David Cameron writes about the Beeb in the Sun today. In it he supports the license fee, but begins thus: I am a slightly rare creature — a lifelong Conservative who is a fan of the BBC. I think that tells you something. And although much of the piece is about the need to cut salaries and the size of the BBC – all good stuff – and the need for a properly independent regulator instead of the Trust (welcome, too), the key passage for readers here is this:
But, I can hear the cry, what about the left-wing bias?
My answer is: yes, the BBC does have what even Andrew Marr called an “innate liberal bias”, principally because it does not have to behave like a commercial organisation and make its money from scratch every year.
That tends to make the BBC instinctively pro-Big State, distinctly iffy about the free market and sometimes dismissive of a conservative viewpoint.
Dave doesn’t really say what he’d do about that, but this does seem to suggest that the issue is now on the table. If I worked at the Beeb, I’d be a bit worried.
Pete:
“How about keeping the compulsory licence fee but abolishing the detector vans and the famous sinister database and making all the snooping staff redundant?”
Detector vans are a myth. Nothing to abolish there.
‘Telegraph’
“Cocktails stay in cabinet at BBC’s election night party.”
by Tim Walker
[Extract]:
“In a not altogether convincing attempt to plead poverty as the row over BBC salaries intensifies following the suspension of its £6 million a year presenter Jonathan Ross, Mandrake hears that the corporation is belatedly scaling back its US election night jamboree in New York.”
“‘We had planned on having an eye-catching red, white and blue theme right down to a specially created range of cocktails,’ whispers a corporation hireling from the Big Apple. ‘Word came from London that this would look far too ostentatious in the present climate and we were ordered to serve guests only with red and white wine. We were also told there was to be no champagne. Guests will not even be allowed to bring bottles with them because of the fear that they could be photographed knocking back fizz at the licence payers’ expense.’
“Ironically he adds that the red and white wines that were finally agreed upon proved more expensive than the drinks they had planned to serve but, as he says, they couldn’t serve any old plonk when luminaries such as Tina Brown, Harold Evans, Alan Yentob and Ed Victor are expected.”(by Tim Walker).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/3367379/Cocktails-stay-in-cabinet-at-BBCs-election-night-party.html
I agree with Andy. That statement makes no rational sense as a position to take on a biased organisation.
For Cameron to say that the BBC is good for democracy…well, he must be ready for the funny farm, quite honestly. How could he possibly make that out?
Until now, I have thought of Cameron as a very intelligent chap. Now, I wonder. Is he unable to make up his mind on one side or the other and is trying to have it both ways?
Is he afraid to take a real position such as would naturally follow from the acknowledgement of the existence of the problem?
Is he just using the current public outcry opportunistically to jump on the bandwagon about excessive pay?
Or is he genuinely attached to the BBC as an institution, more for sentimental and historic reasons than for the reality of it currently, in the way so many people are? Does he really think life would be unthinkable without it?
The different things he has said there just don’t hang together right.
The spiv Cameron doesn`t have to say he will aboolish the BBC. Just put it on a subscription service and allow freedom.The BBC would become cheaper because;
They wouldn`t be empire building with more channels to displace others,
They wouldn`t pay over the top for salaries
They would slim themselves down by redundancies
They wouldn`t need to pay a company to send out threatning letters and go round intimidating people.
I reckon their service would be £6 a month instead of £12.
Guido Fawkes:
“Cameron: BBC is Bloated and Left-Wing but I appreciate it”
http://www.order-order.com/2008/11/cameron-bbc-is-bloated-and-left-wing.html
I thought DC’s article was remarkably outspoken, considering.
OT: I heard there was some research published recently purporting to show that conservatives tend to be able to anticipate leftist thinking, but leftists tend to be unable to reciprocate. There wasn’t much info to go on so unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the original paper. Have any of you heard about this? It would seem to be highly relevant to the lefty-staffed BBC.
Millie Tant | 03.11.08 – 7:33 pm | #
MODERATORS:
Please note that the post at 7 33pm under my user name was NOT a post by me.
It seems an obsessive stalker impersonating me is still active.
the problem is Schama is NOT ‘a product of the BBC’ but professor of history at a leading US university (Columbia).
Anonymous | 03.11.08 – 1:11 pm |
the same university that Obama attended by the way.
