Former BBC newsreader Michael Buerk, quoted in the Telegraph:
“If you’ve been hired because you are young and pretty, because you are mincingly camp, because you’ve ticked a particular ethnic box and then you are no longer young and pretty or the fashions have moved on and you suddenly don’t have a job – get over it. It’s showbusiness… The problem is that at the other extreme of the argument. The idea of putting people on television – which is a non-job, that is terribly well paid, where you don’t have to think too much, or work too hard – and giving people those jobs purely on the ground that we need another six Asians, or we need another six lesbians, or we need another six pensioners, is to my mind almost worse.”
He makes the comments in a programme about ageism in television presented by former BBC Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly for ITV Tonight which, as the name suggests, is on ITV tonight.
As Guest Who puts it in the open thread, it’s time for offence-taking luvvies to “flounce up your engines” again. Which bit do you think the twitterati will get most angry about? The references to well paid non-jobs? The phrase “mincingly camp”? The bit about lesbians, or Asians, or pensioners? Should be fun. [Gets popcorn]
“Mincingly Camp”! Love it! It won’t be that, will it – it is a prerequisite for BBC employment, isn’t it? Most of them have practiced (and practised) campness and all the ancillary activities for years…
Ha, ha, he must be a fan of Martin’s comments.
Come back , Martin, all is forgiven !
Never mind – no matter how eager the BBC is to have a truly representative amount of blind Asian lesbian pirates, one particular demographic will never be welcome at the BBC no matter how many times it’s pointed out that what with the Tories being the biggest party in Parliament, that does kind of suggest there are at some conservatives out there.
There are no Conservative out there, there are just misguided people who didn’t vote labour because they didn’t understand why Labour were really in the right. Now the two Eds are in charge Labour is rejuvenated and ready for power, the Conservative party’s popularity is already decreasing and Labour will rule again…… Sorry I came over all BBC for a moment.
Heh. How does one flounce up an engine? It rather sounds as if Michael Buerk is doing his own bit of flouncing yet again. I used to see him on the train occasionally, although to be fair, he wasn’t flouncing.
Mr Buerk rightly points to the politically discriminatory policies of the BBC in employment;at the BBC, talent and abiltiy are to be superseded by their social engineering, if we let them get away with it.
Looks the lesbian comment got most attention on Twitter, but even then not much. Apparently the Guardian’s Deborah Orr said something critical about Lauren Laverne and the 10 O’Clock Show and that appears to have been the outrage du jour among the twidiots.