There is an excellent article by Melanie Phillips here on the way in which the BBC has handled the Carol Thatcher issue, well worth a read. As Melanie points out it is the totalitarian mindset of BBC1 Controller Jay Hunt which is so deeply disturbing, they just cannot see how arrogant and prejudicial they really are!
GOLLY GOSH!
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Grant | 05.02.09 – 11:52 pm |
I suppose that the BBC would not want you to know this, seeing how he has been built up by the media to be a hero of the nanny state.
Peace Nick
I wonder if the swastika transfers on german Airfix model airplane kits are going to be banned. These surely are offensive to someone?
In the absence of a more up to date open thread.
BBC accused of pay ‘gagging order
BBC radio shows cost “significantly” more than their commercial rivals, mainly because of celebrity presenters’ large salaries, the public spending watchdog has said.
The National Audit Office (NAO) revealed the discrepancy in a report, commissioned by the BBC Trust, into the efficiency of the corporation’s radio output.
It also discovered major variations in costs between apparently similar radio programmes on the BBC’s various stations, including that music programmes on Radio 2 were 54% more expensive than those on Radio 1 and more than double the cost of those on Radio 3.
The BBC refused to give the watchdog access to details of presenters’ salaries without an agreement not to disclose the information. The head of the NAO, Auditor General Tim Burr, declined to enter into a deal which would place “constraints” on its ability to report his findings.
Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, called on the BBC to explain the comparatively high costs and described the non-disclosure of presenters’ salaries as “scandalous”.
He added: “This is equivalent to the BBC trying to impose a gagging order on the NAO and goes to show the utter inadequacy of the current arrangements for Parliamentary scrutiny of this publicly funded organisation.”
The NAO found that the “bulk” of programme costs was taken up by staff remuneration. On breakfast shows, 77% of staff costs related to presenters. On drive-time programmes, the proportion was 79%.
The independent watchdog said the BBC had found £11.7 million of efficiency savings in the three years to March 2008, more than its £11.6 million target.
In declining to disclose presenters’ salaries, the BBC told the NAO it was constrained by the Data Protection Act as well as confidentiality clauses in some staff contracts.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23635518-details/BBC+accused+of+pay+%27gagging+order%27/article.do
They are paid by the taxpayer which means the taxpayer has a right to know what these arsewipes are getting.
If Dave’s Tories can’t see what is required then they don’t deserve to get elected.
Oh, another instance of BBC offence that didn’t result in a sacking was mentioned online today: Clarkson apparently used the word “gay” in a derogatory way a couple of years ago.
There we go: the examples of double standards pile up.
Jay Hunt
TPO 10:09
Thanks for these links. I have posted some comments, under another name.
TPO
I think the article (at least in last night’s Evening Standard) went on to say that 500 – yes 500 – presenter types were getting more than £100,000 ?
Or maybe it was just 300 of the scroungers.
TomTom
Buried in that article on the repulsive harridan Jay Hunt is mention that Radio 5 costs us £220 MILLION a year.
How can they possibly spend two-thirds of a million a day to keep that stuff going ? Much of it is VERY cheap-format stuff, kinda chat radio with a news feed derived free from elsewhere in the BBC.
Privatise it ! Or cut its budget to a million a week tops.
TPO – in small doses. Her self-deprecating irony is quite amusing.
My ‘Ulp!’ was a ‘by eck we’re all for the can now’ kind of comment. I probably should have sacked 80-90% of the people working for me, if this is anything to go by. Particularly the gays, they were so mean to the lezzers. If I hadn’t been laughing so much I dare say I could have found some policy or other which meant it was verboten.
PS I do find the grassing aspect of this a bit ugly. If someone says something you don’t like, you simply say to their face ‘I’d rather you didnt say things like that’ and that’s the end of it.
By making a complaint about it, peoples’ hands become tied…
How do peo[ple’shands become tied ?
It is plain that BBC management – specifically Jay Hunt – decided to make a bloody great issue about the Thatcher remark.
When the story broke, it was clear that Thatcher was sounding apologetic. But as far as I have seen and heard, Jay Hunt wanted her to grovel.
That is – effectively to grovel to the likes of Adrian Chiles, Jo Brand and Jay Hunt herself.
Ms Hunt has made the BBC look stupid. Again.
With many more tens of thousands of licence-payers pissed off.
JohnA all I am saying is that it seems obvious to me that someone, somewhere wanted to make a scene about it, so rather deal with the matter directly and discretely, they have complained. And it becomes more difficult to avoid the people who want to make a song and dance about it then. Jay Hunt may or may not be one of those people, dont know, never met her.
rather than deal
‘Mail’
Littlejohn:
“Isn’t it time the Golliwog Squad grew up?”
[Extract]:
“It’s all so arbitrary and there’s no sense of proportion. For instance, the BBC can get away with impunity broadcasting jokes about the Queen’s front bottom, but Sandringham selling golliwog souvenirs is considered to be a hanging offence.
Isn’t it time everyone grew up?”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1136904/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Isnt-time-Golliwog-Squad-finally-grew-up.html
‘Mail’
“I DID say sorry before I was sacked: Carol Thatcher in fresh attack on BBC over ‘golliwog’ remark”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1136005/I-DID-say-sorry-I-sacked-Carol-Thatcher-fresh-attack-BBC-golliwog-remark.html
‘Mail’
‘How dare these guilt-tripping BBC liberals patronise us’
(Lindsay Johns)
[Extract]:
“The sacking of Carol Thatcher is a gargantuan over-reaction by the BBC. It is the worst sort of gesture politics, reflecting not the gravity of the offence but the hysterical self-righteousness of a bunch of white, guilt-tripping BBC executives.
