Interesting to read that the BBC has spent more than £2 million ferrying and flying staff and guests between London, Manchester and Salford in two years, despite promising to employ more people locally.
New figures show the public service broadcaster paid for more than 24,000 train journeys and at least 500 flights between the capital and the North West, where its new media centre is based. The train travel bill totalled more than £1.84 million while air mileage cost licence fee-payers nearly £77,000. The corporation’s bill for rail journeys increased by nearly 30 per cent in 12 months, the figures released under Freedom of Information laws show.
Recession? In fairness I suppose the key question here is not the total cost of flying and ferrying staff ie the £2million – although that is important – but whether this is an incremental £2 million or have they saved costs against this move in other ways?
But then this…
MediaCity in Salford is to employ more than 2,300 staff in departments including BBC Sport, Breakfast, Radio 5 Live and Children. Earlier this year, it was disclosed that only 26 new jobs had been awarded to locals. The total number of Salford people working building, which cost £650 million to build, totals 117. A further 90 support staff are also working at BBC North, which has cost the corporation nearly £190 million to set up.
26 new jobs for locals seems a tad light on it – is there not the local talent?
The only positive that could come out of this is that the BBC commuters are made to sit in the “Quiet Coach”.
The BBC are a tight knit metrosexual cult, London based and there is no room for outsiders who may hold unapproved views from Northerners who are viewed with suspicion and contempt. Living in the BBC self referencing sealed off cult bubble has made the BBC somewhat xenophobic in outlook.
Outsiders are not usually welcome in the cult bubble because they often bring in attitudes and beliefs that upset the ideological applecart, outsiders cannot be trusted especially when the BBC corporate mindset has become almost North Korean in terms of elitist secretiveness. And outsiders cannot be relied upon to sing from the same hymn sheet and do not have the same insider contacts as those from within the London bubble.
Its increasingly clear that the BBC has become suspicious of ‘foreigners’ who they feel bring unwelcome change, may upset the natural comfort zone of the cult leadership, its a natural human reaction for a closed off self referencing cult like the BBC, they think they have it all figured out and any intrusion that may force them to broaden their outlook or change their groupthink prejudice is to be resisted.
So why the move to Salford?
Actually, I thought you might have known Jim.
A welcome move on the part of the national broadcaster to be less London centred I guess. But this is hard to reconcile with Cassandra’s compelling narrative.
Because they’re so politically correct they’ll do the ‘right thing’ even if it’s daft .
London’s so apparently wonderfully cosmopolitian with hardly a natural born Englishman living there that I would have thought that going to Manchester was a retrograde step in terms of employing the full spectrum of the culturally diverse rainbow of employees that would make the BBC less hideously white.
To save money.
Yes, and to save money.
which cost £650 million to build
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
aye, there goes the public sector, saving money again.
Yes, to save money
How your millions are being squandered to bribe reluctant BBC staff to move up north
Yes, to save money
BBC’s £1bn exodus: Huge bill for moving shows and staff around the country… with £157m spent on hotels and taxis
Yes, to save money
The BBC’s move north is lunacy – and shows how catastrophically it has lost its way
Yes, to save money
BBC planning to spend thousands flying Question Time production staff to brief David Dimbleby each week ‘after he refuses to travel to Scotland’
Yes, to save money
Question Of Sport back in London as guests snub new £1bn northern BBC base
Yes, to save money
Are you sitting comfortably? BBC hires a ‘CHAIR CHAMPION’ to teach people how to sit
Yes, to save money
BBC spends £6.5m relocating 549 staff to Salford… and dozens receive tens of thousands of pounds each to fund move
Yes, to save money
The BBC’s £2m London-to-Salford travel bill
Yes, to save money
It really is grim up North: With vast commuting bills, provincial nobodies on shows and security guards on call, BBC softies are facing a reality check in Salford
Yes, to save money, and appease Labour councillor Hazel Blears.
Its not so much a move as a colonisation.
