UTLEY AND THE BBC

Did you read Tom Utley’s take on the Today programme a few days back?

“Does anyone believe that the Beeb, which bewails every cut and lauds every increase in government spending, would have made such a fuss about any other three-day clampdown costing less than one ten-millionth of the NHS budget? And is it remotely conceivable that, on any other matter, it would have expressed such sympathy for the grotesquely incompetent CQC — whose appalling record over upholding standards of care for the elderly and vulnerable the BBC, to its credit, has done so much to report?

Final question. Last year, BBC TV’s Panorama exposed the scandalous ill-treatment of patients at the Winterbourne View private hospital, which had been missed by the CQC. Does anyone remember Auntie accusing ministers of ‘chasing headlines’ when they moved swiftly to close down the rotten place?”

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10 Responses to UTLEY AND THE BBC

  1. hippiepooter says:

    As Utley says, this was a patent hatchet job for the most partisan of reasons. If the Tory Party dont make a formal complaint about this blatant bias it never will about anything.

       12 likes

  2. chrisH says:

    Be interesting to see who at the BBC has links with the likes of Cynthia Bower and Jo Williams wouldn`t it?
    At least we`d recognise Sharon Shoesmith nowadays…and she killed far less people that the likes of these other troughing harridans and harpies of the Tribune.
    Furedi, Leather and the other formation team led by the worst, thickest gravy boater that is Harman…and she has to go some , given the scale of competition she has had to see off!

       8 likes

  3. Span Ows says:

    Amusing to say the least. Landsley acted swiftly and correctly; saving money, saving lives and stopping crimes…HOW THE FUCK can the BBC be so upset? Where’s Dandy when you ‘need’ him?

       9 likes

    • Jim Dandy says:

      Uttley’s maths is worse than mine. We all did this one to death last week anyhow. The horse is dead.

         0 likes

      • Dickmart says:

        What do you mean dead? I haven’t heard of any BBC resignations. This is one of the most appalling cases of bias, both in party-political terms and in one-sided treatment of a controversial social issue. