Did you see that David Cameron has hit out at the BBC for whingeing about his Government’s cuts.
The Prime Minister blasted the ‘British Broadcasting Cuts Corporation’ for publicising every reduction in spending without properly explaining why efficiencies were necessary. Downing Street is understood to be increasingly frustrated with the way the corporation is reporting the Government’s austerity programme. Mr Cameron made his comment after giving an interview to a BBC reporter on youth unemployment.
The interview took place last week, before his Middle East trip, which was overshadowed by the revelation that he was accompanied by arms dealers and by criticism that the Government was failing to get Britons out of war-torn Libya. In a parting shot, at the end of the interview, the Premier said this was a ‘good news story’ and the ‘BBCC’ should treat it as such. The reporter asked him: ‘The BBCC?’, to which Mr Cameron replied: ‘Yes, the British Broadcasting Cuts Corporation.’
We can’t have Cameron doing anything about it, it’ll only make his party look ‘toxic’ or ‘nasty’ and scare away all those former Labour voters who flocked to him at the last election, thus giving the Conservatives such a huge majority over the most unpopular Prime Minister in history. . .
I’ve absolutely no sympathy. If Cameron hasn’t got the guts to sort out the BBC, then he deserves everything they throw at him.
Stop whining and scrap the licence. And as for Patten… Words fail me.
I think that my broadcast about youth unemployment was far better than my Right Honourable friend’s.
F.U.
Only the first of the three Today paper reviews (the one at 7.15) mentioned this story.
Evan Davis read out the Sun‘s take on Cameron’s comments (from “Page 2 of The Sun“) then followed it, straight away, by reading something from “Page 4 of The Sun“, about the “disappointing” economic growth figures.
This allowed James Naughtie to snipe, “No doubt Number 10 will complain to the Sun about that story!”
(So intent was Naughtie at making this dig at Cameron that he then got the time wrong: “It’s 18 minutes past 10 now. 10?! 8,7…”!!)
It sounds from the Mail‘s article as if the prime minister blurted out the phrase “BBCC” rather as Naughtie blurted out “Jeremy _unt”. To adapt the words of the Downing Street spokesman, “the Today presenter has been using the Jeremy _unt joke privately for some time.”
I noticed that as well. Little twerp.
Good to see you back DV with your usual excellent, succinct observations.
What the Prime Minister himself has stated is one of many excellent grounds to commission a public inquiry into allegations of BBC bias.
If, like the issue of ECHR ordained prisoner voting rights, Cameron can’t get support from his Lib-Dem colleagues, then he can use this and the many other measures the Lib-Dems oppose against the popular will as a reason for dissolving the Coalition and calling another General Election.
With the issue of BBC bias very much in the ball court, addressed by Cameron in such a reasonable manner, it will make the public a lot more critically aware of the way the BBC covers things.
Won’t happen I am afraid that my original fears about Cameron look like they might be true; he’s a consensus coward.
And Cameron will do what? My bet….nothing! He doesn’t actually “do things”, he never has, no training in his youff, sad ain’t it.
whilst I agree with DV about the wimp Cameron I must say that I am constantly infuriated by the media’s constant reinforcement of the public’s infantile attitude to the economy. Surely every person interviewed whinging about the should be put on the spot to offer the alternatives (more cuts elsewhere, tax rises). Similarly everyone complaining about high taxes should be asked for alternatives. “Bankers” would not be permitted as an all purpose solution. The Mail etc can be dismissed as pathetic, but the BBC is charged with a duty to inform & educate.
Cameron should stop moaning and scrap the licence fee.
We don’t need government supplied broadcast news and entertainment any more than we need government supplied newspapers, bingo halls, cinemas and amusement arcades.
The BBC should become part of Cameron’s big society – funded by volunteers, not force fed to us by a nanny state and its hired hands who will always have the typical array of greedy, self-serving and unworldly public sector views and opinions.
So all News must revert to Soviet style lists of 5 year plans and hitting production targets.