Cut out the Crap.
Let the bias BBC stand on it’s own without any taxpayers money. Then we will see how good it is.
We are abused by foul language by overpaid morons. How about Channel FO where they can all use the F word to their hearts content without decent people having to listen or more importantly pay for it.
‘Daily Mail’:
“Cameron wades into BBC pay row saying director general Thompson’s £860,000 salary is too high”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082416/Cameron-wades-BBC-pay-row-saying-director-general-Thompsons-816-000-salary-high.html
SCHAMA: interviewed by ‘Independent’ (in October, 2006), and why he was given a lucrative BBC TV contract on America, screened in run-up to U.S. Election-
“In conversation, Schama is equally iconoclastic – describing President George Bush as ‘an absolute fucking catastrophe’, criticising Tony Blair over the invasion of Iraq, and censuring politicians on both sides of the Atlantic for their lack of historical awareness. He is critical of the idea of a ‘war on terror’, and is hoping that the US will elect the African-American Senator Barack Obama as its next president.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-schama-the-past-master-420111.html
Worried by “Call me Dave”?
Why good heavens, whatever next?
(Unless he has a secret policy somewhere)
via comments @ guido fawkes:
ITV are covering the US election with 20 staff.
Sky are covering the US election with 40 staff.
BBC are covering the US election with 175 staff.
my comment: and sky’s coverage is better.
Gearge R. doesn’t it make you vomit? “Iconoclastic”!That word to describe someone coming out with every cliched establishment nostrum in the fucking book! How about something ORIGINAL, Schama? Or would that prevent you from sucking off the statist teat?
BBC are covering the US election with 175 staff
Would Roger Harrabin like to comment on the 5x Carbon Footprint discrepancy. After all the BBC is one of the biggest cheerleaders about controlling carbon emissions. If it can be done with 20-40 people why does the BBC need 175 to cover someone elses election.
It will be interesting to see how many of the American channels will send huge entourages to comment on Gorgeous Gordon Browns election–Do they give a toss –uh no
Frankos | 03.11.08 – 10:52 pm |
I agree – but there is a difference the US is electing a President – the UK would be electing a head of a Borough Council thanks to the EU.
The Tories,well ahead in the polls,should now be saying to the BBC in private.
“From now to the election ,if we think -even for a moment-that you are allowing your staff to exhibit anti-Tory or pro-Labour bias:understand that after the election we will obliterate you.We will break the BBC up into so many pieces you will be left wondering if it ever existed at all or was just a figment of your imagination.”
Jon | 03.11.08 – 11:01 pm
i agree. a vote actually does matter over there. you the voter can potentially change the history of a superpower.
unlike the parish council that we have for “parliament”
How about keeping the BBC as it is, but just change one small thing: remove all punishments for non licence fee payment, make it legal not to pay the licence fee. Then, all the Daily Mail readers who don’t like all the left wing propaganda the BBC pumps out, but are too scared of being sent to prison, can feel safe in not paying it, but would still be able to enjoy Top Gear (without having to pay for it). Let altruistic Guardian readers be the sole source of funding for the BBC.
Another small change could be to simply force the BBC to change it’s name and remove the word British, because it’s a very anti-British broadcaster. This change would stop people from seeing the BBC as a “beloved ‘British’ institution”, and would make it easier to kill off the BBC. Change it’s name to something really un-British that Daily Mail readers would find repulsive, with an ugly London 2012 style logo. Make the BBC so ugly and repulsive that nobody could ever feel any sympathy for it. Use the same tactics of cultural Marxism that the BBC has been using against Britain against the BBC itself!
Good God Cameron will you just look at THIS Don’t you realise that the BBC detest your very being!!
Cameron’s remarks of, and to the BBC are, is very much the steel fist under in a velvet glove.
I’m sure the BBC has got the message.
David Cameron’s has it completely backwards in his explanation for why Beeboids are mainly Leftoid. They’re not instinctively pro-Big State and dismissive of a conservative viewpoint because they get a free ride from a government tax. They’re that way when they’re hired, and hired because they’re that way.
They’ve been hiring each other for over thirty years, and it was only a matter of time before the combination of right-on, neo-Marxist emotionalism in the universities and the inherent superiority in the culture of “educating the masses” and “telling stories” developed into the intellectual fascism on display today.
