter I am not.
That’s why I hope I’m abroad before they get a mandate to make the trains run on time.
Sorry, misread your definition of “us”. You’re clearing out (where to, approximately? Alabama would seem to fit your cultural worldview), whereas people *like* you are voting for the BNP to annoy people like me. Not because they hate the Muslims and the blacks, or anything.
(and ‘sense of decency’ – hmm. If it’s the kind of ‘sense of decency’ that involves using physical violence other than as a response to physical violence, then I’m glad I haven’t got one…)
john b:
people *like* you are voting for the BNP to annoy people like me
Well you annoy the hell out of me. So why can’t I annoy you?
You seem to not like bigots but imply that everybody in Alabama is of one kind or that the BNP is associated with acts of violence (I’m assuming you were on about the BNP and not the muslims). Can you not see what a hypcritical, bigotted fool you are?
Mind you, anybody who can take offence at Sachs’ Manuel character must be a bit off the scale.
You’re welcome to annoy me. But doing so by voting for people who want to kick out the blacks and the Muslims seems a bit harsh on the blacks and the Muslims, compared to calling me a w**ker or something.
I’m going on fact rather than bigotry. The BNP *is* associated with acts of violence – a sizeable proportion of its leaders and activists have convictions for such acts. Opinion polls and election results show that if you have very conservative political views, Alabama *is* a place where you’ll find more like-minded people than the UK.
And I don’t ‘take offence’ at Manuel, any more than I take offence at Brand and Ross or at Peep Show or South Park, or KtB upthread. I’m just capable of understanding that objectively, they’re doing the same thing, and if you believe one is ‘offensive’ then you’re pretty much obliged to say the same about the others.
john b | Homepage | 30.10.08 – 3:57 pm
But this issue isn’t about whether what Brand & Ross did was “offensive”.
It’s about whether it was wrong.
Which is a quite different matter.
I do not feel offended by Ross and Brand’s programme. But I still think both should be banned from ever appearing on the BBC again.
They certainly broke the rules. They quite possibly broke the law. Even they admit that what they did was wrong.
People want them fired because they did wrong, not because they’ve ‘taken offence’ at a joke.
johnb:
e-mail your phone number to rapidmotionfilms@yahoo.com. I will do my utmost to deliver an hilarious Brand/Ross type diatribe on which member of your family I have fucked if you remember to leave your answer machine on. When that member of your family returns home, please play it back and then report to us how hysterical they found it, or which police station they intend to report it too.
Tom – that’s the issue in your opinion. It’s not the issue according to a large proportion of the other complainers. (and no, they didn’t break the law).
KtB – sent.
john_b said: “It’s not the issue according to a large proportion of the other complainers. (and no, they didn’t break the law).”
The law – Which one: The Malicious Communications Act 1988, The Protection From Harassment Act 1997 or The Telecommunications Act of 1984?