BBC News is already sovietised, not for the current government, but for the Labour Party to which it devotes nearly all of its extensive propaganda operation’s efforts. I say nearly all as it also devotes a lot of its propaganda efforts to the UAF, SWP and the Muslim Brotherhood.
…while vilifying UKIP and the EDL.
Any democratic broadcaster should vilify the EDL, but it should also vilify Islamists as well.
The English Defence League (EDL)rightly opposes the Islamisation of Britain and the West, while the political elite in Britain(inc INBBC-NUJ and its supporters) tacitly support such Islamisation whether it be by supporting the entry of 80 million Turks into the E.U., or supporting Muslim Brotherhood and its associated organisations.
Of course, the EDL was right to oppose the poppy burning, and Islamic demonstrations against British troops on the street of Britain.
As a person who happens to be black, I have no problem with the EDL. English culture took a complete beating under the Labour Government, and it looks as though Cameron is not going to stand up for it. Apparantly they are, in the words of Jack Straw, still “not worth saving as a race”.
There are a great many wonderful things about the English and Englishness, which should be celebrated.
I agree with your last statement Foxy, but the BNP/EDL is not one of them – the reverse. They’re a nasty bunch of yobs who’ve latched on to a popular cause.
The EDL, at the very best, is semi-BNP. I would have as much truck with them as I would the SWP or Al Qa’eda.
Here is a view of English Defence League (EDL) which BBC-NUJ -UAF does not permit, because BBC-NUJ must follow its official trade union policy of political opposition to the EDL:
“Mosques, Wilders, BBC and Propaganda: Why It’s Not Working Any More”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/32834
If it was not for Islamic Extremism I really don’t think the EDL would need to exist. Its a sign of the failure of mainstream politicians to address peoples fears, understandable, they tend to live in sanitized seclusion and mass immigration will never affect them.
Personally I think the UAF are the thugs and I wonder if they really know what Fascism means.
Good to know that David Cameron reads this site. Many congratulations to all the posters.
The BBC’s licence agreement ends in 2016. From that year on the license fee should be no more.
David Cameron can convince himself that the £3.2 billion saving to the popluation would cost him the election and that it’s not worth losing the election for 3.2 billion quid. In fact, I don’t doubt that will be the calculation. However, David, it’s not your £3.2 billion, it’s ours and we’d like it back.
I know the BBC is the envy of the world and it serves up high quality fare like The News Quiz and Cash in the Attic, whereas the best HBO can scrape together (without £3.2 billion a year of free money) is Empire Boardwalk, (episode 1 directed by Scorcese).
I don’t want the BBCC 😉 to pretend to embrace impartiality by rushing out to hire half a dozen right-wingers, in the way it managed to tick the anti-ageism box by dumping Angela Rippon, Jennie someone, and some other aged relic into some consumer dross programme.
I just want it to be made to self-fund, and from 2016 onwards. And when it does that, it can be as biased as it wants, and see whether the country’s wishy-washy, soft-lefty, hopey-changies can rustle up £3.2 billion between themselves.
David Cameron, it’s no good talking the talk, you have to walk the walk.
The Scott Trust/Guardian Media Group should incorporate “Auntie” into its fold.
BBC delenda est.
Good idea!
Perhaps they could take those Crapita thugs with them, the business would thrive with Crapita thugs providing a freelance loan shark opperation and a biff bang wallop service to newsagents if they fail to sell enough grauniad rags.
All merry rats in a sewer together.
Under no circumstances would I wish to see a Great British Institution like the BBC abandoned for good to the Marxiariat.
Too late! It has already been there for years and it is looking like it is too late to bring it back.
Except, of course, there would be no saving of £3.2B.
If the BBC was made to fend for itself and the licence fee scrapped it would make no financial difference to the Government whatsoever. All £3.2B goes straight from collection to the BBC. In fact, ITIRIS, that it doesn’t even pass through the Governments accounts anymore.
We would all be better off, or at least those who now pay it, and not just to the tune of £150 (OWIS).
