Labour’s Lord Bragg, Melvyn to you and me, has BBC Chair, Rona Fairhead, in his sights. He states that “There are a couple of people on the board perfectly capable of taking over and she is a busted flush. Grandees [no less] in arts and broadcasting have told me so.”
The reason Farihead is a ‘busted flush’ in Bragg’s opinion? Fairhead failed to challenge the government in July when it made the BBC take on the burden of the free licence fees for the over 75s from 2018. Bragg says “She has failed a major test. She has no credibility at all. It was disgraceful that the Trust was the dog that did not bark in the night.”
Hmmm…so what does he think of Tony Hall, the man who actually negotiated this deal?
Surely he is a ‘busted flush’ who failed a major test? What do the Grandees think?
The Mail tells us that the little piggies at the BBC who are troughing away at licence fee payers’ expense must stop crying wolf about the Charter Review…
MPs tell BBC to stop crying wolf – and cut £52m pay bill: Backbenchers accuse Corporation of scaremongering and urge it to slash ‘bloated’ staffing costs
The BBC should stop crying wolf about the future of flagship services and instead get serious about slashing its £52 million-a-year bill for senior managers, say MPs.
Tory backbenchers are angry about the BBC’s suggestions that the only way it can save money is by closing flagship channels like BBC Four.
They have accused the broadcaster of scaremongering and want it to start talking seriously about cutting back on ‘bloated’ staffing costs.
But critics claim such threats are groundless and are simply designed to whip up public support for the BBC,
Damian Collins, a Tory member of the House of Commons media and sport select committee said: ‘There are all sorts of kites being flown suggesting popular services will be cut when we know that won’t happen.’
He added: ‘I think what they are trying to do is hit upon populist areas of the BBC where they know there is a vocal audience of people who will be appalled by the idea of them going.’
Once again Tony Hall is at the centre of things, this time as the driving force behind the alarmist campaign that the BBC has mounted…we know that he tried to blackmail the government before the budget by threatening to publicly say he would close BBC 2 so desperate as he seems to be to cling on to the BBC’s enormously privileged and entrenched position. How can anyone trust a word this man says? Not even those in the BBC trust him after his failure to block the licence fee move.
Looks more and more like a busted flush every day.
Tell the BBC to reduce its cost by x% a year and that any cuts they make will be entirely down to them, so that if they decide to close all local radio stations that will entirely be a BBC decision on priorities.
As for offering its reporters services to local newspapers do you not think that local paper editors know just how low the circulation of the Guardian is – why on earth would they want reports with that slant on them in their pages!
I like Bragg.
Credit where it is due to the BBC, “In our Time” is, in my opinion, a shining example of what the BBC should be doing.
But Bragg here is a shining example of the unreality at the BBC.
Shining through is a sense of entitlement, other organisations may need to feel the heavy hand of austerity, but the BBC rises above this.
The BBC staff, like the police, local government and other branches of those we employ to serve us, but who are self serving, would not last ten minutes in the private sector. As anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with them on a regular basis will testify.
There is plenty of dead wood at Al Beeb and no forester there to cut it out and throw it on the bonfire.
Sell it off to the private sector and let the lefties feels the woodsman’s axe.
Just like the UK citizens killed by the the, BBC supported, Islamic devils everywhere.
>Shining through is a sense of entitlement, other organisations may need to feel the heavy hand of austerity, but the BBC rises above this.<
Spot on. The sense of entitlement that says an organisation with a guaranteed revenue stream in the region of $4bn per annum should not "carry the cost" of providing a free service to pensioners over the age of 75 but is happy to provide said service so long as someone else pays.
Thought Alan , would shoehorn Billy Bragg into the article too. A double wammy of Bragg`s
I’m rather surprised that given the nature of this article no one has commented about Lord Halls pre BBC position at the Royal Opera House which can only survive thanks to tax payer hand outs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/11711346/Why-does-the-Royal-Opera-House-pay-directors-so-much.html
The clues in the URL, why does it pay directors so much?
The ROH’s Director of Opera earned a total of £287,000 in the 2013-14 season
Music Director Sir Antonio Pappano earned £104,000 as Music Director, and £435,000 for conducting some twenty-six performances in the 2013-14 season: a total of £539,000
Both men also work extensively elsewhere, thanks to contracts which allow them considerable leaves of absence.
Hall as head of the Royal Opera house in the 2011-12 financial year took home £354,400 pay plus pension contributions, a total package of £392,361.
Put simply Hall has been allowed charge of the purse strings and helped himself and his friends to some eye watering salaries at the public’s expense. Any criticism has been met with cries of ‘Philistines’, or dumbing down or threats to scale back productions.
He is accustomed to paying stupendous salaries to those around him, and it’s a bottomless purse when the lady bountiful taxpayer is footing the bill
BBC delenda est, I agree. ‘In Our Time’ is the sort of thing the BBC does well and should concentrate on. It can’t cost very much to produce yet its value to western civilization is infinitely higher than, say, sending Fergal Keen all the way to Japan to emote about how awful the bombing of Hiroshima was.