The Guardian never fails us…or its chums at the BBC.
The reason the BBC allowed Savile to rape and abuse young boys and girls was that the BBC were under siege from Thatcher and her ilk…..why is it always Thatcher’s fault?
Savile debacle is the clear consequence of a BBC under siege
Dame Janet has ploughed through 375 witnesses over three years. She has documented four Savile rapes and some 61 sexual assaults in corporation corridors, kitchens, dressing rooms and studios scattered far and wide. And yet she concludes that “nobody in a senior position at the BBC was ever aware of information that could have led to, or assisted in, the prosecution of Savile. Prosecution and imprisonment was the only way to stop him.”
How can this possibly be?
“A deference” down the line that stifled allegations about Savile in a trice. He was “talent” (like other offenders from the same putrid pod). He seemingly couldn’t be stopped, sacked or prosecuted. He was special. Therefore he had to be defended, like the broadcasting giant he served, because – then, in the 1970s, as now – it was under attack.
Those attacks come now, as they came then, from politicians seeking to bully the state broadcaster. They impose unwanted governance by Downing Street démarche. They threaten the BBC’s future – and find ready supporters in Fleet Street. Deference up and down the chain; defensiveness as a dominant posture; a culture of loyalty and mute embarrassment; a determination to survive by rocking as few boats as possible. In today’s terms, the BBC of the 70s and 80s was already a powerful brand: a brand under siege that had to be protected.
Ironically the Guardian’s reaction provides the real answer….the closed world of like-minded chums who don’t want to admit blame and take the responsibility and have other mates in the media to cover up for them.
The Guardian goes on…
Institutions under attack build walls around themselves. They repel controversy. They create sheltered places where bad things can happen. And their external fear translates into an internal dread of nasty news. It’s the job of journalists to open up these worlds – a job failed in Savile’s case over decades, and tragically let slide by a defensive Newsnight.
And if those journalists fail to do their job who is then left to rein in the BBC? The politicians. The reason politicians complain about the BBC so much is because there is so much to complain about. If the BBC journalists were doing their jobs there would be little to complain of but instead they use their privileged positions at the BBC to peddle their own political views and ideologies. Any wonder they come under scrutiny, especially when they produce reports that whitewash the BBC’s role in Savile’s crimes.
And in reference to the BBC and its whitewash Alex Feltham in the comments links us to this…..
How’s About That Then?
Even those familiar with the BBC’s twisted morality were stunned.
The leaked £10m investigation into Jimmy Savile’s four decade career of paedophilia, sexual assault and rape at the BBC finds that absolutely nobody was responsible. Apparently no manager up to and including the Director-General himself could have done anything to stop this monster pervert stalking the corridors of the BBC. In the words of Dame Janet Smith who wrote the report, “I do not think that the BBC can be criticized for failing to uncover Savile’s sexual deviancy.”
Just imagine what the BBC’s own journalists would make of such a story if the abuser was Willliam Hague and the organization was the Conservative Party? At the very least they would be pushing for the abolition of the Conservative Party and probably of the very concept of conservatism itself. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be taking such an uncompromising line with themselves when the report is officially released.
But you shouldn’t run away with the idea that nobody at the BBC has been held accountable. In the wake of the scandal the BBC has forced out at least 4 employees. It turns out that there are limits to what even the BBC will tolerate. And that limit isn’t the practice of paedophilia on the premises but disloyalty to the cause. The BBC constructively dismissed those who actually had done the right thing and (very belatedly) exposed Savile. Meirion Jones and Liz Mackean who worked on a Newsnight piece which was blocked by their editor Peter Rippon, and Tom Giles and Peter Horrocks who made a Panorama episode on the same subject were left in no doubt that they had no future at the Beeb.
This is an even greater scandal in its way than the original Savile outrage. After all, the only defence of senior BBC bosses over their inaction on Savile was that they were unaware of his crimes. But if that were true, how can they justify destroying the careers of those people who fought to bring those crimes to light?
The thing about this that I cannot quite get my head around is that in every organisation that I have worked, everyone without exception has some kind of reporting line.
As a part of that reporting line, annual appraisals take place where performance, behaviour and other traits relating to delivery and success are measured on behalf of the business and objectives set for the upcoming period.
In so far as can be ascertained, none of this seems to apply to the BBC and certainly not to Saville. If they had, it wouldn’t have been hard to backtrack and ascertain who should be held accountable.
Just imagine the kind of witch-hunt that would have taken place had he worked for Sky or someone other than the BBC.
It’s not a mystery really . Senior BBC managers knew the rumours about Savile. They are simply lying in denying it . And for reasons of her own Dame Janet Smith has peddled the same lies .
Please try to get your head around it. Unless some people are willing to look behind the facade and start screaming things will get worse – much worse. It’s rather like staring at moving clouds across the face of the moon. Every now and then the veil thins and the light shines down.
