BBC promotes ‘elitist’ view of sailing, says Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (from August)
“Come on BBC get that ridiculous elitist smear out of your thinking and support our young athletes in the maritime field.
“We were, at one time, a maritime nation but it’s impossible to engender interest in marine matters when our public broadcaster is so uninterested.”
The BBC ignored that….and only invited him in for an interview after Miliband’s little quip.
From the Telegraph (Reporting on Knox Johnston’s appearance on the Today programme):
During his address to his party in Brighton this week, the Labour leader argued that the economic recovery was only helping the elite, saying: “They used to say ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. Now the rising tide just seems to lift yachts.”
But Sir Robin Knox Johnston denied the sport was as exclusive as the quip implied, insisting it had a broad appeal.
“It’s absolute nonsense. It’s not elitist at all.”
Sir Robin, who in 1968 became the first man to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe, last month attacked the BBC for promoting a similar view of his sport and failing to give it sufficient coverage.
In a letter to Yachting World, he wrote: “It’s a sad reflection on the attitudes of our publicly owned national broadcaster that it can consistently refuse to provide coverage for one of the largest and most successful sports in the country.
“Without the oxygen of publicity our young sailors battle to find the sponsorship they need to compete at an international level.”
The BBC then published this after the Today interview:
Yachting ‘not just for posh people’
Sir Robin Knox Johnston, one of Britain’s most successful sailors and the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world, said people had got the wrong idea about the sport.
“I could run a yacht for less than it’ll cost you to watch a football team for a year,” he said.
Note they make absolutely no mention of his reference to the BBC’s part in demonising yachting as ‘elitist’ in his interview in August.
Maybe there is something about yachts and Labour leaders that has an unhappy folk memory at the BBC. I recall that when the BBC made the infamous documentary “Yesterday’s Men” and quizzed Harold Wilson about selling his account of the 1964-70 Government he retorted “have you ever asked (Heath) how he paid for his yacht”.
i was under the impression that most beeboids were into sailing in a major way judging by the amount of them that drop anchor in poo bay. Maybe i’ve misunderstood something there.
Of course they like sailing…they are a ‘Patrician elite’…so says Paul Mason…see next post.
Just putting your seal of approval on a homophobic joke there, Alan.
Classy.
Homophobic?? er OK if you say so ! only you see that therefore only you are are of the phobic mindset !
Poo bay?
Is it the outlet for the Tigga River?
Speaking as a gay man, I thought the joke was quite amusing. Please don’t take umbrage on my behalf CTC, it is not necessary. Virtually all of the gay people I know have a sense of humour – we are not all like the dour Beeboids.
As do most people of ‘oppressed groups’ – usually the first people to send themselves up – but the ‘patrician elite’ have a self imposed duty to protect them from their own right to not be offended
That’s only too true. Jewish humour is among the funniest I know but most is directed at themselves. Once when I mentioned the funniest bit on an old Two Ronnies sketch was dropped because it had a Jewish reference, completely inoffensive of course; Dezi decided that it had to be banned because it was using a Jewish caricature. This was despite me already saying that I am half-Jewish and found the scene uproariously funny. As always the Lefties believe they have the right to enforce their prejudices on the rest of us and we are not allowed to have our own opinions about whether something offends us or not “You will be offended, and I will insist on that” is their motto.
My mother comes from Irish Catholic stock and as a family we all rolled about laughing at “Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width” which gently sent up Jews and Irish Catholics. Completely inoffensive but it is never repeated of course. (ITV on this one).
CTC isn’t here for balance, that’s pretty obvious from his username. Everything he posts is just an attempt at contradicting the subject matter.
Joke:
Will Ed Miliband announce a Labour freeze for an extra 20-months on the licence fee of the monopolistic global broadcaster, the BBC?
You can get a 100% reduction if you stop funding these traitors. Just to remind anyone who is confused – as things stand, you only need a tv license to watch programs as they are being broadcast either over the air or over the internet. You do not need a license to watch catch up programs on BBC Iplayer or catchup services of other tv channels. No license is needed to listen to the radio. You do not even need a licennse to own a tv only if it is used to receive live brodcasts. So a TV connected to a computer used ony to watch catch up programs does not require a TV license. Look on youtube for “TV license”
see also >>>>>>
They’ve just finished broadcasting every race in the Americas Cup. Over twelve hours of it, on BBC2. But why let the facts get in the way of things?
Wow so that’s 12 hrs of studio talk with a nice picture of a boat !
With pictures, which BBC2 had, last time I turned on my TV.
Nobody’s interested in your partisan trolling.
That wasn’t trolling, it was a simple factual correction. But you’re evidently not interested in facts, if they’re at odds with your prejudices.
