Chris Warburton stands in for Victoria Derbyshire this week.

He was discussing this (10:41):

BBC to argue for licence fee to be linked to inflation

The Sunday Times reported that the BBC had a preference for a subscription model of funding.

The BBC have leapt on that suggestion and denied it vigorously….

“The report recommends that the BBC pursue an inflationary licence fee increase with greater commercial revenue. No subscription model is recommended.”

Unfortunately one of those involved in the funding review, David Elstein, didn’t ‘rule out’ a subscription model..indeed he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it saying the BBC would ‘do pretty well out of it’..…and if avoiding the license fee is de-criminalised then the subscription model is probably the best method…not to use it would be ‘slow suicide’….though he suggests the proposal to decriminalise is merely a negotiating tactic by the government…despite many MPs actually urging it.

However he was very enthusiastic about the subscription model.

Elstein is ‘A long-time critic of the licence fee who believes the BBC should be funded by subscription’  and he made some interesting comments (in Jan 2014) about the license fee in light of the BBC’s recent claim that de-criminalising the license fee might lead to a drop in funding…

“Just a 1% increase in evasion would lead to the loss of around £35m, the equivalent of around 10 BBC local radio stations.”

Elstein points out that [discussing the BBC’s reporting, or non-reporting, of immigration]:

“It’s not a happy place to be when you are one of the very few public organisations directly benefiting from the unlimited expansion of the population.

“It’s not [the BBC’s] decision, there’s nothing they can do about it. It is a side product of a certain social phenomenon [and] the BBC might benefit.”

Elstein said the growth in single person households over the last two decades had a similar impact on BBC funding, leading to a “50% rise in the number of households paying the licence fee”.

Wonder how many local radio stations were funded by that increase!

Janet Daley in the Telegraph isn’t impressed by the BBC’s ‘ideal’ license fee + inflation:

The BBC wants even more money

Bizarrely, the BBC itself has chosen this moment to suggest that its licence fee should not simply be protected in future but that it should be unfrozen and (wait for it) linked to inflation. And in addition to requesting these automatic rises in the licence fee – which would mean that every increase in the cost of living would push up the cost of television-viewing – they also plan to introduce paid-for services to compete with iTunes and netflix. What planet, as they say, are these people on?

Here is a suggestion for what it might do. Instead of demanding a licence fee from every owner of a computer or smart phone (which it is, believe it or not, considering), it should make the consumption of BBC content on any device dependent on having a licence. It should be simple enough to introduce: in order to log on to the BBC website, or to access iPlayer, you would need to supply your licence number – just as you have to do now with most subscription-only web services. That way, anyone who wanted to use any BBC service on any platform would have to pay the fee. But you would have a choice. And it is only that – giving the consumer a real choice – that will bring BBC funding into the twenty-first century.

Sounds simple and effective.

Another interesting interview (11:27) was with Alistair Morgan, brother of Daniel Morgan, a private detective investigating police corruption, murdered in 1987….possibly, and significantly you might think, just as he was about to expose that corruption.  Alistair Morgan suggests that if the botched investigation into his brother’s murder had been properly examined the subsequent investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder would not have also been ‘botched’ if lessons had been learned.

As Daniel Morgan was white that kind of suggests that botched police investigations are not solely, if at all, related to ‘race’ of the victim…and it should be noted that Morgan was murdered in 1987, the government, despite a long campaign by the family, only initiated an inquiry concerning the police investigation in 2013…compare that to the Lawrence case…Stephen Lawrence murdered in 1993, a review was announced only 4 years later in 1997….and Lawrence’s mother is now a ‘Baroness’  on the strength of her campaigning….though other matters  may have influenced that.

Here you go folks, a new OPEN THREAD to start the week.

I haven’t paid the Macpherson Report much attention, assuming its conclusions about ‘institutional racism’ to be knee jerk politically correct appeasement of the Black community.

Having started to read it nothing has so far disabused me of that…nor has anything reported about the police investigation….more corruption, incompetence and arse covering than racism by the Police.