One of my children works for a small business where some employees are subjected to a daily onslaught of obscene comments and disparaging remarks on their personal appearance. The offender is the owner of the company. The employees could take the offender to a tribunal – but in doing so they could jeopardise their source of income and potentially damage their chances of future employment. And so the workers carry on. They endure the unendurable and, in doing so, become enslaved and damaged human beings. And the scum that insulted and enslaved them carries on rising to the top. That is how this world works. One mystery lies in who made it work that way? Another mystery lies in the types of people whose brains refuse to be programmed by those who made it work that way and who are willing to boil at the bottom of the pot until the scum has been spat off.
Son and heir having the same problem with a Local Authority. Trouble is that job applications all ask for references from your present or most recent employer so he is having to put up with the bullying until he finds a new job.
Anyone would think that we didn’t exist before the satanic EU. Just remind me which nation sailed the world? Which country initiated the a industrial revolution? Which country abolished slavery? Which country produced the most freedom, equality of opportunity and peace? Let’s see, was it Egypt? Iran? Iraq? Pakland? Afghanland? France? Germany? No!! It was England. The world owes us big time. And the unwanted immigrants, the unwanted collectivists, the unwanted infantilists of the collectivist brain damaged traitors in our midst need to realise that we’ve got your number. We will get you. Be warned.
If a BBC or liberal/left person fell over on the pavement tomorrow it would be because Thatcher sold gravity or something in the eighties .
The BBC and the Guardian, self-proclaimed conscience of the Nation. Always claiming the moral high ground on every issue from immigration to striking miners. So pleased with themselves when they condemn the “right-wing press” or “the nasty party”. Unfortunately for them, plenty of us were around during the Thatcher years. It’s utterly ridiculous to claim they were under siege. The reality is that the BBC and the Guardian are the true gutter press.
I thought that the attack from the Conservative Gov’t didn’t really start getting serious until the mid ’80s with the Peacock Committee, and poor old Alasdair Milne (never see the likes of him again) eventually getting pushed to resign. Although the Peacock recommendations were bizarre, to say the least. Sir Curran and Trethowan had it easy in the ’70s in comparison.
The eminent blogger above is wrong about Peter Horrocks being edged out of the BBC post-Savile. Till recently he was head hack of the World Service and is currently chairman of the BBC Media Action Board of Trustees:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Horrocks
According to the above link he was also Head of Diversity (somebody pass me a bucket), Editor of Newsnight and edited The Power of Nightmares – that slick propaganda piece that sought to minimise the Islamic terrorist threat and portray those concerned about it as paranoid.
Here he bemoans the public response to a Have Your Say article on the murder of Benazir Bhutto, apparently both surprised and appalled that comments such as “The Religion of Peace strikes again” were so wildly popular judging from their recommendations:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/01/value_of_citizen_journalism.html
In fairness, though, Horrocks is one of very few at the BBC who has bothered to respond to emails I’ve sent in a vain attempt to make the propagandists aware of their responsibility to provide the public with impartial news.
Still, to imagine that Horrocks was edged out of the BBC over the Savile affair is ridiculous. Horrocks is the BBC.
As Tessa Jowell said during the Election results: “I take everything I read in the Guardian with a pinch of salt.”
It is just the same old story from the Guardian.
When a private company fails the public it is an absolute disgrace and shows how the profit motive corrupts. Comments are invited from the Guardian’s readership so they can reinforce the message and express their disgust.
When a public sector organisation fails, even in such a catastrophic manner as the BBC;s sex scandals, Stafford Hospital or the Rotherham affair it is a systemic error, lessons will be learned, no individuals to blame and time to move on. And often comments are switched off.
If Sky TV had ever been involved in a scandal a hundredth as serious as Savile the Guardian would harp on about it for decades as clear evidence of corporate carelessness and irresponsibility.
I’m sure all users of this site will be pleased to see today’s reports that the Grauniad is in serious financial trouble and will be shedding staff. No doubt some will follow their deputy political editor and find a natural home at the BBC whose biased staff shamelessly promote the Grauniad’s left wing views at every opportunity .
Surely Alan could help out by flogging his piano and learning to scrape by on half his current income (not including his pension of course).?
I have a theory that the DT expects the Guardian and Independent to close and is positioning itself to pick up their readers. The snag is that in the process of moving even further left they will lose all their old DT readers (those who are still there). The current position of unswerving support for Dave’s New Labour is merely a step on the journey.
It will choke the BBC poseurs when the DT has to be their newspaper of choice – or perhaps they’ll go tabloid to the Socialist Worker? Forgive the oxymoron.
About 20 years ago my job led me to find myself with about an hour to kill with a very well-known and popular TV actor of the eighties and nineties (still on TV today). Our small talk meandered on to Jimmy Savile for some reason. I was told of his predilection for pubescent girls and boys and how open he was in flaunting this at the BBC. I can’t say that I was hugely surprised; I didn’t really like Savile, and could never understand why he had such a grip on programmes like Top of the Pops, as his presentation style was apparently the most banal of a pretty banal lot. He was obviously weird.
