Cookie Notice

WE LOVE THE NATIONS OF EUROPE
However, this blog is a US service and this site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse.

Wednesday 22 January 2020

The BBC: Managing decline

Tony Hall's deliberately designed surprise resignation was timed for one reason only - to allow the nation's biggest woke tax bludger, if it chooses, to mobilise for war with the government and people of Britain. The BBC faces the 2022 mid term review and the critical 2027 Charter renewal in the unique position of not only facing a hostile Conservative government, but having lost public support. The Thatcher government tried to muzzle the BBC with little success because at that time Auntie enjoyed widespread public backing - but the BBC of the 1980s was not the BBC of the 20-teens. Then we took Only Fools and Horses to our hearts - it could simply not be made today by the BBC unless it starred a disabled lesbian and Rodney was Sudanese.

De-criminalising non-payment of the licence fee would be a good first step from 2022. On compassionate grounds alone, criminalising the poor, over 70% of whom are women, for failing to pay the TV tax at a time when the deeply flawed UC system forces many to use food banks is simply morally unjustifiable. The BBC cannot continue to use its force and power to persecute so many of the most vulnerable in our society.

Allison Pearson does a reasonable job in the Telegraph this morning of capturing our feelings at what must now be the managed decline of the BBC; a certain regret, a nostalgia for the good times in the past, but a recognition that it has developed behavioural problems that mean we can no longer give it house-room. She writes
If you look at an electoral map of Britain, amid a vast sea of Tory blue, there are a few small islets of Labour red. Those islets are where BBC staff live and from which they draw their ideas......To justify demanding a TV tax from every household, you have to truly speak for the nation, not an elite corner of London.
The selection of Tony Hall's successor will tell us much about how the BBC will face its nemesis; in co-operation with the government and people, managing decline to ensure the best is saved and the worst woke waste is ditched, or whether they want a high-profile showdown during which they will lose even more public support and risk fouling the brand for all time. 

26 comments:

Stephen J said...

"If you look at an electoral map of Britain, amid a vast sea of Tory blue, there are a few small islets of Labour red. Those islets are where BBC staff live and from which they draw their ideas......"

Is this what they call the "the islets of Langham"?

I think you are right, not much needs to be done, if the BBC is letting a vast portion of the population down enough to hate its taxes and spend much time avoiding its propaganda, perhaps more so than they would avoid something more onerous, simply because it does not seem equitable, something will snap.

Once people feel that they no longer have to pay, but can still use their PC (which never used to have the 'effin BBC on it) for other purposes. It will be at that point that the BBC either decides to become more balanced, or just goes full Guardian and charges a semi voluntary entrance fee.

Oh... While you are here?

DeeDee99 said...

The BBC brand in the UK is already fouled beyond salvation. I expect it still maintains a decent reputation overseas, thanks partly to the World Service and also the ability of foreign broadcasters to pick the occasional best from BBC productions and ignore the majority dross.

I predict the lefties who infest the BBC will not go quietly into that good night. They'll mount a strong resistance and they will have the support of the rest of the woke public sector as they mount the barricades.

I bet Tony Hall is replaced by a mixed-race, left-wing female: if they can find a transgender one, so much the better:)

JPM said...

Let's drop the pretence that BBC domestic services are in some way independent, and in so far as they are wanted, fund them by direct grant - general taxation - as we do BBC External Services.

But the Tories love poll taxes, and that would perhaps be hard for them to swallow. It would also admit what the BBC has always been.

Whatever, the claim that the BBC has any proper independence is convincingly exploded by what happened to Greg Dyke, so here's a bit of history.

Remember Al Johnson's crony, Andrew Gilligan? Well, it is worth reading up on this character. He was political editor at the Telegraph, but left under a cloud, after it was forced to pay heavy damages for defamation on his account. But it was notably he, no less, who as a BBC hack, resulted in Greg Dyke, probably the best DG that the BBC ever had, losing his job.

Gilligan claimed that the Government had, as he put it, sexed up the dossier on Iraq and its supposed WMDs. However, Lord Hutton, during his Inquiry, cast doubt upon whether Gilligan was a reliable witness. Nonetheless, the widespread, but probably groundless perception that Tony Blair is a liar was mainly due to this now-proven liar and his claims. The error of judgement by Greg Dyke was therefore in trusting Gilligan. Other people should not make the same mistake.

And incidentally, the Telegraph article, which purported to describe the connections between Irish republicans and Jeremy Corbyn was also written by him.

