The Sunday Times (paywalled) says that the BBC has hired yet another Labour man…Godric Smith, Blair’s official spokesman between 2001 and 2004 and head of strategic communications until 2006. (mentioned in the Guardian in July)
His PR firm, Incorporated London, has been hired by the BBC, without tender, to ‘help rebuild its reputation in the wake of the Savile scandal’.
One of his jobs might be….explain how he was hired without tender and why Labourite James Purnell’s (for it is he) department thinks it needs an old pal to help them out.
Still…he might also explain why Boaden, Purnell and Anne Bulford (also from the Royal Opera House as was Tony Hall) were ‘the only candidates for their posts’.
Maybe he can get some advice from old mucker Alastair Campbell, I’m sure they’ll meet up in the corridors of the BBC, Campbell seeming a permanent fixture there at times.
Godric Smith, Blair’s official spokesman between 2001 and 2004 and head of strategic communications until 2006.
You left out that he was hired by Francis Maude to be interim Executive Director of Government Communications last year. He was also Director of Government Communications for London 2012.
Including those facts would have weakened your premise. But I’m sure that their omission is a complete coincidence.
Presumably the fact you chose to ignore the ‘without tender’ part of the post was just a coincidence as well. Practice what you preach in future.
An answer to that would, presumably, be covered by an FOI exemption?
Maybe a thought from will duncan, if not on feet in mouth target practice elsewhere.
The Farce is strong with these ones today, after so long away.
Nothing you write suggests he isn’t 100% Blairite. Nothing you write answers the already made point about a tender process. Nothing you write suggest WHY the BBC needs this sort of help to “help rebuild its reputation”: I could do that and within a week we would have a slimmed down fitter service worthy f the name. After that week they would probably be a few thousand leaving but that would be part of the overall clean up anyway. When they realise it is NOT THEIR MONEY and when they realise that ‘market rates’ doesn’t mean paying more for less and when they realise impartiality means being impartial THEN they will be fit for purpose.
No mention of the ‘without tender’…the main point of the post?
Old mates being appointed and you don’t object.
London 2012? You mean the Olympics…hardly a political appointment…nor is working for Maude….to help improve the efficiency of the civil service….not quite the same as being part of ‘Team Blair’ working as his offical spokesman…..
‘They were known as Team Blair – the advisers and friends, spin doctors and Whitehall mandarins who surrounded the former prime minister, handled his relations with the media, plotted the infamous grid of events, offered policy and even personal advice.’
Still haven’t seen the BBC held to account for trying to jail Nick Griffin in their attempt to cover up the mass rape of little English girls by Muslim gangs
rape and abuse that even now goes hand-in-hand with omissions and edited reporting: for some reason the full facts are never there on the BBC
Sorry Geoff I think you will find that the Nick Griffin trial has gone into the memory hole and can no longer be mentioned. Just remember there was no trial and there was most certainly not any claims of mass rapes and weapons in mosques. In fact Nick Griffin seems to have been upgraded from the Beebs most hated man to becoming a none person who cannot even be mentioned.
The good old BBC……….all the news, all the time.
Provided, of course, that it fits with their agenda or can be “doctored”….by inclusion or omission…..to do so.
So pretty much like the Bliar publicity/propaganda machine really.
I honestly can’t see the problem with this guy’s appointment. Given his pedigree of lying, dissembling, cronyism and filling his own and his chums’ pockets with taxpayers’ money, he’s a natural for the job.
He could advise the BBC to change the statement “Climate Change Denier” to “Climate Denier”.
No one employed by the BBC would dare to disagree with that idea.
Nor would anyone employed by the BBC think it was anything but an intelligent and more precise description of the scientists and other none enviro-MENTAL viewers that the BBC does not agree with on this issue.