The BBC of course are more than happy to unquestioningly label it all as ‘institutional racism’…..more on that when I have completed reading the report…but in the meantime some more police ‘racism’ to chew on……Stephen Lawrence’s murder was a tragedy but just one amongst many….and one amongst many where the police or the establishment failed the victims, black or white…..and yet only one gets the massive attention and the claims of game changing importance resulting from the case……seems that many more are forgotten…….

Is it because she was black?:

Horse trainer sues murder police who ‘framed her for murder’ over lover’s bonfire death

Why did the police refuse to accept this was a racist attack?:

Boy’s fight to prove attack by Asian gang was racist

And this….a 73 year old white gangsta?:

Police pay 73-year-old driver £20,000 after officers smashed his Range Rover’s window and windscreen for driving without a seatbelt

As said more incompetence and corruption than racism at the bottom of police failure.

From the Sunday Times in 2006 (£)….lest we forget in the deluge of coverage over Stephen Lawrence:

 
The hidden white victims of racism

Last week’s horrifying trial of three Asians is part of a worrying trend, says Brendan Montague
No one who saw Angela Donald giving her dignified statement that “justice had been done” outside the High Court in Edinburgh as the racist murderers of her 15-year-old son were jailed last week could feel anything but sympathy. For Margaret Massey there was more, though — a sense of fellow-feeling and anger.

Kriss Donald was snatched off the street by an Asian gang and subjected to a terrible ordeal: beaten, stabbed, doused in petrol and set ablaze. Massey’s son Lee, a rugby player, was also the subject of a racially motivated attack when he was set upon by a gang of Iraqi asylum seekers “out looking for someone” to hurt.

He and two friends were stabbed in a car park in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in October 2003. Lee was then thrown into the air and suffered devastating brain injuries when one of the gang used a car to run him down. Three years later he has not fully recovered.

Massey still feels aggrieved that — in her view — the police inquiry was hindered by political correctness because officers feared that reporting that a white man had been so brutally attacked by asylum seekers would further fuel racial tensions following several such brawls in the area.
“The police didn’t charge 13 members of the gang even though I believe there was some evidence,” she says.
“If our Lee had run over one of the Iraqis he would have been arrested right away and sent to prison for the rest of his life. The police are nervous when white people are attacked. In this area this is happening more and more often.”

The killing of Stephen Lawrence 13 years ago sparked off an orgy of soul-searching throughout liberal Britain.

But we have never quite acknowledged that violence comes from both sides. Gavin Hopley, 19, was kicked to death by up to eight Asian men in Oldham in February 2002. Six men were convicted of violent disorder and theft offences but no one has been convicted of his murder.
An Asian gang was also responsible for the violent killing of 17-year-old Ross Parker, who was savagely stabbed with hunting knives during an attack in Peterborough in 2001. David Lees, 23, was run over and killed during a fight between whites and a gang of Asians in Prestwich, Manchester, only last month.

There has been numerous inquiries and new legislation since the Lawrence case and almost everyone concerned with race relations will confirm that policing in cases involving race has improved immeasurably since that tragic event.

However, the debate about the white victims of racist attacks seems to have progressed no further in the past 10 years — because of fears of “political correctness” and the threat of the far right making political capital out of personal tragedy.

Sir Ian Blair, Britain’s most senior police officer, even attacked the press as “institutionally racist” in January this year because cases such as the killing of Tom ap Rhys Pryce, the solicitor, had gained more publicity than the equally terrible death on the same day of Balbir Matharu, who had tried to stop thieves ripping the radio from his car.

An extensive search of national and regional newspaper reports, however, shows that cases involving black and minority ethnic victims are widely reported, while there is an almost total boycott of stories involving the white victims of similar attacks. Is this because newspapers fear their reports appearing on BNP leaflets, or because the police are less likely to issue appeals for help?