Jack White – I have sent your link everywhere and so should other people. It should go to every blog. Bags I Iain Dale … And every publication.
Did anyone else detect the voice of David Bowie? I could be wrong … Very slick job, meaning it was put together by professionals.
Even if it was just a David Bowie sound-alike (and I don’t think so), it is still very effective.
licence fee
“Did anyone else detect the voice of David Bowie?”
Verity, it is David Bowie: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxIhNOgwBE
shame about the ‘sponsered’.
WWL 2:18
Yes, the BBC give extreme left-wing, anti-American historian, Schama, a TV series BEFORE the US elections and Andrew Roberts a radio series AFTER the elections.
Now, if that isn’t BBC bias, what is ? And don’t tell me it is a coincidence !
Cameron isn’t daft, a significant proportion of the population wouldn’t specifically link the licence fee to the Beeb, just non subscription telly generally, so if he gets rid of their “free” Eastenders and Celeb Come Dancing he’s in trouble. Plus his great electoral strength has been hoovering up some of the liberalish crowd who appreciate the “highbrow”, “non commercial” output of the Beeb so he needs to be careful there too.
The best approach would be to hive off all the “entertainment”, “comedy” (ahem) and other crap into a package and flog this off to the commercial sector on the proviso that it’s advertising and not subscription funded and therefore still “free”. They can then have one TV station to do news, “educational”/factual stuff, culture, events of national importance etc etc thereby keeping the elderly BBC nostalgia fans and intelligensia on side and fulfilling some sort of public service remit.
Streamline the radio into news, plays, highbrow discussion,new music, slash the licence fee by at least half and everybody’s happy except the rump of die-hard free marketeers.
Peter Whittle on BBC issues:
“Change we need”
http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/
Cockney
Exactly.
£70 reduction in the licence fee is like cutting the income tax. Including to all the people who don’t pay tax!
David Preiser,
“David Cameron’s has it completely backwards in his explanation for why Beeboids are mainly Leftoid. They’re not instinctively pro-Big State and dismissive of a conservative viewpoint because they get a free ride from a government tax. They’re that way when they’re hired, and hired because they’re that way.”
I disagree. And it’s an important subject to debate because it affects ideas about spreading the licence fee around.
The BBC is not so much a Labour-leaning organisation as a statist organisation. They are that way because they are paid by the state, and that’s quite an easy ride. They know that out in the harsh commercial world, they’d have to work a lot harder, be less likely to develop their own pet projects, and be subject to the market.
It’s important to look back at the BBC and see that they’ve always been statist, but that in earlier times, this was more of socially conservative authoritarianism, such as showing ballet and opera “because it’s better for you plebs” (Labour now has lots of that too).
The reason why the Labour bias became so strong is that Thatcher broke away from the post-war consensus and started pulling apart the state bit by bit. If the Thatcherites had continued in power, we’d probably have a licence fee offering little more than children’s programming.
The Conservatives idea of spreading the licence fee around will simply create more pockets of statism. Commercial TV channels will change their behaviour to receive that money and it will corrupt them towards supporting government that will give them even more.
Tim Almond:I pay about £20 a month for Sky. I do it mostly for the fact I enjoy the programmes they put out on the Discovery and National Georgraphic channels, some of which is excellent.
There is an argument for having some state funding for HQ informative programmes, but my concern would be that any Government would tend to want to promote programmes that reflect their political bias (and we know Labour and the EU have been doing that in the UK).
So perhaps the only alternative is to go to subscription programming and let people pay for what they want to watch and not for what they don’t.
I don’t pay for Sky Sports because I don’t want to give money to overpaid footbalelrs. At least with that I have a choice.
Referring to a piece already noted here:
BBC needs to grow some steel in its spine
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/mick_fealty/blog/2008/11/04/bbc_needs_to_grow_some_steel_in_its_spine
And another. It is kind of the Daily Mail, only posher, isn’t it?
David Cameron targets modestly paid executives at understaffed BBC
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2008/11/04/david_cameron_targets_modestly_paid_executives_at_understaffed_bbc
A bit like Mr. Brown’s adding a beholden 800k voting bloc, whatever one thinks about what isn’t working and should be done, I don’t see how one now reduces wages and/or lets folk go without a serious backlash, and so don’t think most of what some wish for is a practical option.