But the bit that did shock me at the time and still does was that I was told Savile had an ‘arrangement’ with the BBC. It was described to me as fully understood at multiple levels in the BBC that Savile had to have certain arrangements in place when he was to star in some event or show. This was I suppose a lot like certain precocious and ego-centric ‘celebrities’ demanding bowls of strictly yellow-only M&Ms in their dressing rooms. Except in Savile’s case it was a demand for (mainly) pubescent girls.
Apparently, as far as Savile was concerned – this was the deal: Unctuous BBC officials were to ensure that both before and after the show, a plentiful supply of wide-eyed innocents was not only delivered to his dressing room door, but installed and waiting. Sad to say, we now have to assume that these BBC staff led the innocents to their fate – including rape. But of course, as we know – no-one at the BBC could be considered responsible. . .
Reading both the EXARO leaked report (and last Friday’s TIMES excerpts) I cannot see how the BBC gets off (or can) get off lightly. It seems to me that the BBC management denials of any involvement are paper thin. The Smith report may of been secretly approached by the BBC ‘for a deal’ but I am not sure they have one that sticks or works in PR.
A DAMNING INDICTMENT OF THE CORPORATION:
For example it is now public knowledge quoting from the Times here:
1. ABUSE: 45 proven cases of abuse by vistors to the BBC. Four Rape (two under sixteen). Three under 9 years old plus two boys buggered on the actual premises. (According to Dame Janet Smith report). They wre avused in the corridors, canteen, staircases and dressing rooms. Even on set ‘ToTP’ and ‘Jim’ll fix it’. More serious incidents also took place in Saville’s Caravan and flat she reports.
2. PAEDOPHILE RING: She confirms that as existential threat exists of another Saville within the BBC and the links to a wider filed of abuse around Saviile. One victim (aged 9) was brought before Saviille by a man called ‘Sillitoe’ (left the BBC in 1978 and since died) but Dame Smith) makes it a fact that she was left in the company of a number of men (all at the BBC) including Saville with another unidentified man in Saviiles changing rooms.
3. DRINKING: Right up until the 1990’s ‘ the BBC engaged in heavy drinking. Most BBC managers had drinks cabinets paid at public expense. In so much they were ‘worse for wear’ by the afternoon.
4. MANAGEMENT: A ‘Deferential Culture’ by the BBC management made it impossible for Staff to comment or make a complaint. The BBC appeared to influence carers and were them selves ‘untouchable’. Even so there were 97 witnesses and 63 had direct witness to Saville on set.
5. COVER UP: BBC staff ignored all complaints by children, One victim recalls being abused on ToTP informed a member of staff but was told ‘she was too young to be there and was ejected from the building’. Many such incidents were ‘typical’ of the conduct of the (BBC) Disk Jockey.
6. NEXT STEP: The BBC staff ‘have a widespread reluctance to complain about anything’ at the BBC. She said. ‘I found employees about to say something mildly critical were extremely anxious to maintain their anonymity. These people were, and still are, afraid to loose their jobs’
My conclusion (reading more than I can show here)
There is a lot of ‘extra evidence’ to support both the link that the BBC paedophile network is still in existence and both inside and outside the BBC. It does involve major politicians who cannot be named (for legal reasons) and may never be bought to justice. This is the ultimate secret the BBC holds and why the BBC can ‘get away with it’ and is the threat they can use as a national threat to ‘national security’ etc. (but I doubt MP’s who have access to who’s who in the corporation will be that sympathetic or enjoy favor with the BBC when the BBC Charter is revealed) with a license fee increase. Any prescribed BBC deal may now have to be heavily revised. The public will need to be assured that it can never happen again, the problem is that the BBC cannot assure us that it won’t.
BBC Paranoia responsible for its defence of Paedophiles:
The BBC under siege and attacked for its support of paedophiles by bullying politicians. Paedophilia defended because the left-wing BBC are under attack from the BBC’s right-wing enemies. So that’s why the BBC regard Tories and UKIP as the enemy, because they are not impartial due to employing only ex-Labour and ex-Guardian types, causing a spiral into defensive paranoia, and censorship over left-wing bias and a deference to working class paedophiles with Yorkshire accents.
Another point is that the BBC has sacked employees over the issue, but they were competent journalists who scrutinised the BBC on paedophilia. So now only the incompetent and paranoid at the BBC survive. This gives you an idea about the BBC’s censorship policy for Climate science, Scientists and Scientific debate. Therefore blame Richard Ayre.
Legal action against Richard Ayre would cause the BBC to go Nuclear, therefore wait and see.
Dame Janet: ‘As you may be aware I am here to ascertain to what extent senior BBC executives knew about Jimmy Savile’s paedophile activities during his time at the BBC, and what actions they took. So, how much were you personally aware of what he was up to?’
BBC Fat Cat: ‘Nowt to do with me guv.’
Dame Janet: ‘Thank you so much for your valuable time. Next!’