Just finished! perhaps will get highlights of this years Le Mans 24 next
He’s gonna buy a dinghy, gonna call her dignity
One of my most hated songs, as it’s so full of the usual total rose tinted ignorance of the hate filled left !
You can’t sail any boat up through a town unless it has a very large river running through it. Bridges are of course a major issue!
Then there’s the sleeping arrangements which are in most dinghies uncomfortable to say the least, if it’s even possible.
How strange though a left wing iconic stupid song should find itself on the wrong side of the ever moving left wing tracks.
The Sea Cadets provide Sailing activities from Tall Ships through to kayaks to children from all backgrounds particularly from poorer backgrounds.
Sadly this organisation has become very liberal with the removal of the reference to the Royal Navy from its mission statement and Royal Marine Cadets now don’t get to shoot as it’s seen as too militaristic
If we want to put Ed Miliband and the BBC in the same boat, then let it be steered by Del Boy’s Uncle Albert !
“They used to say ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. Now the rising tide just seems to lift yachts.”
Am I alone in finding this wholly inaccurate and trite comment rather irritating
That the BBC accept it unquestioningly rather underlines the point
Speaking of two in a boat…
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9040771/here-we-go-again-say-one-word-against-an-icon-of-the-left-and-the-phone-wont-stop-ringing/
‘these youngish callers from a multiplicity of BBC news stations’
Well, the floral yoof wing of the 8,000 do need something to justify their £19.57 a week.
‘The odd thing is, it never, ever happens when I have a go at the right, no matter how recklessly, personally or unpleasantly… I could write an article insisting that David Cameron was created from the frozen semen of Adolf Hitler by Soviet scientists and that he enjoyed nightly intercourse with feral goats — and the Beeb and Channel 4 wouldn’t give a monkey’s.’
I wonder how many Flokkers diverted on overtime to prove that one wrong, once?
Mr. Liddle used to work for the BBC, you know.
And as picture selection is all the rage, that Speccie one of the new, thoroughly modern, won’t tolerate this ‘n that, Mili…
http://www.e-scoala.ro/istorie/mussolini.jpg
Bet when he gets in, the trains will run on time, too.
“How typically hypocritical of the Left, who danced on the grave of Mrs Thatcher, to be upset about debate over Red Ed’s Marxist father”
By STEPHEN GLOVER.
[Excerpt]:-
“Oh, I shouldn’t forget that the BBC, which has been scandalised by the suggestion that Ralph Miliband was not a paid-up British patriot, gave endless airtime to a long succession of people who wanted to vent their anger and resentment against the just-deceased Margaret Thatcher.
“The truth is that Leftists who reach for the smelling salts when the record of one of their own is reasonably questioned require no lessons in the tricks of denigrating or smearing their political adversaries.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-2442132/Ed-Milibands-Marxist-father-debate-How-hypocritical-Left-upset.html
Modern technology will do for the BBC in the long run. You could justify a Licence fee when there were only three TV channels (and the BBC ran two of the three) but in a world of multiple channels, computer games, the internet, box sets, online streaming of films…it’s possible to be a complete TV or screen media addict and rarely (or ever) use BBC services. It’s hard to justify a licence fee in this new landscape.
Also, the BBC may be keen on migrants to the UK but the BBC doesn’t appear to be particularly loved back by ‘new’ citizens. African/Turkish/Asian TV channels are freely available by satellite and specialist satellite dishes picking up these channels have long been a feature of areas with high immigration. It is also interesting to note that the BBC now issues its TV licence guidelines in many languages. Is this merely ‘diversity compliance’ or an acknowledgement that certain groups are not ‘good payers’ and that there is a need to target these groups?
“Why are Marxists and Soviet apologists regarded as harmless jokers?”
By Douglas Murray.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2013/10/why-are-marxists-and-soviet-apologists-regarded-as-harmless-jokers/?ico=^editors_choice
A good complement to the thread running on Mr. Campbell’s dire Newsnight outing as facilitated by Emily ‘New Tenas please’ Witless.
Contra Emily Maitlis (among others) on last night’s Newsnight, it is perfectly possible to fight for a country in a world war and still hold values (then or subsequently) inimical to the country you fought for
Just one of her daft eager pleas, from the playlist, was the ‘but he fought for the country he loved’ attempt. Several times.
Clearly the concept of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ has passed her by.
Along with all the other selective history marker rubbish, where what happened in XXXXAD was bad (or good), but anything 50 years either side wasn’t. Or isn’t. Or something. There’s a Flokker there trying to work in the Great Irish Famine to damn the West. Did modern-day America exist then (I know Raleigh brought spuds over)?
I know the peroxide-addled moppet only trots out what the voices in her ear tell her to (‘get him to say ‘hate’ and we can bank it’), but it was woeful to watch.