Peter Fahy, chief constable of Cheshire police and spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “A lot of police officers and other professionals feel almost the best thing to do is to try and avoid [discussing such attacks] for fear of being criticised. This is not healthy.”

The silence means it is impossible to know how many white people are victims of racist attacks in today’s multicultural Britain and whether they are right to feel aggrieved that the attacks they suffer do not appear to get the same recognition as those of black victims.
Take the case of Christopher Yates, who had been out celebrating a birthday with a group of friends in London and, concerned about their safety, insisted on taking some of the women he was with to a bus stop during a cool November evening two years ago.

Without warning, the 30-year-old office worker was viciously assaulted by a gang of drunken Asian men — Sajid Zulfiqar, Zahid Bashir and Imran Maqsood — who stamped on his head, smashing every bone in his face before killing him.

After the murder the attackers shouted in Urdu, “We have killed the white man — that will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business.” Despite this appalling racism, the three were never convicted for committing a race crime — which would have meant a heavier sentence.

This led to comparisons with the brutal and unprovoked murder of Anthony Walker, a young black man who was attacked when walking to a bus stop in Liverpool with a female friend. The 18-year-old was bludgeoned with an ice axe by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton, both white, and died later in hospital.

The attack was undoubtedly racially motivated, but the fact that Taylor and Barton received sentences nine and three years longer respectively than their equally racist counterparts in London has led to suspicions that racist attacks against whites and non-whites are treated differently in the courts.

At the same time there is growing concern that attacks by Asians and other ethnic minorities have been steadily increasing, leaving some white people feeling too scared to enter city areas dominated by Asians and other minority ethnic groups.

Figures recently published under the Freedom of Information Act seem to support such fears: of the 58 people killed because of the colour of their skin between 1995 and 2004, almost half were described as white.

The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people who described themselves as black or minority ethnic (BME) had been victims of what they believed was a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded.

At the same time a staggering 92,000 white people also said that racism was the cause of an attack or crime they had suffered. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.

The truth is hard to get at: Jenny Bourne, of the Institute of Race Relations, says its figures show only eight white victims of racially motivated killings between 1995 and 2004: “The Kriss Donald case involved an Asian gang which had been involved in violence already. These cases are incredibly rare compared with the number of racist attacks on minorities which take place every day.”

What is clear is that unless the attacks on whites are reported and discussed, the truth about what is happening out there will remain hazy.

Paxman sounds as if he’s tired of the whole bally lot of ’em…the peace loving lefties who roam the corridors of the BBC spreading peace and joy….through self-indulgent appeasement.

Jeremy Paxman: why we would not fight the Great War now

BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman suggests Britain is too self-obsessed and hedonistic to become involved in a conflict like the First World War

Storyville: 2013-2014:  The Little Nation that Fought Back

Oscar-nominated film compiled from the film diary of an Israeli family which over six decades documented the Muslim attempts to erase their country from the map, and them along with it.  David Shalit started filming following the birth of the new nation in 1948.  Surrounded by hostile Muslim countries he filmed as they invaded and the new Israelis begin to resist the attacks.

Over 60 years his family continued to film the violent attempts to annihilate Israel as it struggled to create the only real democracy in the Middle East and turn it into an oasis of technology, invention , science and  political and social inclusion shaped and forged from the empty, barren desert left behind after 1400 years of Muslim colonisation and occupation.

Despite the constant attacks by Muslims, the ever-present rockets fired from over the border by Palestinians at Israeli civilians, the terror threats and sniper fire that forced Israel to build a wall in self defence and the misleading and malign reporting by organisations such as the BBC which aim to cast the Israelis in the role of Nazis and attempt to de-legitimise the new land of Israel,  it succeeds against the odds despite one attack after another and hostile media coverage.

Shalit’s family collaborate with Palestinian director Ibn Kelb to produce this powerful and moving documentary of over 60 years of resistance in the face of terrorism and war imposed upon them.

See here for BBC Watch’s critique of this fascinating BBC film that recognises the bravery, ingenuity and stubborn refusal to be erased from history of the Israeli nation.

