Well, BBC D-G George Entwistle has resigned. But the question is rather larger – should the BBC now be AXED as a parasite bleeding off the public purse? One sacrificial lamb is not sufficient.
“The BBC’s director general, George Entwistle, has resigned in the wake of the Newsnight child abuse broadcast. In a statement given outside New Broadcasting House, Mr Entwistle said: “I have decided that the honourable thing to do is to step down.” Earlier, Mr Entwistle said the Newsnight report, which wrongly implicated ex-senior Tory Lord McAlpine should never have been broadcast.The broadcast covered cases of child abuse at north Wales care homes. Mr Entwistle took up the post of director general on 17 September.”
Pity Chris Patten did not also resign.
The ‘fight back’ begins on the BBC’s news live text page..
Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby says he has seen a lot of “malice” in the coverage of the George Entwistle’s resignation.
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee says “BBC journalism is second to none. This was a bad mistake but it doesn’t suggest that all BBC news is rotten.”
Ms Harman adds that although this is a “difficult moment” for the corporation, everyone wants the BBC to “go forward”.
However, a surprisingly funny quip, although he thought it was not funny when he originally said this..
Chris Patten tells Andrew Marr: “The BBC has more senior managers than the communist party”
However, Diane Abbott Labour MP
tweets: Too many Tories like Theresa May using Entwistle resignation to make generalised attack on BBC journalism
Finally that ‘brave’ man Robert Peston Business editor
tweets: I cannot be dispassionate – or even terribly rational – about exit of Entwistle & BBC chaos so am keeping schtoom.
As late actor Clive Dunn used to say ‘they don’t like it up ‘em’!!
So, Mr Patten, how “honourable” was it to bottle out of a booked interview on Sky News?
And all done at the Savile Monument as well…oh the humanity.
At 1.40 though I see Caroline Thomson NOT crying as she ought to be.
Witch!
Thankfully, all being done at the Savile Monument there by Shepherds Bush swimming baths! How apt!
Yet at 1.40 I see Caroline Thomson in less than crying mode!
Burn the witch!…heresy!
Oh the humanity.
I like the BBC, I wouldn’t want to get rid of it given how crap the alternatives are (The idea of a Murdoch-owned BBC fills me with uncontrollable fear). However, it’s obvious that they completely dropped the ball with this and that they have clear biases that are just manifested a lot more subtly than most other broadcasters. They never offer anything resembling a debate on immigration or on the EU, they were totally compliant in overlooking the government’s NHS pseudo-privatisation reforms, they completely lack transparency, they use clear straw man and false choice fallacies as well as the appeal to emotion, and they’re doing this while funded by the public. This is clearly not good enough. Like I said, I’ll still take the BBC over not having it, but that in itself is a false choice. The BBC has a PC-centric, government-obedient stance and needs to be taken back under control of the public who pay for it.
Complaint with the Tory policies on the NHS? Not for a moment.
“The BBC has a PC-centric, government-obedient stance”
Depends upon which political party forms the government. You can’t argue that they supported the Thatcher administration – they’re STILL trying their best to sully her reputation decades later – currently to their detriment.
isn’t it funny how he resigned at 9pm, just after the 1st editions of the Sunday papers have gone to press. Just a thought
It has been a very long time since newspaper stone times had any impact on the news agenda.
Sorry if I’ve missed it but no-one else seems to have commented on another of the bBBC cronies who has been given a free run on our taxpayers’ airwaves – Esther Rantzen.
Late last night and first-thing this morning on Radio 5 she was parroting the same line: “One good thing that has come out of all this is that now we all know that Lord McAlpine isn’t a paedophile.”
Yes, Esther, there’s about 60 million of us who aren’t paedophiles, so do you suggest publishing false rumours that we are, and challenging us to deny it?
Actually, ridiculous though it seems, that is exactly the line that Ms Rancid and her colleagues in the child ‘protection’ industry like to take. With their ‘guilty until proved innocent’ mantra, they have forced many millions of us to pay for Criminal Records Bureau checks; they have all-but driven men out of teaching in infant and primary schools; they have destroyed many voluntary activities such as sports coaching and scouting; and they cast a pallor of suspicion over anyone who tries to help a child.
Instead of giving her even more of a platform to peddle her divisive views, the bBBC should ban this poisonous witch from sullying our airwaves.
“One good thing that has come out of all this is that now we all know that Lord McAlpine isn’t a paedophile.”
…and if a bunch of unscrupulous, venal, lefty grudge merchants with ulterior motives hadn’t smeared an innocent man in the first place nobody would ever have been under the impression that he might have been.
And now the bBBC is spinning like mad that the next DG ought to be another crony from inside the bubble. Someone else incurious enough to ask what’s going on.
Caroline Thomson has emerged as the bookies’ favourite to replace George Entwistle who has resigned as director general of the BBC.
Yes, she who applied for the job earlier this year but was considered to be even worse than Entwistle!
Others ‘mentioned as possible contenders’ include director of news Helen Boaden and Danny Cohen, the head of BBC One.
However, the headline of Thomson being ‘favourite’ seems to arise partly from wishful thinking and partly from the usual innumeracy of bBBC ‘journalists’, who can’t tell the difference between odds-on and odds-against.
The real favourite appears to be the head of OfCom, Ed Richards.
But surely what is needed most is a real outsider who will come in to sweep away the cosy cronyism, split the organisation – too big for Entwistle to manage – and get rid of the TV tax.
The real favourite appears to be the head of OfCom, Ed Richards.
Mrs Merton: ‘Following your years as a Labour insider and head of a vast, toothless, money-sucking quango, what first attracted you to the DGship of the BBC?
Richards was previously a Senior Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair and before that Controller of Corporate Strategy at the BBC. He has also worked in consulting at London Economics Ltd, and as an advisor to Gordon Brown.
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hamKl-su8PE
Andrew Neil for Director General. Anyone else from the BBC would be part of the problem, not the solution.
Seconded. He’s a straight bat.
Agreed, but I’d thrown in David Dimbley as a candidate too. They’d both be equally excellent.
I thought this was interesting.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/11/another-bbc-scandal-hiding-their-climate-change-agenda/
It’s worth a read
“But the question is rather larger – should the BBC now be AXED as a parasite bleeding off the public purse”
In a word DV, no.
If there’s one thing that reminds me each what a Great British Institution the BBC is, despite it’s deep Gramscian infiltration, it’s it’s coverage of Remembrance Sunday.
Should Chris Patten resign?
No.
The case for it is understandable, but what he’s got going for him that Entwhistle hadn’t, is he’s got gravitas.
What I’m not hearing about in the McAlpine debacle are calls to investigate whether the failure to properly investigate claims against Lord McAlpine were fueled by a left-wing bias that made ‘Senior Thatcher Tory Paedophile’ too hard to resist.