Monthly Archives: October 2010

The extremist mindset of the boys and girls of the BBC is laid bare in an exchange of letters between a few highly-paid BBC “stars” who do not want to strike next week and those who do. Those “stars” – led by the likes of James Naughtie and Jeremy Paxman (paid, of course, massive salaries out of your money) – say that the NUJ strike, aimed at blacking out Dave Cameron’s speech at his party conference, should not go ahead because it will demonstrate political bias. Putting aside for a second the risibility of the idea that the BBC is not biased, the reponse from Ian Pollock, the BBC NUJ branch chairman, illustrates graphically the cloud cuckoo-land nature of the BBC worldview. He says:

“Frankly, I do not take kindly to non-members trying to unpick democratically taken decisions (NB, only a tiny fraction of the 17,000 workforce voted for the strike)…There is a simple fact…the other political conferences would have been targeted too but fell outside our scope because of the long-winded niceties of calling strikes. Not one NUJ member…has suggested targeting the Tories because we don’t like them(!)…They simply happen to be the first in line….If you have better tactical suggestions for conducting strikes…I will be glad to hear them. But I have to tell you that taking Shaun the Sheep cartoons off air will not cut the mustard.”

Many years ago, I was a BBC NUJ father of the chapel. Even by the standards of demented BBC militancy and arrogance, this takes the biscuit.

The greenie news editors at the BBC salivate every time they hear about plans to build a nuclear power station. It’s their chance to create more anti-development propaganda. The subject matter today is Sri Lanka, one of the poorer countries on this earth, with a GDP per head of around £3,500. They desperately need cheap energy to make their lives more comfortable and to generate more wealth.

So when the Sri Lanka government decides to build a nuclear power station to help ameliorate poverty, what is the BBC response? Simples, as they say. Let’s talk to a few greenie agitators and stir up a rumpus. The story is specially risible, even by the corporation’s standards set by Black, Harrabin and co. First, the island is “too small” for a nuclear power plant. That will be an island that is 25,000 square miles (more than a quarter of the size of the UK). Second, there’s enough power available from “renewables”. Cobblers. Here’s the latest report on why the said renewables will never be economically viable, anywhere.

What the BBC really wants is to keep Sri Lanka in a permanent poverty, trapped in the European middle class greenie idyll of “sustainable” and “ecologically sound”. What’s completely missing from this story is – predictably – any mention of the case for providing cheap, affordable energy. But then the BBC is not in the business of providing balanced coverage of such matters.