If only the English weren’t such chavs, says Mardell, “with no intention of censure and certainly not moral superiority”, as he reports on a tantalising and – to me – baffling and pointless curry-house conversation. England’s crowded: so what(’s new), says Easton – just in case anyone was a little misled by his earlier blog entry which, er, seemed to suggest it wasn’t. Still, he remains “unpersuaded that we cannot … Continue reading
Paul Mason has replied to a comment on his blog criticising it for being, well, a bit left wing. “Where the hell do the BBC actually find people as left wing as you?” asks the reader. Mason’s response: If you are American you may not be used to this but the UK consensus is “liberal” and I am happy to be slap in the middle of it. On science, on … Continue reading
Not my question, the Beeb’s. The reflex never fails, does it? These have your say things are a joke when the question more or less determines the whole structure of debate. One question, which some would consider moot, means that reasonable answers to that question will inevitably tend to fall within the BBC’s comfort zone. Click through to read and contribute comments on this post.
When you hear a sub-Mockney accent attacking a politician from the left on Radio Four, you’ll usually find it’s a comedy show featuring several privately educated left-wing comedians who met at university. For some reason, privately educated left-wingers appearing on the Today programme are allowed to keep their middle-class accents. I think this is Marcus Brigstocke on Radio Four’s “Charm Offensive”. They got half the name right. Brigstocke : This … Continue reading
More from the home of Trotskyist economics at Newsnight, this time on the Lehman debacle. It’s a place where irresponsible lending is ‘forcing debt down the throats’ of low income families; where the bank’s failure is really down to fat cat investment bank bosses trying to protect their future earnings; and where the real question when it comes to assessing the scale of the crisis is ‘so how does this … Continue reading
I had high hopes for Justin Webb’s latest blog entry. At last, some decent coverage of Palin’s bounce. The BBC’s audience might be a little surprised to read that such a thing exists, but at least he’s gone to the effort of remedying that, I thought. Which is why I was a bit surprised to find myself reading about the 1953 execution of the Rosenburgs (Soviet-like behaviour, reckons Webb); a … Continue reading
I notice that Amanda Platell has picked up the weekly scam that is the Jonathan Ross programme. She points out that on his Friday night show last week, Ross felt compelled to ask gorgeous but utterly vacuous Kelly Brook why she smelled so good. It turned out she was launching her new perfume. As a PR stunt, it was shameless. As TV, it stank. Worse still, we are asked to … Continue reading
. What do you make of the news that a senior BBC executive told reporters to ‘go easy’ on the Labour Government now it is lagging behind the Tories in the polls. According to a well-placed source, the man in charge of BBC Radio 4’s flagship “Today In Parliament” told his staff that it was right to be ‘aggressive’ when things were going well for the Government but not when … Continue reading
Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use … Continue reading
Via the late Archbishop Cranmer, this in the Independent. Hindu and Sikh leaders have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain’s Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions. A breakdown of programming from the BBC’s Religion and Ethics department, seen by The Independent, reveals that since 2001, the BBC made 41 faith programmes on Islam, compared with just … Continue reading
