On this week’s edition of Newswatch:
“Alas no BBC exec available”. Well, it’s such a hassle to go down to the Newswatch studio just to mouth “You’re wrong, we’re right” in a variety of ways for ten minutes.
Hey, perhaps they’re planning a sequel in which the street is flooded with dozens of diversity officers, climate change advisers and other assorted wastes of space, paid for by taking all the residents’ money and then maxing out their credit cards for good measure. That wouldn’t be any more ludicrous than Nick Robinson’s stupid programme.
UPDATE. I see James Delingpole has given the programme a good kicking in the latest Spectator. Extract (subscriber-only until next week):
“Then, a subtitle appeared on the screen saying: ‘Do you see how vital, caring, nurturing and important a role the State plays in your lives? Well, DO you, citizen?’ And then an extendable finger came out of the side of the TV set and prodded the viewer really hard in the ribs…
[The BBC’s] default position, the length and breadth of its programming from the World Service to Springwatch to CBBC, is that Big Brother is your friend, the public sector is good and the private sector bad. And the real joke is, we actually fork out for this brainwashing, 24/7, 365 days of the year.”
Considering the feedback (especially on their own blogs from usually loyal supporters who knew a lemon when they saw it), it’s just possible that even Uncle Ray would have had trouble keeping a straight face as the surly Editor/Producer/’Star’ Presenter moodily intoned that they felt ‘they got it about right’ and ‘many viewers loved it’, the hapless twerps all knew it… and bottled.
If the “State ” is so fantastic, it shouldn’t need endless propaganda to convince people.
Anyone withh half a brain knows that ALL councils waste money on a monumental scale and until that is addressed we will get nowhere. Our own lot recently spend 2 1/2 million on a riverwalk about 100 yards long. Hardly anyone uses it and the town itself is a dump. Classic!! My wife works for them and I hear a lot of stories that would make your blood boil, but have to keep shtum as it would harm her employment. That is another way they get away with it.
Yes the public sector IS needed but it sure needs a kick up the rear end and a lot of managers need the boot due to their intransigent, inflexible and uncountable attitudes (not my wife’s manager though 🙂 )
Maturecheese,
I have a Chinese friend now living, legally, in the UK in the midlands.
She was asking me recently, why , if the government have run out of money, they are still starting big building projects.
Meanwhile, here in Edinburgh, the ludicrous tramway project has wasted almost £500m on something none of us wanted and which may be completed.
But, it is not just here. Last March in sunny Gambia in one of the worst parts of Serrekunda, I noticed the government have built a a 200- yard stretch of tarmac road over the dirt track with a pavement ( one of the few in the country ) pedestrian traffic lights ( the only ones in the country ) , overhead street lights and traffic calming measures, which the Gambian drivers treat as a challenge. I call it “The Boulevard” .
All governments are totally reckless with our money (in the case of Gambia , it is our money ! ) and don’t give a damn about the people they are taking it from.
“may never be completed” !
Grant, don’t get me started on the fucking trams. Surcharge every councillor.
Roland,
You are too kind. Shooting would be too good for them !
Three letters: PFI. You know whom to thank for it.
How about next episode from the Bloated Broadcasting Corporation “The National Broadcaster That Cut Everything”? Featuring tear-jerking scenes such as
– Chris Patten paying for his own lunch every day
– The three hundred BBC staff sent to Glastonbury every year buying their own tickets
– White City Executives queing for buses instead of taxis
Programme Highlight: The BBC’s own “secret millionaire” DG Mark Thompson goes undercover to help Fuel Poverty Relief, a new charity which aims to help victims of GreenPeace energy policies.
You know. Real hardship belt-tightening stuff.
London,
Dream on !
Are you implying Patten only has one lunch a day ?
But they will be defining Foreign Aid now as money sent to Salford-long been another country to them all in London!
Spreading the love as ever-our BBC!
So are they now, in the name of balance, going to do a programme abut a street that tries to live without the products and services provided by the private sector. No electricity, no broad band, no food and drink, no clothes , no houses – come to that no street.