‘Information is power. It is the route to hearts and minds. Information frames what we do, how we think and vote. It is fundamental to the operation of our societies and our lives. All leaders, in the public or private sector, know that any influence they have over information is crucial to their leadership, even to their hold on power. The media – the means of information transmission – are thus fundamental to power and are, inevitably and necessarily, political.’  Will Hutton

 

The lefty Will Hutton has never ranked too high in my thoughts but has sunk even lower once I read his childish and simplistic, not to say wildly misleading, plea for the BBC:

The BBC is loved by the nation. It can use that power to confront the Tories

To deplore – even viscerally to hate – the BBC has become a badge of what it means to be a Tory today. It is the kind of “behemoth” statist organisation with “imperial ambitions” that it is their mission to eliminate, especially given its alleged marriage to “liberal values”. It allegedly crowds out doughty private sector media companies, most of whom represent the Tory interest. It is funded by a “regressive” tax.

The BBC is well known for crushing local news organisations with the weight of its tax funded presence and it competes entirely unfairly against the bigger commercial media companies parking its tanks on their lawns in an ever increasing grab for power and influence.

Hutton is of course not an uninterested party in this having raged against Murdoch for years…

Murdoch has become one of the political issues of our time, as menacing in his own special way to democracy and conduct of politics as many other threats our society faces, only we do not see it, because his power is used behind the scenes to extend his commercial influence and so his grip on the flow of so much of the information in Britain.

Which is ironic really as those very same criticisms could equally be levelled at the BBC, a BBC which has far more of the news audience than Murdoch has…..and as the BBC has a vast swathe of the British public under its influence it is only fit and proper that the BBC comes under intense scrutiny and regulation as Hutton himself admits ‘information is power’ and those who control the information are therefore extremely powerful…

Information is power. It is the route to hearts and minds. Information frames what we do, how we think and vote. It is fundamental to the operation of our societies and our lives. All leaders, in the public or private sector, know that any influence they have over information is crucial to their leadership, even to their hold on power. The media – the means of information transmission – are thus fundamental to power and are, inevitably and necessarily, political.

 

Hutton tells us that ‘ It is a Tory’s sacred duty, in parliament or in the print media, to pulverise it into insignificance. The opportunity, with charter renewal happening next year, has now presented itself. It will not be passed up.’

But we know that is complete rubbish…the Charter Review will involve people and organisations from all points of view, naturally the BBC itself will have a big say in proceedings, the review panel, despite loud claims to the opposite, are in fact pro-BBC and don’t want to see it ‘diminished’, neither does John Whittingdale himself…

Describing himself as a “huge admirer” of the broadcaster, Whittingdale told viewers of BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning “the last thing I want to do is undermine the BBC”.

And..

 

Hutton then makes this claim…

Javid and Whittingdale’s twin job is to dismantle the edifice of public service broadcasting. ITV is to be sold abroad; Channel 4 is to be privatised; the BBC is to be scaled back enormously. At the next election, it will be the print and social media that set the political agenda in the Tory interest; public service broadcasters with their commitment to political balance will be greatly less influential and by 2025 largely marginalised. It is not technology driving this change, but political choice.

ITV is a commercial company, Channel 4 is well known as a left wing broadcaster and the BBC is far from impartial itself.  Hutton claims that it will be the right wing Press and social media that will set the agenda in the Tories’ interest in the next election.  However as the ‘dead tree’ Press is declining and the BBC is growing ever bigger and more powerful that’s hard to see…..and as for social media…again this is by-in-large dominated by the Left…and indeed here’s a campaign on 38 Degrees to ‘defend’ the BBC…

Protect our BBC

And of course we have just seen the ‘political earthquake’ of Corbyn being elected with a groundswell of activists as the Guardian notes:

Is grassroots politics the future?

Political candidates in the UK, US and Europe that would have seemed unlikely frontrunners a year ago are challenging establishment politics by harnessing enormous grassroots support. Has politics changed forever?

In the digital age, people aren’t ruled by what’s delivered to them by mainstream media; they decide on who and what they like on social sites – and then they share it – and it seems act on it.

 

I’m not entirely sure this is correct..’In the digital age, people aren’t ruled by what’s delivered to them by mainstream media’...I think the social media merely acts as an echo chamber not an opinion former and enables like-minded people to connect and then act together in concert to try and influence events.  There is a reason the Left, like Hutton, spend so much time and effort to defend the BBC.  That reason is because the BBC does retain so much power and influence and it acts as an enormous incubus and distribution hub for left wing ideas, culture and values.  The BBC is a powerful resource for the Left, one that politicians fall foul of at their peril….as Hutton admits in the title to his piece….’The BBC is loved by the nation. It can use that power to confront the Tories’.

Indeed the BBC has apparently been using that power to have a sly dig at Cameron when he was recorded making a joke about Yorkshire…apparently this was a BBC recording…but the BBC doesn’t admit that merely saying…

Mr Cameron was wearing a television microphone when he made the comments but was not aware he was being recorded.

You have to ask how the BBC could justify releasing Cameorn’s off-camera comment…it was obviously done to embarrass him and cause him trouble.  The BBC using its power to undermine a political opponent…just another one of the BBC’s dirty tricks.

 

Hutton himself pleads for some pro-BBC grass roots marching…something for BBC producer Tony Brown to do perhaps?…

Hilarious how he co-ops the public, the ‘we’, into his plans…this is the public that is so often disdained, belittled and held in so much contempt by the BBC and its fellow travelllers..until they need us.

Maybe when the BBC starts to acknowledge the concerns of the vast majority of the public and publishes the truth about immigration, Islam, Europe, Climate Change, and the Labour Party’s role in the destruction of the economy he might have a point.

Until then he is just another left wing useful-idiot trolling on behalf of his favourite propaganda news outlet.