Tim Almond & David Preiser For what its worth, my opinion is that you are both right. The BBC is the way it is because it is a statist public sector organisation (free champagne all round, the public are paying) and because it recruits like minded people mainly from the Guardianista metropolitan arts graduate class.
It is also unable to understand why it is hated so much, because it sees itself through rose tinted spectacles and has nobody inside the organisation that is either willing or indeed able to hold up a mirror to itself.
As usual, you have it right, Arthur Dent.
I would just add that spreading the license fee around is not going to stop the BBC from being the way it is. As long as it’s the Official State Broadcaster, and has those initials, it will retain its position in society, and will probably just be subsidized in full out of your taxes anyway.
There will have to be compromises. But halving the licence fee, letting the BBC decide what to cut back on, would be a great start.
The next licence review arrives in 2012.
JohnA | 04.11.08 – 2:33 pm |
If the similar case in Canada is anything to go by, the first thing to go will be Radio 3, and the various BBC orchestras will be disbanded. The last thing to go will be the News and their favorite Radio 1 & 2 talking heads, plus Victoria Derbyshire. In other words, all that will remain will be the ones doing all the damage.
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 04.11.08 – 2:46 pm | #
That… would be my prediction… and fear.
The very things that I despise (p*ss poor reporting, rampant editorial agenda, just about everything ending in ‘ism’ from internal favouritism practices (how many producers did Ms. Douglas (constructively) dismiss to please RB?) to external elitism) would be retained at the expense of those I do value. And the employees I know still care, and try and do a good job.
I honestly cannot figure how it could or would be done, but the only solution seems to be some kind of system where I can ‘vote’ by paying for what I like and not funding what I don’t. Like that is possible with the current system.
Until that is sorted out, my only option is refusing to pay, with the odd notion of the political entity who are most suffering at the hands of the BBC likely in power and supporting Capita when I get my day in court.
FWIW, getting my vote (I already know who is not) when the time comes might depend on how clearly they don’t fudge their views on this, amongst a lot of other things.
At £140pa it’s not the highest direct financial priority in my day, but having massive legislative and political issues misrepresented and/or shaped against my will and family’s interests daily is.
A better example of the internal workings (or lack of) would be hard to find and has just landed in my in-box:
Sachgate: more fallout at the BBC
Gotta love the Grauniad; they get it right in the copy, but not the headline
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/nov/04/bbc
I work in the world of media. What client, given the option, would give this self-serving, shambolic crew the time of day, much less their account?
The BBC is a progressive, liberal, diverse, multicultural organisation, many of these things by its own admission.
As such, until it abandons these tenets, it is unfit to be receiving public money.
Some people here are saying that the spiv Cameron was giving a coded message to the Beeb via the Sun.
Why should he do that ? Why not ring the %^&* up and tell them something straight ?What could they do about it except bring more publicity on their shabby ways ?
(thanks 😉 )
“If I worked at the Beeb, I’d be a bit worried.”
I’m not. Dave is a media liberal who is also a Conservative. He is also very bright, charming and charismatic and will soon have the beeb dancing to his tune. Maybe a few trots will get the boot, maybe they will be tolerated as an amusing anachronism.
I agree with the thrust of Cockney’s comment although I think rather less of it will go. Whatever goes will be bought by someone so most jobs will be there one way or the other. Its not like the number of channels is going down is it?
(assuming the recession is over by the time Dave gets in)
Hugh Oxford | 04.11.08 – 5:12 pm
until it abandons these tenets, it is unfit to be receiving public money.
Do you mean it has to sack all its Black and Asian employees?
Why?
http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/nicholas-jones-mainmenu-85/5199-is-cameron-cosying-up-to-murdoch-with-his-bbc-bashing
Oh, perlease! Dave has indicated that a lot of “issues” are on the table.
So what?
It’s the way he deals with them that counts, and he “deals” with them in sly lefty ways with sneaky prose. Cameron is not on our side re the BBC. He wants more socialism; more rules legislated from outside our country, more “direction”.
Would he order a referendum on the EU?
At this point in the time of our nation, that’s the only question that resonates through our citizenry.
The answer is ‘no’.
Is Dave a member of Common Purpose?
There was a bias this entire election. The only people who would disagree are the left-wing illuminati and their partners in crime, the media.