We. the public, would have £3.2 billion to do with what we chose rather than having it confiscated by the BBC.
There is a serious point at stake in the Beeboid Corporation’s relentless promotion of the cuts mantra. Not only is it undermining the government – which it obviously intends to do for political reasons – but it is actively creating a lack of confidence among the public in the economy which is damaging to the economy itself and the recovery at a time of national difficulty when we need all hands pulling together. So what happened to all those grand social purposes that the Beeboid Corporation supposedly adheres to, such as working for national social harmony and success?
al-beeb takes its line on coots from the TUC/Labour/Guardian axis of feeble that the coots are ‘too much, too quickly’. You see they’re all Keynesians when being a Keynesian means, ‘carry on spending’.
When being a Keynesian meant saying, ‘the economy’s booming, perhaps we should cut back on public spending’, none of them (funnily enough) were Keynesians.
Carry on spending, and a free kitten and rainbow for every citizen seems to be the ongoing mantra.
Indeed.
By relentlessly attacking the coalition government in the partisan way that it does over “cuts”, the Beeboid Corporation creates a smokescreen which shields Labour from the flak it would otherwise be getting from the public for leading us to this pretty pass. So as well as undermining confidence in and performance of the economy and the recovery, it is also interfering in and corrupting the normal political process.
as Thatcher ssid ”
There comes a time when you run out of spending other people’s money”
The BBC are working for the election of a Labour government, that is one of their main purposes.
‘such as working for national social harmony and success’
As demonstrated so well recently on such as Newsnight and other programmes, when a bunch of caught on the hop pols and civ servs were doing their best to help overseas Brits in Libya (whilst planning a few things in secret that did indeed work out quite well), but Aunty’s finest where hunting down disgruntled oil workers and TEFL grads who didn’t get an upgrade, whilst Douglas Alexander made an utter tw@t of himself and his sorry party with his 24/7 BBC-facilitated whingeing.
They seem to revel in the role of a 5th column, and yet I have to pay them to uniquely fund this activity.
If only the bias were limited to the BBC…
See eadavison.com/?p=11
Article by Tim Montgomerie on BBC, Cameron and Patten:
“Will Chris Patten lead the Tory charge against the BBC?”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8349448/Will-Chris-Patten-lead-the-Tory-charge-against-the-BBC.html
Of course, there is no mention here of Patten’s permanent enthusiasm for his European Union (and for Islamic Turkey’s entry) -which fits with BBC-EU’s political stance.
Short answer? No.
The conclusion to Tim Montgomerie’s piece:-
“The BBC’s critics within government are willing to play the long game: in a few years’ time, they say, computers and TVs will be indistinguishable in our living rooms, so those unhappy with the BBC’s coverage will be able to click the remote and watch Telegraph TV or the FT NewsHour just as easily. This coming diversity gives Tory ministers the biggest hope for the future.”
Any excuse to avoid taking the tough action necessary to restore impartiality to our publicly funded national broadcaster.
I wonder how these ever so astute ‘long game player’ Tory Ministers can explain how ‘Telegraph TV’ is going to finance a rolling 24hour news station to rival the BBC’s licence and taxpayer funded stations?
Far too many members of the public will still regard the BBC as ‘impartial’ because it has been in the past, says it still is, gets publicly funded, so if it wasn’t ‘they’ would do something about it, wouldn’t they? The huge propaganda power of BBC bias comes from its claim to impartiality and the Conservative Party treats it as if it is impartial.
I have every confidence that a public inquiry into allegations of BBC bias will produce all the evidence that is needed to justify a wholesale purge of its deeply embedded left-wing subversives and restore the BBC to the Great British Institution it once was with the enviable reputation for impartiality it once so richly deserved.
The Telegraph who are going to retreat behind a paywall in September, that will help news diversity on the web! The BBC must be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of even less competition.
I didn’t know that. It’s bad news. We’ve already lost The Times.
No Patten won’t.
