Some of you must have seen this from 2010 but I somehow missed it….however it is so good on so many levels that it is worth refreshing the memory…especially at a time when the BBC is ‘on the stump’ with Labour attacking Coalition ‘cuts’ and job losses in the Public Sector in the name of efficiency and productivity.
Ken Loach is so far Left that he makes Ken Livingstone look Thatcherite…which is why it is all the more enjoyable to see that when his own interests are threatened by waste and ineffective workers he demands they are sacked…so much for ‘solidarity of the workers’!
He wished “good riddance” to executives recently made redundant and said more should follow.
However, the BBC is now a very different place, stuffed with executives who rule by committee and stifle all original ideas, according to the director. He welcomed this week’s announcement of job losses for Sharon Baylay, the £281,000-a-year marketing chief, and deputy director Mark Byford, who leaves his £475,000-a-year post with a £3.7 million pension pot and a pay-off of almost £1 million.
“I’m pleased to see – we all are – that people are going to lose their jobs, albeit that they need a £1 million handshake to get out the door. Great, good riddance, maybe a few more will join them. But let’s start cutting further down,” Loach said.
“To think that our television is in the hands of these time-servers who should be got rid of is nothing less than a tragedy, because television began with such high hopes. It was going to be the National Theatre of the air, a place where society could have a national discourse. They have reduced it to a grotesque reality game and I think we have to fight that with all the strength we have.”
On a totally different matter and something to cheer you up, the good news is that if Assange skips bail, Loach will get a substantial bill from the High Court.
I hope that is in addition to not returning the money he put up for bail! – The old communist must be steaming!!
I think that the way bail works is that those providing the bail promise to cough up if the accused makes a run for it. Accordingly, if Assange doesn’t turn up to be extradited someone in the Court Service will send Ken (and others) a demand that he coughs up what he promised. Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that – even if Assange gets on the plane to Quito – the issue of bail will be fudged and demands to fulfil those bail payment promises will not be made.
Oh good another two-year-old news story. Apart from the sheer pointlessness of posting this, I don’t see how a socialist compromising his ideals by calling for the sacking of highly-paid executives. Not exactly a heretical thought for a Marxist, is it?
And if he were alive today, Karl Max would be 194, which is a lot more out of date than this post. Irony is obviously not your strongest suit. The only thing we would probably agree on with Ken Loach is today’s date. Ironic therefore to find we agree about sacking BBC managers. However I would cull the journalists before getting to the managment. Don’t expect Ken would much like that with that.