Some pithy comments here about the BBC from Christopher Booker..
“Boris Johnson calls for a Tory director-general to knock sense into the BBC. Perhaps he has forgetten that it already has a Tory chairman – that tireless Europhile and global warming zealot, Lord (Chris) Patten.
As a footnote, to illustrate how trivial so much BBC coverage has become, its political correspondent Nick Robinson last week reported David Cameron’s claim to be “winning the debate on the Government deficit”. But I do not recall the BBC telling us that, in March, our public-sector borrowing hit a record £18.2 billion, or £4.5 billion every week. It is not part of the BBC’s “anti-cuts” agenda to tell us that public spending is still hurtling upwards, any more than it tells us about so many other things which do not accord with its deeply skewed world-view.
We do not pay the BBC to have a “line” on pretty well everything it covers, but that is what we get. I fear we can only reciprocate the contempt in which it appears to hold us.”
The comments might make for sobering reading as the BBC youngsters emerge from their latest rave recuperation, and the eminence grise types awake from their post luncheon slumbers.
They are being called on the hand they have played, too long, as unbeatable, and the cards they have are shown for what they are. And it’s not Aces high. More a bunch of jokers… and the Queen of Spades, for any of a schoolboy Black Maria disposition (hint: it’s not ‘Chase the Lady’, and Mr. NaugthieMarr may empathise).
Interesting reading the comments re Boris’s piece on Con Home. Bearing in mind that it tends to be mainly mainstream Tory types who comment there, its reassuring to see that his article is not only getting major traction, but that most posters favour a lot more radical reform than his suggestion of a proper Tory DG ! Bear in mind that these are Tory activists who buttton hole their MP’s on a regular basis when canvassing and at social functions at a constituency level.
A Tory D.G.? What’s the point? No matter what such a person dictates, it simply won’t be carried out by the Beeboids. They can subvert any order, edict or command. They’ve done it several times before. It’s like working with jelly. Sorry, Boris, you’re too late by thirty years.
‘They can subvert any order, edict or command.’
Agreed.
As Hugs Boaden showed with her “please stop making us look bad with your rampantly bent tweets under the ‘I work for the BBC and can’t be fired no matter what, ha-ha’ bios and BBC URLS all staff use to make friends”, even possible future DGs have zippy respect to back up their market rate salary lack of authority in complement.
All Boris managed to do was create a daft ‘them & us’ tribal aspect to get the twitterati excited about simply another abuse of power from another direction.
Absolutely right, they know they are beyond accountability and love rubbing our noses in the fact. The only solution now is to cut off its licence-payer funding and let it swim for itself in the harsh seas of commercial competition. Is the BBC that much of a ‘treasure’ that the vast majority of people wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to have a choice on spending that £154 p.a.? It would be interesting to see how many would subscribe, say, to the overtly leftist Radio 4 (assuming a hypothetical pay-by-station scenario), whilst minority stations like Asian Radio and Gaelic whatever-it-is which encourage social division would hopefully very quickly bite the dust along with the trashy BBC3 and increasingly irrelevant BBC2. Unless, of course, Murdoch came along with a rescue bid….
The problem is that £154 per year for the range of programming the BBC provides is good value. It’s just that their factual output is rampantly left wing. What they should do is abandon the ‘neutral’ stance and setup right wing and left wing channels for news, documentaries’ etc. Stop pretending and offer an alternative.
Christopher BOOKER’s conclusion on BBC seems reasonable advice:
“We do not pay the BBC to have a ‘line’ on pretty well everything it covers, but that is what we get. I fear we can only reciprocate the contempt in which it appears to hold us.”
‘I fear we can only reciprocate the contempt in which it appears to hold us.’
No, ‘we’ can do more than that.
Enough say ‘enough’, and it will get past the megaphone they pretend has a means of listening too.
Perhaps everyone sympathetic to UKIP should cease to pay their next license fee, if it were a policy a national party. Dismantle the bBC, as well as the EU, that I could vote for.
Wonderful points. I really enjoy the content, and I will definitely
be back!