“Far from helping the cause of equality, which the BBC loudly declares to be its aim, this move could worsen race relations by treating black people as nothing more than a group of helpless victims who need the constant protection of hyper-sensitive, politically correct censors.
“As a black writer and broadcaster, I find the BBC’s stance patronising and divisive.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1137185/LINDSAY-JOHNS-How-dare-BBC-liberals-patronise-us.html
George R | 06.02.09 – 12:35 pm |
Jay Hunt already said that Carol Thatcher’s apology wasn’t good enough. That’s what’s really troubling. When pressed about Jonathan Ross, she said that whereas he was obviously very sincere in his apology, realizing that his kidding around had gone too far, Thatcher maintained that she was kidding around.
But Hunt said that she doesn’t believe her. She says that “by nobody’s reckoning” – in other words, the green room Stasi informers – was Thatcher joking. Without knowing what was actually said, it’s impossible to know for sure. We just have to take Jay Hunt’s word that Thatcher “called him a golliwog.” Saying it just like that, it seems unlikely. But how did that come up in conversation?
The implication of what Hunt says, though, is that Thatcher meant to be racist, and is now denying it. Her apology that it was a joke in poor taste, not meant to offend, is simply not good enough.
One other key element we don’t know is, did the BBC bosses spell out the kind of apology that would save Thatcher’s job, and did she refuse for some reason? And does anyone truly believe that any apology would have been acceptable? Maybe Tessa Finch wanted her to stand in the lobby wearing a sign that read, “I am a racist who has disgraced myself, my comrades, and the BBC. I humbly seek forgiveness, for which I am unworthy.”
Yet the same kind of Beeboids are angry when one of their colleagues is fired for lying to and stealing money from viewers. I hope there really are a few senior management figures who see this as a path they don’t want to follow.
The Thatcher story has lasted till Friday – so it will be re-run in the weekend press.
Making Ms Hunt look more and more like a vindictive narrow-minded tosser. And overpaid. The classic Peter Principle character.
For heaven’s sake – she is Controller of the main BBC TV channel, she has demeaned herself, made herself look ridiculous by this affair. People will be laughing at her idiocy all over the TV world.
She isn’t worth mentioning in the same context as former Controllers like Billy Cotton Junior – a genius at finding and backing great entertainment – or David Attenborough in his genius time as first Controller of BBC2. T
hey had agendas that were worthwhile, that served the licence-payers, that made the BBC great. Ms Hunt simply has a warped PC agenda.
Sarah Jane
Jay Hunt could have decided to play the whole thing down, accept the original apology.
Instead, she has blown the whole thing out of proportion, made herself and the BBC look stupid.
In any commercial outfit she would be sanctioned or even sacked for damaging the brand.
Yes she could. And it could have not even got that far if a bit of common sense had prevailed. Maybe the Exec Producer did try and calm it down, its all ifs, buts and maybes.
Too bad, turkeys voting for Xmas seems to be the order of the day.
‘Mail’
“Boris backs Thatcher over ‘golliwog’ sacking as complaints at BBC treatment soar to 3300”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138106/Boris-backs-Thatcher-golliwog-sacking-complaints-BBC-treatment-soar-3300.html
George R | 06.02.09 – 8:33 pm |
Boris Johnson is exactly the kind of obtuse patrician who thinks racial humor is merely light-hearted banter which cannot be offensive. When he was editor of the Spectator, he did one of those Diary entries about going to some wedding in India of one of his wife’s relations. He did a low-rent version of “fish out of water”. Any finger-pointing and giggling could be brushed aside, as, after all, he’s married to one of them and so can’t be bigoted.
But, while describing the flight back, he mentioned a Chinese flight attendant, and quoted her while writing in “velly solly, Cholly” patois. I’d say this is almost the equivalent of what The One Show Maoists are accusing Carol Thatcher of doing. I’ve seen Johnson make similar insensitive ramblings. Funnily enough, this was was the week after he wrote about being puzzled as to why some passer-by on the street had called him a cµ#.
Of course, since we don’t know the actual offending remark, I can’t say if Jay Hunt’s version is correct, or if it was a comment about resemblance. That makes a difference, but either way Boris Johnson is quite possibly the least useful defender they could possibly find. Especially for those who might think that, while Thatcher probably needed a wake-up call about being a little more aware, she did not deserve to be fired for failing to apologize in the approved fashion.
Boris Johnson seems have altered his views since he started working for the BBC (series on Islam). I preferred the old Boris Johnson. Below is an extractfrom his book (2006 edition) ‘Have I got Views For You’ p149 follows:
‘Militant Islam has been shielded from proper discussion by cowardice, political correctness and a racist assumtion that we should priviledge the beliefs of a minority, even when they appear to be mediaeval. It is time the discussion was opened up not just to reason, but to reason’s greatest ally, humour. Instead of banning the discussion of the 72 virgins of paradise, the alleged need of the suicide bomber, would it not be much more efficient to make fun of this ludicrous claim?’
Muslim Wars | 08.02.09 – 11:04 am
Yes, somewhere towards the end of his tenure at the Spectator, Boris got overwhelmed with Blair Derangement Syndrome. He did a 180 on a few things, simply because of Blair’s association with them.