The BBC finally get around to reporting this:

‘Islamic takeover plot’ in Birmingham schools investigated

Although the authorities have been aware of the alleged plot since November, the details have only become public now thanks to the letter which has been widely leaked.

We still don’t know whether it’s genuine or a fake, but that’s one of the questions the city council is attempting to answer with its investigation.

It’s clearly a sensitive subject and there will be great concerns about the effect on what the authorities euphemistically call “community cohesion”.

Finding anyone who is directly involved and prepared to go on the record has also proved difficult.

No-one wants to be called an “Islamaphobe” or a racist, nor do they wish to be labelled a right wing conspiracy theorist.

So the truth about such matters and open debate is suppressed because people don’t want to be labeled ‘islamophobes, racist or right wing conspiracy theorists’?…..guess Mehdi Hasan et al’s work is done then, they have succeeded in closing down criticism of Islam or Muslim actions based upon promoting that ideology…..all aided by the BBC…ironically one of those ‘authorities’ who  suppress such criticism in the name of that euphemism ‘community cohesion’.

What’s going on in the Crimea should be a warning as to the dangers of having highly active political/ideological groups within separate communities and the ease with which they can change the facts on the ground.

What would the government do if fundamentalists urged a vote in a Muslim majority city to run it on Islamic principles and the community voted for that? What could the government do?

Couldn’t happen?  Look at the Crimea and their vote to separate.  If I was a Muslim ‘radical’ I would be looking at that and the West’s impotence and start thinking how easy it would be to annex a city using ‘democracy’ and politician’s fear of taking the necessary action….there’s no ‘Russia’ to back such a move but there is the Guardian and the BBC who would denounce any police action or ultimate military intervention…..ala Israel.

Russia controls the gas pipeline  to Europe and the BBC controls the flow of information, anything it doesn’t like the BBC turns off that flow.

[Just been listening to 5Live presenter…apparently this isn’t Russia ‘ramping up its authority’ over the Ukraine]
Would the local Muslim community vote along those lines?  Maybe, maybe not….this is what the BBC tells us about ‘Operation Trojan Horse’…..

It says that Salafi parents should be enlisted to help, because they are regarded as a more orthodox branch of Islam and would be more likely to be willing to help.  
The BBC itself tells us that Muslims are identifying more and more with their religion and parents want their children to go to Islamic schools……how many would be tempted to press for a Muslim only area where they are in the majority if given the opportunity?

Which is why it is so important for organisations like the BBC to openly debate the implications and consequences of mass immigration and the importation of ideologies that are opposed to liberal, democratic principles and the social and cultural aspects of such a society.

Of course some would say it’s not a problem having areas of Britain run along Islamic principles…some ‘liberals’ have already suggested London be turned ‘Islamic’…but many more would object….it would be nice to have a say without being labeled ‘islamophobic, racist or right wing conspiracists’.

The BBC is quick to jump on this proposal:

TV licence fee non-payment ‘could be decriminalised’

Amazing how fast the BBC can report a story they have an interest in….they’ve already rounded up a load of viewers and listeners on 5Live (at death O’clock this morning) for their comments….guess what…most support the license…the BBC providing a wonderful service at a reasonable price.

Murder is wrong and the tragedy that afflicted the Lawrence family when their son Stephen was brutally killed cannot be underestimated. BUT it strikes me that the leftist media in general, and the BBC in particular, has elevated this to a level that is disproportionate to many other equally vile murders, such as that which happened t0 15 year old Kriss Donald. It does however enable them to advance their “institutional racism” meme and throw in the “institutional corruption” angle for extra points.  I wonder how you view their coverage of this latest twist to the Lawrence saga?

Friday arrives and so does this! Detail the bias here.

Perhaps I’ve missed something but does anyone really care about BBC 3?

