Jeremy Paxman has criticised the BBC for being ‘biased and politically correct’ and called for the licence fee to be abolished because ‘if Amazon and Netflix can do it, so can they.’ The former BBC man and Newsnight presenter, 67, also criticised the public service broadcaster for focusing stories on ‘the disabled refugee from Syria’ rather than examining how managing a disabled refugee’s needs might affect British taxpayers.
Marr is in the Sunday Times defending the BBC’s ‘fanatical hostility’ to the expression of personal political views…any thoughts that they knew Paxman was going to be in the Sunday Times magazine and managed to get in a spoiler?
Patten gets a mention in the Times as well…in a book review of his memoir. It tells us that in regard to the management meltdown over the BBC’s mishandling of hsitoric sex-abuse cases Patten would rather not reveal all….‘It is not in anyone’s interest to exchange tittle-tattle about what went wrong.’ So much for transparency and accountability. Maybe a get-out for politicians to remember when in ‘paxman-like’ interviews….‘not in anyone’s interest to know why Grenfell Tower burnt down and 80 or so people died.’
Likely Chris’ market rate mind has an appreciation of complexity only a Macron could match.
Paxman free to speak now he`s a busted flush and still able to access his pension.
The elite like him, Lord Robert Winston and Sir Michael Jackson are oh-so-fearless once they`ve left their state employers, but fully acquiesced in the degradation of their former state agency.
It would be nice to have Jeremy Paxman on side in the battle against the monopolistic megalomaniacal monolith that is the BBC. The trouble with former employees of the BBC (is he really no longer connected with the BBC?) is a) having to sign various confidential agreements b) the BBC holding a dossier of dirt on them c) BBC influence in making and breaking reputations. d) BBC’s influence in the news and entertainment industry (for those wanting to remain connected with the industry in retirement).
Maybe paxo and snow could do a duel and the winner gets to choose licence tax or no licence tax.
Dubious morality to have spent year living off taxpayers albeeb salary and now pension and suddenly becomes a beacon for no tv licence .
Maybe he should do some tedious railway documentary or climb hills with a book. Tanfastic tv as an alt to watching albeeb news with some foreigner talking to us like we are 5 year olds ( do dissing of 5 year olds on this site or elsewhere)
Maybe paxo has heard he’s not getting a peerage like comrade Bragg Guessing
Paxman story is in the Mail
My thoughts about Mr Paxman’s epiphany are : why, and why now?
Precisely! Yet another lovey-dovey Champagne Socialist, who realised when his job, being employed by the most left-wing broadcaster in the Western Hemisphere was finally coming to and end, realised he would be out on his ear even with a fantastic pension pot paid for by poor people forced to pay for his pention pot as part of their compulsory licence fee contributions.
Jeremy! Your protests are false! Be gone you total BBC Shill! You screwed the Great British Public for every single penny you thought you could twist out of their hands. And now that you have secured your very ill-gotten fortune, you now seem to be claiming that you are on the side of the millions of peoples that you and your “comrades” at the BBC robbed year after year, day and night, and Jeremy! YOU ASSISTED THIS BLATANT ROBBERY WITHOUT COMPUNCTION!
You are just a wee bit of a tow-rag Jeremy, IMHO!
I can’t believe he’s 67 !
So reminiscent of Jack Straw, who, having laid down the burden of representing the burghers of Blackburn in Westminster , suddenly noticed the ” specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men … who target vulnerable young white girls “.
I’m not a huge fan of Paxman but he was at least responsible for one of the few remotely ‘balanced’ programmes about the EU before the referendum.
Which “balanced” [allegedly] programme about the EU would that be then? Can you tell me when it was broadcast, please?
I have *NEVER* *EVER* seen any attempt to try and balance any single programme either on BBC TV and even more particularly on BBC R4, particularly on the likes of the Today programmes, or even World At One, and most particulary, PM AT 5:00PM with Master Mair!
The whole lot of these programmes are a totally biased swamp of misinformation, with totally biased information fed from the EU.
It is now definitely time to finally close down the BBC. It is no longer fit for purpose.
I saw Paxman’s programme on the EU and he did at least dare to spend a few minutes of it examining the EU’s democratic deficit, though only a whole series of Panorama specials could do it proper justice.
Normally the BBC runs a mile from such discussion as it once did with a Green MEP (yes, I was shocked too) who in one interview on TWATO was immediately terminated when he claimed he could do nothing about the particular issue they were discussing as the EU Parliament didn’t make the laws, it was the unelected Commissioners.
Well he is correct on both counts. Sending people to prison each year because they do not want to fund the BBC is an outrage. He is also correct when he draws attention to its 24/7 Leftist bias. To be fair if the BBC is a monopoly supplier (which is what the Labour Party want the BBC to be if the debate on “Murdoch” the other day in Parliament is anything to go by) to attack the BBC if you want a job in broadcasting is career suicide. Which is precisely why the BBC needs to be broken up into a thousand pieces.
