Did BBC help win Labour the 1964 election by cancelling Steptoe and Son?
When Harold Wilson learned that the BBC planned to broadcast an episode of Steptoe and Son on the night of the 1964 general election, he sensed disaster.
The Labour leader feared that working class voters would stay at home to watch the comedy, which in those days drew audiences of 26 million, instead of heading to the polls. In an extraordinary intervention, he visited the home of the BBC director-general, Sir Hugh Greene, and pleaded with him to pull the show from the schedules.
Sir Hugh agreed. And in a previously unheard interview, the late BBC chief questioned whether or not his decision cost the Conservative Party an election victory and handed Wilson the keys to No 10.
Wilson also gave an interview for the project, in 1981, acknowledging that the BBC’s decision had been “perfectly helpful” to Labour.
He recalled: “Polling then ended at 9 o’clock and a lot of our people – my people, working in Liverpool, long journey out, perhaps then a high tea and so on, it was getting late, especially if they wanted to have a pint first.
“I said I didn’t want a popular programme between 8-9 o’clock. It was the equivalent of bringing Morecambe and Wise back. Hugh didn’t think much of this argument. He said what would you prefer to put on between 8 o’clock and 9 o’clock? I said ‘Greek drama, preferably in the original’.”
You could also make a serious claim that the BBC has helped create the Islamic State by refusing to broadcast film of a Syrian attack on a school with chemical weapons just before the vote in Parliament about attacking Assad which Miliband shamefully, shamelessly, ducked...the same Assad who went on to build up the Islamic State for his own purposes.
The BBC played its part in that…first by helping to generate the fear of military engagement with its constant anti-war message and second by hiding the evidence of that chemical attack, only showing it on Panorama after the vote ensuring MP’s consciences weren’t pricked.
The only thing missing in BBC’s broadcasts on Ed Milliband is the opening,
” Our Dear Leader Ed Milliband, pbuh… “
Consign The BBC To The Scrapheap of History?
Yes please – as soon as possible, if not sooner.
Nasty left-wing organisation, totally unfit to broadcast anything to the world at large, and unable to do that without bias, spin, agendas, lies and deceit.
The epitome of evil.
CONSIGN LABOUR TO THE GULAG.
If for no reason then having committed the greatest crime in the annals of history- the wilfull turning of the blind eye while tens of thousands of young girls were being gang raped by Pakistani Muslims. Rapes for votes.
As I’ve estimated, thye number of Pakistani Muslims, over the deacdes, is around 300,000. This is not a tiny minority , but virtually the whole community.
Fing’s aint what they used to be !
It was a different time.
I’m surprised that the BBC didn’t give Miliband his own prime time show, about six months before the election….They mooted doing it with his one eyed predecessor so why not Red Ed?
Maybe a cookery show from one of his many kitchens?
Summarising…..‘BBC effectively colludes with Labour party leader to try to affect the result of a UK General Election’…
As in…. ‘weaponise the NHS’; blank any mention of South Staffs and the NHS in Wales; conveniently forget Balls’ and Miliband’s contributions to Mr Brown’s ‘sterling’ efforts to crash our economy in the middle of the last decade; allow Labour representatives to promise to spend the same pots of money over and over again; etc., etc.
Plus ça change…..
Beeboids should be remembered as having this basic political agenda:-
1.) preserving and increasing licence tax;
2.) supporting Labour Party;
3.) globally, using their broadcasting empire to represent
non-U.K interests, not least those of Islam.
“Smiley FARCE: BBC blasted for blowing thousands of pounds
of licence fee payers’ money on guide teaching its staff
how to use EMOJIS”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025454/BBC-blasted-blowing-thousands-licence-fee-payers-money-guide-teaching-staff-correct-way-use-EMOJIS.html#ixzz3WLJKXQL2
So the BBC created ISIS. It also caused Aids, famine in Africa and the Falkland’s War.
You are the most complete fuckwit!
This is the funniest blog on the net, populated by total utter morons who actually believe the world is flat because the BBC said it was round!
Beeb troll factory opened at 1.00pm?
If the BBC is destroyed I might have to buy The Guardian to find out what Britain’s enemies are thinking.
Just watch Sky!
Why, is something about to fall from it? Or is it going to fall, itself, as predicted by the climate alarmist arm of the BBC?
“You are the most complete fuckwit!”
I’m guessing that nameshifter ‘Kilt’ will be telling us next how we are all intolerant ,hate filled bigots, to busy foaming at the mouth to hear anyone else’s view.
Or as Breitbart put it
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/04/the-real-extremists-are-on-the-far-left/
And of course its only us that think the BBC bias
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2015/04/radio-4s-woeful-fact-checking-is-simply-anti-ukip-bias/
I have just read the comments section and a troll poster called UKSteve ended a comment with “Bless!” I wonder where have we seen that before?
That’s a fairly common lefty troll sign-off, I’ve seen it as far back as 2005 (probably goes back further); it’s the classic ‘I’m far more intelligent then you so why should I bother having a debate’, yes, a complete wanker’s get out response when they have no answer.
“This is the funniest blog on the net, populated by total utter morons”
It is when trolls like you get involved. Why don’t you fuck off, fuckwit?
I don’t think you should use language like that . Some people think trolls are nice .
.. are they nice with chips and gravy?
No, the Moron is the one with BELIEF without evidence that anyone on this site is a flat Earther. And, Sir Patrick Moore was not the BBC, as the BBC is not a person. Sir Patrick provided the viewer with evidence that the Earth was round, the viewer then was allowed to “think for themselves” on this issue. However, Sir Patrick did not censor believers, and in fact became a member of the flat Earth Society. Although there was no suggestion of a possibility of Sir Patrick becoming a believer, as evidence was more important to Sir Patrick. This is also why Sir Patrick was a UKIP supporter impervious to belief in the man-made Climate Change scam, and always pointed Astronomers to the evidence for the Sun as the source with a link between the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age as his starter.
I dont know about the rest, but the BBC did create ISIS, by its relentless pro-Islam propaganda.
Kilt?
Scottish Nazi, by any chance?
‘He recalled: “Polling then ended at 9 o’clock and a lot of our people – my people, working in Liverpool, long journey out, perhaps then a high tea and so on….’
‘High tea’ in Liverpool, eh? Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the the docker was offered that one by his missus.
Alan, I rarely take issue with you but I think you are not quite correct over ISIS, Assad probably did use the existence of Isis for his own purposes but I believe it is essential for us in Europe to take Isis seriously as a completely new and very dangerous force in the world.
Isis has been coming for some time now and unless we face up to the underlying philosophy behind it we will be in real trouble. Hence the BBC not covering Syrian gas attacks is irrelevant.
Not that the liberal BBC/media axis has the slightest notion of the very real and existential danger Isis poses to Europe and the world.
Absolute and total agreement, Mr S.
Take them seriously now, or take the even more serious consequences later (but not that much later…).
Perhaps that is why the BBC nurtures such homegrown talent with its elevated ‘self importance’ that corrupts both actors and polticians. Only the BBC could hide such massive cover ups of Saville plus a string of dodgy Labour politicians during and since Wilson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9616121/Jimmy-Savile-Steptoe-and-Son-actor-Wilfrid-Brambell-abused-boys-in-Jersey-claims-whistleblower.html
Sorry, I wont hear a word against Assad. It’s doubtful he did half the things ascribed to him. And if he did, so what. Would you expect him to take on Islamist filth using a Cloggyesque rule book.
When various people (Christians, Yazidis, etc.) were escaping from ISIS they didn’t head for, supposedly western friendly, parts of Iraq. They all headed for Assad’s Syria, the only safe haven for all.
With hindsight, if only we’d been on Saddam’s side when he invaded q8 and persuaded him to roll on into Saudi. We’d be living in a much better*, more peaceful world, today.
*Better, unless you’re Islamist scum, that is.
I’m sure Saddam’s dear friend George Galloway would agree with you. But for God’s sake, even in a part of the world rich with despots Saddam Hussein was a monster.
Only someone wearing bright red spectacles could not see that the BBC is heavily biased to the left on a daily basis and uses its power to proselytise the liberal left message. This takes the form of daily manipulation of the news agenda of the country, distortions of facts and omission of unhelpful news. We also see it regularly in documentary and drama programmes. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to me that the BBC would connive to help Labour in 1964. But things have got much worse since then.
What does surprise me is that the Tories have put up with this bias from the supposedly impartial state funded broadcaster for so many decades. Why ? Surely they don’t suppose that the BBC will eventually give them a fair crack of the whip, not after 50 years of daily bias! It can’t be that the Tories have actually supported the liberal left agenda for 50 years because I’m sure that Lady T never did. And I believe that Cameron’s shift to the left is only a move forced by the steady leftward move of popular opinion brought about by the relentless propaganda on the BBC. The only reason that I can think as to why the Tories haven’t tackled the BBC is that the political price of doing so ,even when they have a big majority, is calculated by them to be too high. In other words they are frightened what a threatened BBC would do and how it would mobilise all its lefty friends to defend it.
The problem with this is that left alone the BBC just keeps on growing and becoming steadily more leftist and dragging the countries politics leftwards with it. So by not doing anything the Tories are slowly letting the BBC make them unelectable . Today anyone who witnessed the awful mess that 13 years of New Labour resulted in, has to be bonkers, or a public sector employee, to even think about voting for the Mad Marxist Milibands. But Labour are still well up there in the polls. This is almost entirely due to the help that the BBC offers them. So if the Tories do lead the next government they must do something to curb the BBC. Abolition would be great but perhaps too much to hope for but surely the Tories can find a way of taming the leftist monster they have allowed to grow. If they don’t they will make even more difficult for themselves to win elections and so further undermine our democracy.
Wilfred Brambell was a another of the BBCs legion of kiddie fiddlers as it now turns out.
One thing being in Savills clutches, but the man who played Steptoe?
He really was a dirty old man. I’m sure that I’ve heard this about him before.
That was one of the catchphrases of Steptoe and Son, where son Harold persistently called dad Albert “a dirty old man” due to his revolting personal habits and hygiene.
That’s why I used it. He played Paul McCartney’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night – and there the catchphrase used to describe him was “At least he’s clean”.