No seriously, the move was longed planned in response to criticism from the regions that the BBC was Londoncentric and as with everything the BBC corporate hive mind does the principle thought was how can we(BBC) alter that perception while actually changing the cult bubble as little as posible.
Because Labour wanted to ensure that the BBC was situated in their home turf – at the same time, ‘bringing employment to the North’. ie. buying votes and ensuring total bias, what’s not to like?
Wonder how the ‘green agenda’ is doing with all the totally unnecessary travel?
But all they have done is move the building not the staff jobs ! most of the talent haven’t moved and are commuting at our expense and those that have moved are being paid at our expense so not really an embracing of the local area is it? being bribed to live there or bribed to commute !
Goodness me, how on earth can you expect the BBC to dilute their elitist londoncentric credentials by employing ‘ordinary’ people from the North of England? Don’t you know they talk funny and have some quite radical political opinions once you get north of Birmingham.
£2m is nothing compared to the £905m the staff extracted from the licence fee payers – if there are any here – to max up their pension scheme. Paul Mason’s strike paid out.
Although they get turned on by people with harsh accents (like Geordie announcers) and tell themselves they were championing the oppressed working class by relocating to Manchester, senior BBC execs would rather burn a wind turbine than move to BNP land.
Or live in the much-vaunted ‘vibrant’ paradises of Tower Hamlets, or Haringey, our very own Dar es Salaam in the rain. Too near the tender knuckle. Multiculturalism, diversity: pretty figments in the cul de sac of the beeboid mind. Those of us outside the fantasist bubble, who haven’t been bribed by a few bloody decent brasseries & on-tap latte, know a socially-engineered disaster when we see one. We have to live right in it. Never mind Salford, I’d relocate all senior BBC commissars to a tower block in Stepney. Give them Oyster Cards & let the parasites bus back to the White City mothership.
As Grant, a one-time commenter on this site, said, ‘Don’t trust people who don’t live next-door to their opinions.’
Ian, re your phrase “people with harsh accents”, you may be interested to learn that I once got an urgent phone call from a R4 producer friend who asked if I could step in for a week and present an afternoon programme at 3pm for five days, carrying the can for the regular presenter (Gerry Anderson) who had resigned the day before. They needed someone “anonymous” to quietly fill the breach and I was known around local radio as “a safe pair of hands.”. The first show (later called “Afternoon Shift”) went well I thought. However, later a worried senior producer drew me aside and said, “Very good except for one thing: you sounded too Radio 4.”
“Too Radio 4”. I never forgot that phrase. I guess that’s why the self-loathing upper-middle classes have decamped to Salford. How else can private school, university educated, Eng Lit graduates prove their credibility among the “working classes” they idealise.
(PS I continued to present the show in tandem with Dara Breckon and Laurie Taylor for the following year. The dreadful Prof. Taylor also commented slyly ON AIR on my accent which is not “posh” but I am proud to say “standard English”).
Thanks for this Louis!
I detest Laurie Taylor and his family, who are as ubiquitous and nested in left-lib culcha as the Kinnocks.
He WOULD sneer at your accentm, being a Scouse Poly Lecturer who has hit lucky-and will be damned if he`d give up his Beeb sinecure for anybody with talent…being Scouse and doing rather well in that there London is all you need to know about him.
Creepy sub-Marxoid pew-filler in an empty church, one his Commie pals have stripped it…file under useful idiots alongside Rosen!
ChisH: even worse, Taylor, the incredible talking man, actually said (ON AIR) “Listen to him. “AN hotel”! Very posh.’
I said “An hotel” and not “A hotel” because it’s the correct usage. It appears university lecturers are willing to give up grammar for political correctness.
(Sorry bout this, folks, but this has been festering in me since 1995 – that’s how much it hurt!
Watch the small print as this story unfolds.
They will be paid significant relocation costs because there is “no comparable talent”. Such costs will be used to purchase a second home. Said second home will come with costs to the tax payer. Dare I say they might need a “duck pond” or two to make them feel at home. They will then become weekly commuters to ensure that they enjoy the weekend jaunts with the ever so cultured folk of London.
