One of our many readers notes;
“I emailed the below to The Today Programme about BBC correspondents and why Jim Naughtiehad to go to the USA – needless to say I have had no reply except the automaticthankyou email…….
“Jim Naughtie is sent to the US for Super Tuesday, or is it just a jolly?
If I Google LIST OF BBC CORRESPONDENTS I get a Wikipedia page of who is alreadystationed there. There are 22 already, so why do you need to send someone else, unless its ajolly. Flights, hotels, expenses, support. What did all that cost? Why does he know any more than the 22 already there, and what do they cost? There are only three correspondents in Russia but he did not go there and thatwas a proper presidential election, not just selections. Shocking.”
Quite right too. This is just an indulgence and all at our expense.
Perhaps lardy Mardel needed a cuddle…
Tweedledumb & Tweedledee: 2 state-suckled slugs sliding down a pane of frosted glass, beyond which lies an America they are programmed to ignore. Like whites getting attacked by blacks in Killadelphia: like the ‘polar bear hunting’ happening all over the USA. A wilding we will go. Just doesn’t fit the ‘narrative’. Two beeboid heads: just the one eye.
It being Lent, I wonder what penance the BBC will be making by way of pointless air miles that will need atoning for…to please Mother Gaia of course.
I suggest 10 poplars in Battersea Park and Naughtie wobble over to the tundra to bless a gay/civil partnership between two polar bears who`ll be just waking up now…
Has the Guggenheim got an exhibition on, or the Met a particularly pleasing spring season for wee Numptie?…must be some reason why he scooted sharpish to absolutely no purpose.
Isn`t it a year now since he winged it to Tokyo for the tsunami…but ended up phoning the japanese Ambassador in London about how the Japanese might respond to the disaster?…and yet no gales of laughter or self-mockery from the BBC…
Naughtie boy in the US.
Don’t say James Naughtie doesn’t know his America. Why it turns out he is on the advisory board of the British-American Project.
http://www.baponline.org/about.html
I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it is a bit of a transatlantic Common Purpose.
Nice company he keeps….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British-American_Project
Baroness Scotland
David Miliband
Jonathon Powell
Peter Mandelson
Douglas Alexander
George Robertson
(a couple of wet Tories & Blairite acedemics – LSE based, natch)
Jeremy Paxman
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Evan Davis
Shami Chakrabarti
(see where we are goinig yet?)
(that’s the Brits – I leave our American experts to tell us what side of the political divide the US members tend to fall into)
If it all sounds a bit heavily Blairite Labour, well the Guardian seems to agree.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/06/usa.politics1
‘You won’t have heard of the British-American Project, but its members include some of the most powerful men and women in the UK.’
Now the Guardian goes off on a CIA plot agenda but it does show the very strong New Labour element of this group.
‘Besides the advantages of the American way, the other big political preoccupation of BAP conferences during the 1980s and early 1990s was the condition and prospects of the Labour party. The Conservatives may have been in government, but the conference reports mention them surprisingly rarely. Instead, there are involved discussions about the Labour attitude to nuclear weapons, about the strengths and weaknesses of the party’s general election campaigning, about whether, as BAP members saw it in 1987, Labour “had more interest in remaining a party, with policies and an ideology, than in achieving power”.
Remember when Naughtie made that slip ‘…when we win the election….’
Shocked and depressed to read this.
Do the Tea Party/Republicans know the sack of shite they`re buying with US dollars?
This list only needs Bonnie Greer, Marcus Brigstocke and Kirtsy Wark to complete the seventh circle…now I AM on Thatchers case for leaving this little turd in the jacuzzi…
According to that Wikipedia article here are some other UK Media involved, recognise any names?
Jeremy Paxman, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Evan Davis and another BBC presenter by the name of William Crawley
If James Naughtie had to pay for it himself he would discover a more cost effective solution. Again, the BBC do what they like, and you are forced to pay for it.
It is a puzzle why the Left are so in favour of “the BBC.
Could it be that in a free market Naughtie would have to go back to working as political editor for the Guardian, because nobody else but Guardian readers are remotely interested in his opinions?
If he and his fellow BBC journalists got together and produced a magazine would you go to a shop and buy it? Would you look forward to reading an article in that magazine by James Naughtie (or Mark Mardell for that matter) on American politics? Nope. Neither would I,
So why are we forced to pay his wages? It’s that public sector thing again. Maybe that explains why the BBC thinks that anybody who disputes the need for “public services” rather than a free market in areas such as broadcasting (and health and education) are simply evil.
If he is going to get up into a pulpit and denounce people who believe in freedom of choice he is going to want to get paid isn’t he, a fair wage, a just wage, indeed any wage he can screw out of the taxpayer.
After all that private health insurance and those school fees have to paid for, and it is ok for him to earn all that money extracted from tax payer just so long as he makes it clear that he would never in a million years vote for the “Tories”.
His greed is then magically transformed into public service.
You`ve hit a good point here wild.
Saw something with David Frost the other night…he was talking to interviewers and political types, chat show guests etc.
Whole thing stank of a conspiracy against the civilians down here on Planet earth…both journalist and politico locked in a suicide pact, but all within the rules of their own games.
Cynical, self-serving and all paid for by the taxpayer and licence fee payer…and the Guardian would never stand on its own without the saprophytic relationship it has with the BBC and Channel 4 etc.
In September of 2010, they sent Naughtie over here to explain the Tea Party movement to you, in the run-up to the midterm elections. It’s all part of the waste at the BBC. They still believe that each channel and each programme deserve unique reports, even though they all say the same thing. Each show has its own special talent, especially Today, and no others are worthy. They’ll probably tell you that the audience expects to hear from the personalities unique to each show, and justify the narcissistic waste that way.
David Preisser, never a truer word: “Each show has its own special talent, especially Today, and no others are worthy.”
The BBC is not a monolithic organisation. It consists of a bunch of warlords, each protecting turf. They have budgets and spend these independently. The departments are rivals, they compete with each other. This is seen at events as basic as test matches and even on red carpet at awards ceremonies. It is a silly waste of money. I can’t understand why Mark Mardell and team can’t supply all the “local colour”? However, if Naughtie and Today don’t trust them to give the whole picture why should we? And what’s the bet that the same experts are interviewed by different Beeboids?
Technology enables important presenters with muscle to present shows without leaving their homes in super quality sound via high quality lines. (I believe Jonathan Dimbleby does this with “Any Answers?”)
But the real answer to this migration of staff to the USA is that (a) it’s nice weather here – it’s a beaustiful day with 81 degress in my garden right now (b) it’s still a sexy place for a break – “you can bring the kids over and we’ll do Disney after the gig” and (c) if you can ride a gravy train why not do so?
But all these Beeboids will piss on the doormat as they leave to go home. It’s who they are.
Naughtie couldn’t speak to voters from the comfort of his own home, or of the Today studio, so they felt the need to fly him over. But what could he possibly add to the discussion that would be original or valuable enough that none of the other dozens (55 in total, I believe) Beeboids could provide? Wasteful BBC.
Nature Note
The nocktee (beeboidus leftwingii) is not to be confused with the manatee (trichechus trichechidae). While both are blubberous beasts, the manatee sticks largely to coastal waters whereas the nocktee migrates vast distances for no good reason.