It’s a theme that the BBC has been hammering all year in as many programmes as possible; our financial woes have been created by the bad and evil and greedy Bankers. There was a remarkably one-sided discussion on the BBC this morning here, nice prime time slot and full of the usual tripe and hype about the alleged evils of the financial class. Funny how BBC experts all manage to agree on the substantive issue being promoted by the BBC, isn’t it? But the BBC is smart and in order to cover any allegations of bias they ran an item here suggesting that “bankers bonuses” were NOT the cause of the global recession. At 6.50am. You have to get up early to hear disssenting voices on the BBC!
From my own perspective, the bit of the BBC coverage that most alarms is the elephant in the financial room – namely the role of POLITICIANS in creating the circumstances that encouraged poor decisions by bankers. Gordon Brown’s role has been entirely sanitised by the BBC and it one could be forgiven for thinking that there was absolutely no political involvement when nothing could be further from the truth. The Dear Leader has been removed from the picture and all opprobrium is now heaped on the Banks.
The BBC also likes to retrospectively claim that it was essential to save the Banks but in fact some people (Including me!) argued then, and now, that no institution is so big that it cannot be allowed to fail. Banks that made poor decisions do not deserve to survive – but it was Labour that moved to prop up these failed entities with our cash and now the BBC whinges about how awful it is whilst insisting it was vital. Talk about conflicted!
I was invited to take part in a BBC discussion a few weeks ago on the issue of bankers. I explained my view – namely that Banks are only part of the problem, politicians have been just as bad if not worse, and that a bad bank should be allowed to fail. The producer decided not to proceed with me, you can figure why.
David, when you are approached by the bbc to appear on one of their programmes, are you able to imply your views are aligned to their party policy, and then state your true views once on the show?
prob look at all the blogs and have a list of all those people who are against the dear old beeb,then say they are on the show but say they have pulled out at the last minute to make them look bad
It actually amazes me, (I know it shouldn’t, but it still does), how the BBC treat Brown’s record now as almost being completely hand’s off and distant and not connected with the crash whatsoever, except for his ‘world saving’ role in rescuing the world’s banking system (whilst blindly ignoring the obvious direct consequence of soveriegn bail-outs of the banking system in the form of the current sovereign debt crisis).
Before labour’s interference and ridiculously innapropriate regulation of the banking sector which helped lead directly to the crash, The BBC praised how “hands on” Gordon was and praised his towering intellect and almost superhuman attention to all the tiny details.
He regenerated the banking sector himself, changing all the regulatory regimes, removing the oversight capacity of the Bank of England and creating the FSA…
Yet the BBC does not see ANY consequences at all from that now. Instead claiming it was the changes that Thatcher introduced which caused the problems…
FFS!
And right on cue Today has a “discussion” (alledgedly) about the figures out today re the performance of the UK economy but actually – as the intro by Humphrys confirms – to demonise “bankers” for the ruin of the economy. To join Humphrys in this 21st century equivalent of anti-semitism (ie bankers – generically and genetically – are by their very nature evil and working simultaneously to destroy and to rule humanity) Today brought on Gillian Tett, associate editor of the Financial Times, Sir Richard Lambert, former director general of the CBI and present Chancellor of the University of Warwick and Geoff Mulgan, former CEO of the Young Foundation and a former director of policy at 10 Downing Street.
The Financial Times is the Guardian printed on pink paper; the Young Foundation is a lefty pressure group (last bigged up on Today for their absurd report telling us than Newham is the etiquette capital of the world and immigrants are the new reservoir of good manners) and the CBI is representative, not of business as such, but of the easy corporatism in which big companies thrive (and small companies suffer).
As expected everyone agreed it was all the bankers’ fault but (thank God) the regulators are coming to the rescue. In all, a quite appalling stream of tripe typical of the BBC’s inability to mount an honest debate let alone an interesting one.
Amazing isn`t it that Brown etc were allowed to trawl the airwaves unmolested for years about their “end to boom and bust”; and their far-sighted genius in creating the economic climate that made us all so prosperous.
Even with flogging off the gold reserves, screwing the pensions, introducing tuition fees, losing the nations tax discs, the 10p rate/65p pension increases…why they still gave us PFIs and Home Information Packs that we would one day thank them for.
Since 2008 however…and it turns out that these were acts of God and unforseen…and all the fault of the bankers. That they acted exactly in step with State nostrums and read the runes of Brown, Balls now means that they read them wrong. For Brown and Balls had nothing to do with any of this after all.
And now the BBC wonder why Labour will be unelectable for as long as Balls etal are anywhere near the nations pursestrings…so they`ll not link political incompetence with the financial crisis caused by Sir Fred…the annointed one of Brown as I recall.
And since the BBC can`t be trusted on reperting recent history that we all lived through..the idea that we can trust them with anything else is fanciful.
the BBC could not report on the real world because it does not inhabit the real world. It inhabits some adolescent would-be society in which their dear leader Kim Jong Brown watches benevolently over them.
If only they could finally slay the evil Tories and their banker friends everyone will live happily for ever in peace, fairness and justice on a BBC presenters salary with zero carbon footprint.
The financial crisis should be seen in the context of the interlocking of government and banking interests in the USA and in Europe. Certainly such governments have been enablers of the crisis, and many bankers took irresponsible risks with ordinary bank customers’ money.
Drastic reform of the banking system is urgently needed to separate out the risk-driven ‘investment banking’.
In the meantime, Daniel Hannan points to this misuse of taxpayers’ money on a huge scale in the E.U.:
“The ECB blew away €500 billion, and the markets still fell”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100125778/the-ecb-blew-away-e500-billion-and-the-markets-still-fell/