The continuity announcer introduced Any Questions by describing Vince Cable as ‘The Sage of the Liberal Democrats’.
Q. How would B-BBC commenters describe other MPs?
No I’d better not ask that before the watershed. A.Q. was a bit more lively than usual. Speakers on Any Answers “reflecting the sentiments of the majority of callers” were angry about the police’s ‘unprovoked aggression’, (where have I heard that phrase before) and ‘kettling.’
Hazel Blears thinks the BBC – Our BBC – shouldn’t have to pay ofcom’s £120,000 fine – Wossy and Brand should cough up.
Jonathan Dimblbore kept calling Brand ‘Brandt.’ Must have been confused by all that chatter about Willies.
Q. How would B-BBC commenters describe other MPs?
No I’d better not ask that before the watershed. A.Q. was a bit more lively than usual. Speakers on Any Answers “reflecting the sentiments of the majority of callers” were angry about the police’s ‘unprovoked aggression’, (where have I heard that phrase before) and ‘kettling.’
Hazel Blears thinks the BBC – Our BBC – shouldn’t have to pay ofcom’s £120,000 fine – Wossy and Brand should cough up.
Jonathan Dimblbore kept calling Brand ‘Brandt.’ Must have been confused by all that chatter about Willies.
Kettling: Police paying special attention to the guys in face masks and hoods; carrying placards caling for direct action; throwing stones and petrol bombs by confining them into a small area.
I can’t imagine why the police would be so provocative 🙂
Shame the Police are such cowards when faced with bushy bearded arseholes chanting death to those that insult Islam.
Deegee,
I was at the protests (part of the pro capitalist counter protest). The kettle thing was quite annoying. There were loads of people that clearly weren’t there to cause problems. Nobody was allowed in or out. There were no toilet facilities (the police warned that they would arrest people for urinating in public), no water was available (quite a warm day). There were normal middle class people caught up in the whole thing and even they were starting to get a bit frustrated.
I can see things from both sides, but perhaps the Police on the ground should be empowered by their superiors to operate a “two at a time” system – i.e. don’t admit anybody else to the demo, but allow those that want to leave to go two at a time. That way there would be minimal trouble and those wanted to get away from the violent lunatics could do so.
If it had all kicked off outside the Bank of England, I wouldn’t have liked to be caught up in a baton charge, that I’d done nothing to provoke and had actively tried to avoid by asking politely if I could leave.
Difficult situation for the Police, but hopefully, they will refine their tactics in future.
Regarding Ross and Brand, I found this bit of Ofcom’s criticism interesting:
Ofcom said it found in its investigation that despite Brand’s show being considered to be “high risk” by the BBC prior to the incident, the broadcaster had ceded responsibility for managing some of that risk to people working for the presenter.
Ofcom’s Stewart Purvis told the BBC the incident had come about because of “underlying flaws” in BBC systems.
“When the BBC decided to outsource this programme to an independent production company, it didn’t put in place what we call compliance systems. In other words, ways of staying within the rules,” he said.
“The executive producer of the programme was a senior figure in the agency which represented Russell Brand and a line producer was loaned by the BBC to the production company, of which Russell Brand is one of the owners.”
There was therefore no one at the BBC who was “absolutely in editorial control of the whole process,” he added.
This was done by the BBC deliberately so they could excuse themselves from responsibility whenever Brand caused trouble. I think they had the same deal for his Radio 6 show. They had a disclaimer at the end of it stating it was a vanity production (or something like that), meaning it was a special deal for him to express his views, providing deniability for the BBC. Apparently Ofcom didn’t buy that dodge here.
It sure seems like the whole setup was a deliberate violation of the rules, most likely because Brand wanted it that way and the Beeboids bowed down to him. They smelled ratings, and being “edgy” always makes the Beeboids feel like they’re out there leading the way in public taste, so they bent and broke the rules to accommodate him. Not only that, but this arrangement would have given Brand even more license fee cash as the owner of the production company than he would have gotten if he was just the “talent”. I’d say that’s worse than the dirty phone calls.