Of course, ScamCam will do nothing about the bBBC. This comment was merely an attempt to keep his back-benchers onside. Crumbs for the righties to stop them rebelling over his insidious social-democracy.
Cameron – and those around him – is bound to be aware of the damage that the Beeboid Corporation is doing, not only to him and the government but to the economy and the party political process. He has every interest personally to be concerned about it without needing the backbenchers to provide a reason.
Cameron is in trouble and must be aware that the BBC is really hurting him. He may not want to do anything about it but it is looking as if he has no choice.
This is one possible scenario. The other is that all along he has been aware of the BBC but has let it incriminate itself. Too many are now noticing the bias and Cameron can now be seen to be responding to opinion rather than initiating action.
Either way he has to do something.
I spent years believing that Cameron ‘got it’ really but was just keeping his powder dry for the right moment. Then he became PM and quickly set about destroying the Armed Forces whilst increasing our contribution to the EU, and I woke up.
Here’s a thought, though: is it not in Cameron’s interest to have left-wing bias at the BBC? Imagine if the bias was to the same degree but to the right… The Conservative Party would be finished.
No harm for Craig to send a letter to Patten (addresas in Who’s Who. Oxford Uni I believe)
Copied to the outgoing Chairman ?
Patten will attempt to shift BBC-EU even more towards the European Union, in broadcasting and political terms, with Cameron approval.
“Lord Patten’s role could be to take the BBC into Europe”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/27/bbc-trust-chris-patten-european-union
“BBC fighting to protect the names of its top earners”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8349413/BBC-fighting-to-protect-the-names-of-its-top-earners.html#
To be consistent why doesn’t the BBC conceal the price of the License Fee? Instead, we are told exactly what it costs to watch these high-earners.
What they are worried about is that we might not agree with their valuation of Andrew Marr at £600,000. Some us might think, in the words of John Wayne, he is “not worth a pitcher of warm spit”
I would have preferred it if Cameron continued to say nothing.
I think that they way Cameron phrased these comments was poor. He should have attacked them for being blatantly left-wing and Tory hating, rather than a gripe that they are not following the Coalition line on cuts. The BBC and their apologists will say that Cameron is only upset because they are not pumping out Coalition propaganda.
Saying stuff like this, means that any future action against them can be framed as politically motivated. I thought that the Government’s silence on the BBC was a sensible position to take, so that it would keep them guessing what was coming. After all, you always keep your enemies guessing for as long as possible.
The National Audit office investigation should unearth some real nasties and I assumed that this would be the basis of any big changes forced on the BBC.
The problem is, that the more I think about it the more I think Cameron just won’t have the bottle to do anything about it. When you think about it, Cameron was chosen as leader because he was a difficult target to attack by Labour’s media friends, (Mainly BBC) because he is a good communicater. He probably thinks that as long as the BBC are there, that the Tory party will have to keep him or someone like him as leader. My other concern is that he worked a ITV for seven years and is too closely linked to the media village, I can’t imagine he wants to be remembered as the PM who wrecked the BBC.
But the over the course of the next 4 years, Cameron has to work out that the Tory base of support maybe too small and to weak to withstand these constant assaults. He can pretend that it doesn’t matter, but it does.
“After all, you always keep your enemies guessing for as long as possible.”
After 35 years I doubt the BBC’s hearts are pounding with too much trepidation. I think bored disdain is as far as things run to.
There was a thinly disguised eulogy to Patten on R4 today.
He is B & PF as the saying goes. The Beeboids can stop worrying. Business as usual.
They seemed almost in awe of him.
The political class just does not get it.
Wonderful example of the BBCC on the 7 a.m. Radio 4 news this morning, and doubtlessly elsewhere, reprting on the Oscar wins of The King’s Speech. It was apparently “partly funded by the British Film Council which is being abolished as part of the cuts”.
Anyone know how much money was handed over by the taxpayer to the luvvies and the administrative cost to us of the BFC so doing. It doubtlessly involved many meetings and expenses claims