Mark said...

"groundless perception that Tony Blair is a liar"

If there was a nobel prize for trolling!

Are you really this desperate to provoke some reaction? Seriously.

Anonymous said...

As long as the BBC is funded by licence fee/tax there must be a mechanism for the public to hold it to account, something that has never been the case.

Of course the same is true of all those 'offices of regulation' and host of quangos that conveniently remove responsibility from ministers and public scrutiny.

Dave_G said...


That some people (not me) willingly pay £800+/year for Sky TV services but baulk at the £160-odd demanded by the BBC tells a story. Not so much about content as about the differences between 'voluntary' and 'compulsory'.

I've sold meals for 'nothing' (request for customers to pay what they think is appropriate) as well as for a fixed price and have received MORE when sold for 'nothing' than when sold marked at their intended price.

I doubt whether, asked to pay in a similar fashion, that even Sky would receive the many-hundreds of £'s they charge but on a pay-per-view basis suggest they might easily achieve this - and more. The BBC are clearly 'missing a trick' here or they are afraid that their content and delivery really is NOT worth paying for.

Finally, based on JPM's ridiculous statement re Blair's honesty, this surely removes all possible doubt that he is here to troll and troll only? Time to make the chop?

JPM said...

Yes, it tells a story about folks like you, Dave.

Raedwald said...

Dave - I take your point, but there *are* actually people who actually believe that Blair is the shining epitome of truth and honesty, who are not all themselves certifiably insane. I can understand it no more than I can understand those that believe the world is flat, or that it was created in 7 days in 4004 BC. But there we are. We must accept that JPM sincerely believes in Blair's goodness and veracity.

JPM said...

Greg Dyke lost his job because Gilligan's claim that Blair's government had "sexed up" the dossier was held to be a lie.

That is supported by MI6, who said that they treated in good faith upon information fed to them by US intelligence, which later turned our to be false.

So Blair is wrongly accused of telling one lie, but you continue to believe that.

However, Trump is PROVEN to have told fifteen thousand lies, and you choose to ignore that, along with all of Johnson's equally well-demonstrated ones.

Good luck with having a mind like that.

Thud said...

JPM, only 'sincerely' believes all here are wrong and he is destined to fight the good socialist fight, I like his posts as they are a constant reminder of what we just escaped from.....a future run by those who think like him.

JPM said...

No, I am a sceptic.

I completely opposed the Iraq war, and what Denis Healey and others forecast at the time came to pass to the letter.

However if you are going to accuse someone of being a liar then you must have proof beyond reasonable doubt that they are, that is, that they wilfully misled with knowingly false information.

Gilligan did not, and it is why his boss lost his job. It is also why Gilligan himself lost his later at the Telegraph, and for more than one offence.

So the case against Gilligan is proven, that against Blair is not.

The only "evidence" that you have is a mob of uninformed people chanting it endlessly.

Blair's appalling error of judgement was in trusting US intelligence to the extent of going to war on it.

But we digress.

The BBC has never been independent, nor, when it matters to power, impartial or truthful.

Mark said...

Just have to judge B-liar on his pathological lying when there was ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO then. (He's rather like Hitler's clitoris in this respect)

Like trying to stow away on a flight from Newcastle to the Bahamas (no such route of course) or watching Jackie Milburn (who retired from Newcastle when the lying King was 4) from seats behind the goal which weren't installed until the 90s.

Politicians and other ne're do wells lie. We know that. We don't like it, we'd much rather they didn't.

But there is lying and there is lying and the sort of totally unnecessary lying B-liar has done is something else.

B-liar is a pathological liar. Look it up and tick off the characteristics.

Mark said...

I understand (and admire) your tolerance Radders. But the troll is just trolling.

Started with the BBC and it's now B-liar and Iraq. Forgotten his beloved EU for 5 minutes though

Bill Quango MP said...

The Hutton inquiry.
The very beginning of whitewash. We remember it well.

Chilcot was a lot less happy about Liar Tony’s claims that the UK had to do whatever the USA asked it to do.
He mentioned all the occasions when the UK did not.

However , in fairness to Troll Central, I recall listening to the Toady programme in the morning they first made the accusations of sexing up.
And I thought they better have complete, unambiguous, well sourced, proof, or the bbc are done for.

They did not.
And the government came for them.

Anonymous said...

JPM said @ 11:45

'Blair's appalling error of judgement was in trusting US intelligence to the extent of going to war on it.'

The Americans you say..?