Looking at its schedule its hard to see all that innovative and thought provoking programming we’re told it produces….what I see is 95% repeats…..or sensationalist tabloid type tat that it denounces the Daily Mail for…’Snog, Marry Avoid’ or ‘Secrets of South America….Generation Sex’ or the fascinating ‘Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes’.

The ‘youf’ are gutted:

“I’m completely gutted, I think you’re completely ignoring our views,” said BBC Three fan Alice. “We’re not going to sit by and take it – we’re going to make a stand and try to save the channel.”

There’s a bit of infighting going on at the BBC just now……BBC 3 is to be re-shaped for the digital age, taking a pay cut along the way……

The BBC has announced sweeping changes to youth channel BBC Three, which will disappear from the EPG in autumn 2015.

…….so far, listening to the interviews, it seems that it is mostly other BBC staff who are upset.

The BBC tells us that…..

The problem for the BBC is that Three is viewed by 16 million people a week and they tend to be people the rest of the corporation struggles to reach – the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse.

Comedy producer Ash Atalla said the BBC had at a stroke made itself “whiter, older and more middle class”.

Not quite sure how they have come to the conclusion that it’s only ‘the young, the less affluent and more ethnically diverse’ who don’t watch the BBC…quite a sweeping statement…but why limit it to those categories?  Just how many others, the whiter, older, middle class, actually watch massive amounts of BBC1 or BBC 2, never mind 3 and 4?  Looking at the schedules it doesn’t look particularly inspiring viewing for anybody.

Possibly the problem with the BBC is that it has had too much money and has been able to indulge itself and spend without regard to quality, spreading itself too thin….

“They have ended up working in this culture which is buried in the last century, which is ‘we are the BBC, we do what we like, we don’t have to be too accountable’.

Not a great deal of money is being saved here….BBC 3’s budget is £85, it will be £25 m in future, but £30 million of the cut budget will be used to fund BBC 1 drama.

Possibly the ‘cut’ is a negotiating tactic for the next round of charter renewal talks……

‘The BBC’s director of television, Danny Cohen, even refused to rule out the possibility of closing another channel, saying: “We don’t know for certain what will happen for BBC Four in the future”.

“We can’t keep offering the same with less money,” he continued.

“If future funding for the BBC comes under threat, the likelihood is we would have to take more services along the same route.”

Strange though that the pruning of BBC 3 is being cast as the end of comedy and innovative programming…..wasn’t that the job of BBC 2 before the BBC got too big?…..

Happy Birthday BBC TWO

Jane Root, Controller of BBC TWO, says: “The most enjoyable thing about the channel is that it brings surprise, sophistication and innovation to a range of things.

“It has always been famous for creating both popular comedy and thought-provoking programmes.

 “That sense of variety has been there all the way though the channel’s history.”

A vast array of comedy, culture and highminded programming flooded out of BBC 2….The Young Ones, Ab Fab, Not the Nine O’clock News, The Ascent of Man, Life on Earth, The Office, Yes Minister…… never mind Monty Python…..etc etc…..

Here’s a list of just the comedy on BBC 2

And BBC One?

How about Mrs Brown’s Boys?……

Its opening in the UK won 16.4% of the ratings in its Monday night slot and was received well by viewers.^[30] Despite the critical reviews, 2.9 million viewers had tuned in by the third episode.^[31][32][33] The 2011 Christmas Special achieved 6.61 million viewers, winning in its 10 pm time-slot.^[34][35] Consolidated figures revealed that the 2012 Christmas specials were the most watched programmes on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day respectively: “Mammy Christmas” had 11.68 million viewers (41.3%) and “The Virgin Mammy” was watched by 10.72 million (38.7%).^[36] The episode “Buckin’ Mammy” was the most watched programme in the UK on Christmas Day 2013, with 9.4 million viewers.^[37]

Must have been a few ‘ethnic’ people, or young ones, or ‘not middle class’ people watching that….or Top Gear.

Perhaps the BBC should go back to doing a few things well rather than trying to serve every niche market or exotic cultural sector of the community with their own personalised channels.