Fortunately, it didn’t work in the end. But how many other BBC shows are set up this way? It would be interesting to find out.
Yes, I too was astonished to read about that setup – the executive producer being from the Agency which represents Brand. Yikes!
That’s in addition to the production company being part owned by Brand. What a shower they are at the BBC.
The Ofcom report – the bit I saw – was hard hitting and quite an eye opener. They aren’t too impressed by the BBC in the wake of the previous scandals and fines for extracting money from viewers on their notorious phone-in shows.
“There were loads of people that clearly weren’t there to cause problems.”
Maybe if they didn’t knowingly associate themselves with those who ARE there to cause problems (for example there was a The London Paper columnist who said she would be demonstrating alongside the Muslim Council of Britain) this wouldn’t happen
But how many other BBC shows are set up this way? It would be interesting to find out.
David Preiser (USA) | 04.04.09 – 8:50 pm | #
Indeed. The proxy procedure is an ‘interesting’, if worrying one throughout the politico-media establishment, from quangos that offer hands-off control to government, to ringers brought in by the media to ‘assist’ with the agenda.
This one was just, if you’ll forgive the term, a cock-up, if based on a flawed system created and run by market rate talents with the mindset of toddlers with the keys to the sweetie store.
However, every time a single, sympathetic ‘journalist’ is ‘invited’ on to ‘comment’ (did we ever learn more about the ‘Tory mole conspiracy’ regarding the Cabinet ‘high on the hog’ expense claims CDRs, as raised by a single source and then ‘interpreted’ on air to little challenge by an MSM commentator?) these days, I fear the age of objectivity is long gone.
“The executive producer of the programme was a senior figure in the agency which represented Russell Brand and a line producer was loaned by the BBC to the production company, of which Russell Brand is one of the owners.”
Sounds like a cosy little club they have there, well worth prosecuting 150,000 poor people per year to maintain.
“Dimbleby calling him Brandt” –
I’m afraid it is all about image with Dimbleby. It is hardly credible that he does not well know that the person is called Brand, and it is certain that calling him Brandt was an affection. Ny guess is that Dimbleby hoped one of the team to correct him, at which point he would claim “not to have followed the story”, so hoping to appear above “that that chit-chat”.
Well, someone who calls Vince “Sage” clearly doesn’t know his onions…
Peter | Homepage | 05.04.09 – 7:30 am |
This one was just, if you’ll forgive the term, a cock-up, if based on a flawed system created and run by market rate talents with the mindset of toddlers with the keys to the sweetie store.
Yes, I would agree with that. But it highlights the massive lack of accountability at the BBC. If the Controller of Radio 2 thinks such an arrangement is perfectly fine, what does that say about BBC management practices? Your license fee is mere fodder for them to throw around as they please. Lesley Douglas and her crew thought Brand was “edgy”, and did whatever it took to please him. The Beeboids even tried to use this arrangement as a buffer against taking responsibility. That’s the wrong way to approach things, and the inevitable result was that even more of your license fee will be used to pay the fine.
It’s really just a sad abuse of their position and power. Would David Attenborough have allowed such an arrangement – even if it was somebody he thought was great?
My apologies for three tenses in one sentence. It made sense in my head at the time.
Marcus Brigstock has an interesting take on this. He reckons that as the phone call was a joke everyone should just grow up and accept it as such. In fact, he said that people should take a test before they got a licence to watch/listen to the BBC so see if they were able ‘to cope’ with things they don’t like.
So cue Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown, a retrospective on Bernard Manning and lots more Jim Davidson on the BBC. Or not.
Marcus Brigstock… reckons that people should take a test before they got a licence to watch/listen to the BBC so see if they were able ‘to cope’ with things they don’t like.
The Cattle Prod of Destiny | 06.04.09 – 12:09 pm |
And if they ‘fail’ his ‘test’, might they have the option of not paying an enforced fee? Or not.
When it comes to keeping on digging, I think they are wheeling out the real market rate talents.
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