BBC Moral Maze presenter and former newsreader Michael Buerk has reviewed Peter Sissons’ memoirs – When One Door Closes, in which he attacks the BBC with both barrels – for Standpoint magazine. It’s a delicious, grumpy read in which Mr Buerk makes it clear that he concurs that the BBC is stuffed full of right-on, Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, mostly incompetent lefties. My day was made by this par:
Sissons bowls over the other targets like a crusty old farmer shooting rabbits. Autocuties, “Elf ‘n’ Safety”, the Corporation’s now pathological aversion to risk of any kind, its culture of conformity, its vulnerability to political pressure, its uncritical love affair with environmentalism, the callow opinionising of some of its reporters, the flatulent masses of its middle management and, as he sees it, the BBC’s complete lack of leadership. Bang, bang, bang.
However, Mr Buerk qualifies this by contending that the Sissons attack on BBC management is not entirely fair. I don’t think it went far enough.
I had my two penny worth by putting this comment in.
The BBC is the propaganda arm of the Labour party, a fifth column, quizling institution dedicated to the destruction of Britain as a nation and the permanent instalation of a Left Wing political elite. What is even more galling, it charges us £145 a year (£3.4bn a year) for the damage it does. The sooner this organisation is disbanded, and it’s views subject to the rigours of the marketplace, the better.
– Michael, Stuck in a Socialist nightmare and ‘Over Enriched’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372559/Left-wing-shallow-oh-politically-correct–verdict-BBC-Michael-Buerk.html#ixzz1IMZyR3u9
The pity is that Buerk is essentially speaking to the converted. Readers of Standpoint would, I guess, already be knowledgeable about BBC bias. Buerk’s contribution is analogous to Polly writing in the Guardian (except Buerk is not mired in hypocrisy and blind self-hatred; neither does he make it up as he goes along). More amazing than Buerk having a go at the BBC is today’s offering in the Telegraph by Simion Heffer where, in an article severely criticising BBC bias, admits that ” I have long believed there is no institutional political bias in the BBC” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/8421773/Lefties-not-Etonians-are-closing-libraries.html . Where has he been? Heffer must have been blind and/or deaf or, more likely, so indoctrinated that all he sees is viewed through the rosy glow of the BBC’s finest hours from WW2 until the beginning of its fall from grace in the 60s.
May be elsewhere, but linked in that piece…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100081864/has-the-bbc-given-up-all-pretence-of-political-impartiality/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardpreston/100081830/zadie-smith-and-the-great-tory-library-conspiracy/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
A fair few rather concerned (and rather more than before) that offering a free platform to one-degree of separation ‘guest opinion’ is less than reassuring from a £4B pa propaganda organ.
It does seem to have taken ’em a while.
Michael Buerk and Peter Sissons appear they may be right of centre, or at least they aren’t of the BBC Hive mindset. However, until this post-BBC lives of theirs I never had a clue where their personal political allegiances lay. Surely that’s how it should be.
Unfortunately the current dregs of BBC presenters and reporters leave you in no doubt as to their personal views as they colour absolutely everything bright red or green. This shows that the properly professional people of the BBC are of the past, and the present lot are pure propagandists with no pretence at professionalism.
One other thing, some people claim that Toenails and Brillo are the token Conservatives on the BBC. Maybe they once had that allegiance, but neither show it now.
I never knew the political leanings of the great Richard Dimbleby such was his incisive yet even handed technique. His sons however are a very different kettle of fish ! I wonder what their father would have made of their very apparent allegiance.
I see no allegiance whatsoever with David Dimbleby. Jonathan however is an entirely different matter.
I have to reconsider paying my tv licence to BBC after reding some blog posts on this blog.
Please continue paying. Witholding payment will only have effect if it’s part of an organised campaign of civil disobedience in protest at the bias. There’s no point martyring yourself for a futile gesture.
Before such civil disobedience I think a petition to HMG to mount a public inquiry into allegations of BBC bias would need to come first. That is something that at this moment in time will be explored in the next month or so. You’d need big names behind it, first class organisation, and the goal of a hundred thousand signatures. What I would hope though, if such a venture did get off the ground, is that it wouldn’t turn into an anti-license fee campaign, either through the back door or the front door. Of themselves they are two separate issues and trying to conflate them will only undermine a campaign against the bias.
BBC Staff Hearts The Guardian
😀 The Guardian and the BBC: Two cheeks of the same arse!
Re managers:
The BBC Philharmonic’s tour bus was actually on a Japanese suspension bridge when the earthquake struck.
An orchestra manager’s competence may rarely be tested, but one was forced to demonstrate some managerial ability, or lack of, in an unexpected emergency.
When Yokohama was abruptly put on tsunami alert the concert was cancelled, the concert-hall was evacuated and the orchestra was hastily rushed to a hotel.
Nobody informed the leader and soloist still in his private dressing room. Out he stepped, violin poised, onto a deserted stage, in a deserted concert hall, in a deserted Yokohama.
Surely, in a common or garden evacuation situation, a manager’s instinctive reaction, nay duty, would be to do a simple head count. This one also ceded the task of securing the return flights. Members of the orchestra got together and DIYd it online.
Rumour says the manager was a ‘strategic appointee’ made by people in London to undermine the BBC ‘Phil’ – rivalry between the London-based BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic. Can you Adam-an’Eve it?
This gossipy tale is heresay, but I heard it and I’m saying it.