‘This is a BBC — a Corporation worth defending, in my view, despite this ridiculous show-trial I have been through — that exists to be frank and fearless, to stand up to dictatorial forces, to divert and entertain while at the same time standing apart from Whitehall.
Using such a heavy steamroller to crush the life out of my no-doubt imperfect but innocent little programme is the behaviour not of a bastion of British liberalism, but an insidious and worrying threat to two very British qualities: common sense and freedom of expression.’
This links to the previous post about anybody, however daft, getting a platform on the BBC as long as they toe the green nazi’s line…..thanks to GCooper in the comments for the link…..Want to listen to Quentin Lett’s programme on the Met. Office? Well you can’t…he’s been silenced……
The Met Office
NOTE: This programme is no longer available following the outcome of a finding by the BBC Trust. Follow the link at the bottom of this page to read the full report
QUENTIN LETTS: How I was vaporised by the BBC’s Green Gestapo after daring to mock the Met Office and global warming
Earlier this year, I made a jaunty little Radio 4 programme called What’s The Point Of The Met Office?
Last week, after a bizarre and focused lobbying campaign from environmental activists, the programme was removed from the BBC’s iPlayer playback facility.
To adapt Orwell, What’s The Point Of The Met Office? became an un-programme.
One moment it was there, available to licence fee-payers to hear at their convenience. The next? Ker-whack! It disappeared as surely as one of those Islamist-owned oil derricks in Syria snotted by an RAF Paveway missile. Ladies and gentlemen, the Left had struck. I had been censored, expunged, deleted or ‘dealt with’, as RAF types put it.
The experience was baffling rather than upsetting. The programme had only ever been intended as a light summer diversion, yet it was mistaken for some sort of attack on the Establishment’s global warming theory.
I am writing about it now simply because the media story in which I have unwittingly found myself reflects a worrying rise of intolerance in our public life, and because the response of BBC executives and the BBC Trust, the governing body responsible for acting in the interests of licence fee-payers, has been so astonishingly over the top.
Perhaps the next programme should be What’s the point of a BBC that is so untrustworthy, unbalanced, dishonest and inaccurate and in league with green lobbyists?
Is it not possible for Mr Letts to name names; surely, people make decisions not organisations? The collectivists in the bbc should not be able to hide behind the anonymity of the Corporation. This is one good reason for the Freedom of Information Act to apply to the bbc.
These are the BBC’s “best scientific experts” who made this decision to censor this program. Richard Ayre is a lefty who is qualified in Philosophy, Sonita Alleyne is a lefty who is qualified in Philosophy, Nick Prettejohn is a lefty who is qualified in Philosophy, Bill Matthews is lefty who is qualified in the Humanities, Mark Damazer is a lefty who is qualified in History. All these lefties were already being investigated, with the intention of replacing the BBC Trust.
Quentin is a safe rebel-tickling the gourd of the liberal left, but a a harmless jester who buckled at the first whiff of green chlorine gas.
His “50 people who buggered Britain” book needs an update-and you`d have thought that his dressing down by the BBC would have pepped him up last night to blast their presumptions and the likes of Harpoon Harrabin who earns a fat crust from his Col Frazer impressions.
But he was only joking-and wasn`t brave enough to stick up for his paper or the alternative universe that we share with him…planet Beeb Green needs a spotlight on it when his like get invited to address it.
And he didn`t provide it-unlike Melanie Phillips or Peter Hitchens for example.
Some people fight wars-other provide a bit of diversion and entertainment way back from the frontline.
He made an effort to be the BBC Director General-so, like Hitchens-some stories from the heart of the fat beast that is the BBC would be expected…but no, he`ll need his future dotty but harmless Tory gigs,I`d expect.
Decent bloke though. If only he`d highlight why the Greens and Slingo/Monbiot go spare at a little ribbing of “The Cause”…whereas his equally robust questioning of the removal of the Book Of Common Prayer brings him no such upbrainding.
Tells us all we need to know.