They’re already getting a nice chunk of change to rent a place up there in case they can’t sell their London homes right away. If they’re smart, they’ll take the cash for the full two years and sublet the old place, make a nice bundle. At your expense.
‘sublet the old place, make a nice bundle. At your expense.’
Nah, there’d be an outcry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8039273.stm
Notice a few interesting distinctions between getting rent and offering ‘partners’ sweet deals. The very idea.
How on earth can they possibly assuage Mother Earth , what with all these unnecessary flights and t`ing?
The seals are slippin` an` a slidin` in the tears of orphaned polar bears as the bloody BBC fly cruelly through the fragile atmosphere.
Don`t Harrabin, Black or Attenboroughs give a monkeys-obviously an orphaned macaque using old wristbands and lanyards for jungle vines?
The Blue Peter Garden up in Salford will surely have a few more martyrs to man-made global boiling after all these unnecessary flights…so let`s hope they keep their cannabis cultivation out of sight of the kiddies!
Ten years silence from the BBC please , by way of national reflection about this slashing of Mother Earths face with a ladyshave razor…oh the humanity!
A completely unnecessary move that’s cost billions, that nobody seems to want except the Labour councillor whose domain the BBC now comes into, and which the BBC justified with some bullshit excuse.
When questioned on this massive expense to shuttle staff back and forth this is the BBC response.
A BBC spokesman added: “The BBC is a major broadcasting organisation with production bases across the UK and a news operation that covers a constantly changing global news agenda, so some element of travel is inevitable. “However, we are mindful that we spend public money and we work hard to keep this expenditure to a minimum.” She added that bookings also included “multiple passengers”.
While reading it I felt I would love to have those responsible for this absurd decision on a gantry with a noose around their neck while they mouthed this response, and just open the trapdoor when they finished while asking them – so why did you move there?
I recall when the Health and Safety Executive moved north (to Bootle) in the 70s few of the top staff wanted to live in the north and many simply travelled up on a Monday and back to the safety of the south every Friday. I suspect many BBC staff are doing the same, which is why it is costing us all money. Given the BBC’s quasi-civil service contracts those that do move will be getting significant relocation packages and travelling costs courtesy of the tax payer as well!
Can’t understand why the Israel hating BritishBrainwashingCorporation didn’t instead just move to its beloved Gaza or somewhere else in the Palestinian territories. Maybe that it would’ve had to make so many gay and lesbian employees redundant is what swung it for Manchester.
“26 new jobs for locals seems a tad light on it – is there not the local talent?”
Depends on what you classify as “local”, but have you ever been to Salford ? It is the archetypal inner city deprived area as portrayed on the BBC news when it has a story about riots/government cut-backs etc. It’s just a wild guess but I reckon those jobs that actually did go to locals are what might be classed as “support roles” i.e. cleaners, canteen staff etc.
The figure for Greater Manchester is around 250. The local MP spun the Salford angle.
OFF TOPIC: Does anyone else have problems getting into BBBC? some days I get no access.
It’s been down for a couple of days.
Explained here:
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/back-to-past.html
Plus a few interim issues that are worth catching up on. May I re-redirect any with an interest in, and concern with BBC Editorial delusion and censorship here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/03/bbc_news_mobile_site_refresh.html?postId=112239382#comment_112239382
Saw an article in yesterdays Metro about the security issues arising from the metrosexuals migration up north.
Lots of scams, air gun shootings of Beeb wilderbeest and hunting of fey media types by Ordsalls flyover near the Booze R Us car park at dead of night…who`d have thunk it?
Got to be a sitcom, drama documentary or a Cross the barricades rom com to be had here isn`t there?….and let`s ensure that the hike in insurance for their vans, laptops etc is NOT paid for by us-as is usually the case.
Comedy gold…but as yet, no Now Show references…some things I guess just are TOO raw, and not to be mocked.
How much am I bid for the tusks of Marcus Brigstocke I wonder?>..wouldn`t cost too much and would provide some sport and comfort view telly surely?