Paxman makes some excellent points, the BBC normally loves a good multi billion pound behemoth corproration aggressively collecting debts from the poorest in society story, curiously not this one.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/599049/TV-Licence-jailed-England-BBC-fee-Scotland-fines
The next time the BBC covers an overcrowding in prison story they should make an acknowledgement that they themselves are contributing to it, more often than not women too, usually the preferred BBC gender. Scrap the licence fee and let the leftists pay for their own TV, my own BBC consumption is at an all time low, they would have to pay me to watch some of the current bilge they produce.
I’ve just been watching episodes on Youtube of the 1970s BBC series ‘Colditz’ based on the books by Captain Pat Reid.
The ‘prison walls’ look suspiciously as if they’re made of balsa wood and the ‘German countryside’ looks suspiciously like the Home Counties with some German signs dotted around, but the quality of writing and acting is far higher than anything on our screens today.
What is particularly enjoyable is the lack of attempts to shoehorn modern fixations into a period drama. In fact it could have been set in the First World War or the Napoleonic Wars – the timeless human drama of captor and captive is the same. Nowadays however we would have to sit through tedious moralising, with episodes featuring homosexual love affairs, racial discrimination against Empire troops, etc etc etc.
My suspicion is that this is partly an age related problem. Most shows are written and produced by young people and their brainwashing at college shows in the turgid rubbish they produce.
What bothers me almost as much as the relentless polemic is the frequency of crashing anachronisms. Characters in the 1940s using slang and turns of phrase that didn’t exist until 50 years later is completely unacceptable and it astonishes me that no one at the BBC seems to know enough (or care enough) to put a stop to it.
GCooper, actors aren’t much better either. I find it incredible when I hear young actors in TV dramas set in the 1930s and 1940s speaking with a modern middle-class ‘uni’ accent including the upward inflection at the end of sentences. In fact I was so surprised when I saw a play set in the 1930s in which a young actress (aged about 21) spoke in the correct way for the time (most of the rest of the cast didn’t) that I sent her an email congratulating her on it!
Yes, indeed, Cranmer. SS GB was a prime example. In fact it happens so often that I am starting to think it’s a deliberate policy – perhaps to deracinate us from Britain pre-the Bliar terror?
You mean you could actually hear what they were saying?
“Characters in the 1940s using slang and turns of phrase that didn’t exist until 50 years later”
You mean like this:
Drama channel have been showing a rerun of Secret Army which i have been watching.Just finished 2 weeks ago. Really enjoyed it and I looked forward to the next episodes each week. At the time is was awarded best bbc serial and it deserved it.I felt quite emotional when it finished, very good acting also. I recommend it if you get chance to watch it.
Agreed. It was a very well made programme. I didn’t feel that Allo Allo insulted it, rather it was a gentle flattery.
Brilliant pisstake !
So true, Cranmer! Many 1970s historical dramas were cheaply made, yet were usually far more intelligently scripted and faithful to the attitudes of the era than today’s extravagant productions. ‘Downton Abbey’, with its cast of thousands and expensive location work, was just a historical soap (though quite fun and well acted). It featured dreadful modernisms like ‘cut him some slack’ and a ludicrous storyline in which a posh family cheerfully accepted as an equal the servant their daughter had married.
Compare it with ITV’s 1970s serial ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ (another drama about rich people and their servants, set a century or so ago). It was largely set-bound, but far better written. When the son of the rich Bellamy family impregnated Sarah the housemaid, his horrified parents packed him off to India! Nobody would have seriously though of him marrying the girl in those days.
I suppose that, forty years ago, script advisers were available who remembered the Edwardian and World War 1 eras. The writers of ‘Downton’ probably knew nothing of the time except the dodgy version of history they’d learned at school.
The BBC would have the airmen from the Armstrong and Miller Show in a 2017 version of Colditz.
“In England and Wales there are 180,000 prosecutions a year for failing to pay the licence fee, and dozens of people are jailed each year.
It’s a scandal. In my opinion the BBC – pretty much throughout its entire output – actively subverts our democracy by promoting a self-serving middle class Leftist agenda. Why should I be sent to prison if I don’t want to pay for it?
Why should I be forced to pay the wages of Andrew Marr or Evan Davis or Eddie Mair just because (and only because) they think they I should, because they believe their Guardian reader views about the EU, Trump, immigration, global warming and the wonderful public sector, should be compulsory.
We are forced to pay them even through they go privately to hospital and tell us just how great the NHS is, or what a terrible idea grammar schools are because selection promotes inequality while they send their children to a private school, or we should pay more for our energy to prevent global warming, as they book their weekend break to the Bahamas.
Can we get a 100% rebate and a get out of jail card if we completely despise their hypocrisy, judgement, and opinions?
We’re getting hung up on the licence fee. It’s not about the money, it’s about the political bias. Which is just as bad on some commercial channels. PC knows no barriers.
I would gladly pay a licence fee to be rid of adverts. That’s the truth of it. We pay for commercial TV through adverts. They pay their top people even more than the BBC.
My gripe with the BBC is the way it has been infested by the un-electable Left. The BBC Trust should stop it. What are they there for?
Fol-de-rol
“What are they there for?”
To line their pockets – simple.
Get rid of the Telly Tax and then see the bias disappear. Al Beeb employees need to get into the real world of the working class and get a real job.
Time the bbc entered the real World with pay-per-view / subscription.
They have no God given right to exist.