No one would argue that the Powell e-mail of 19 September 2002 and the subsequent press treatment of the September dossier was a ‘smoking gun’ proving that Tony Blair had already at that stage decided upon war with Iraq. However, the use made of the 45-minute story and the obfuscation in which his advisers have engaged in order to obscure their actions and motives do suggest that the prime minister and his immediate entourage were doing nothing to discourage the impression that there was cogent justification for a resort to armed force. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Professor Geoffrey Warner

26 January 2010

Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell and the 45-Minute Warning

http://www.barder.com/alastair-campbell-jonathan-powell-and-the-45-minute-warning/

Steve

JPM said...

I'm not pro-Blair. The Iraq war was a disaster, and he was made an utter patsy by even the lamentable Bush.

I mentioned what happened to the DG of the BBC over that.

What is more interesting still to me is, that although Greg Dyke lost his job, the then Head Of News And Current Affairs at the BBC did not.

The BBC is the most heavily resourced "news" organisation in Europe. I think that everything else that it does is a front.

I doubt whether the Establishment - the real one that includes Johnson - will give it up that easily.

As the late Tony Benn used to say, the really big stories in the UK are the ones that they don't even mention on the BBC.

Mark said...

You don't seem to be pro anyone when called out on it.

Peter Barrett said...

Why are we discussing one of the worst crimes of the 21st century in terms of jobs lost through lies told? Estimates of Iraq war casualties vary from 150,000 to over a million with the more authoritative erring towards the higher figure.The Chilcott enquiry was the complete waste of time and money everybody expected it to be and the entire truth will probably now be lost to history. In case anyone doesn't remember the name of the first casualty it was Dr David Christopher Kelly.

Lies indeed.

Dave_G said...


"The BBC is the most heavily resourced "news" organisation in Europe."

Doesn't seem to matter how heavily resourced a news organisation is if they can't fathom the lies, obfuscations, fabrications, alarmism and blatant data manipulation behind so-called man-made climate change.

A 10 year old could.

Span Ows said...

JPM's memory is different to mine. I believe Blair and co targeted gilligan as they were still smarting from the report of a draft European Union constitution he published in 2000. That and a few other 'run-ins' meant New Labour (mainly arse Campbell) actively had others 'attack' Gilligan.

Giligan's story was later proved and he was 'vindictaed re the WMD story, it is just he reduced Blair's limelight and so they ahted him. To be honest ANY story EVER that underwent the "Hutton scrutiny" would have had 'cracks in the wall'. Hutton didn't come out of it well.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1432135/Thorn-in-the-Governments-side-has-become-Tony-Blairs-marked-man.html

Span Ows said...

...oh, and let's not forget Dyke was 'hideously white'.

jim said...

The planets are suitably aligned for malign forces to have a go at the BBC. We can see big money won the Brexit campaign but that same big money is losing cash with the dead-tree press. Time for some fresh meat, bite a few lucrative chunks out of the BBC. For the BBC is still quite good at what it does, never forgetting that it steers a fine line between being the 'state broadcaster' and Auntie.

But the big question is how to cut off a chunk. The Tories look very unlikely to fund the BBC out of taxation and such funding would be so meagre as to cut off Cbeebies, Bells on Sunday and Question Time. Questions-in-the-House, never a good thing and lumps hardly of interest to the media barons. Or of course some dimwit might suggest going online - except for all those millions who don't have the wonders of the Web or some fancy box with a card. A recipe for a rip=off disaster second only to Smart Meters.

Our Parliament has one unfailing capability - to screw things up, watch what happens to the BBC, best leave it alone.

JPM said...

Well, the BBC seems to be quick to report this about the UK's "special relationship" with the US:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51206425

Anonymous said...

Jim - get stuffed.

As someone who recognised the rancid nature of the BBC and thus got rid of his TV 6 years ago, I think the BBC needs to be burned to the ground and the earth salted.

It generates globalist propaganda and loathes its audience. The fact it generates its income by force is an insult.

If your so confident of the Beebs value letbit compete for subscription revenue.

John Brown said...

The main issue with the BBC is that it is not fulfilling its remit of being a public service broadcaster.

It never allows more than one view on any issue to be broadcast and the news analysts and presenters never, ever seem to change.

The idea that the BBC is impartial is laughable.

The BBC needs to be forced to broadcast a wider range of opinions.

Span Ows said...

Jim, there is a place for your 'auntie' but it shouldn't be politically biased, anti-British, beholden to none and paying millions to slebs.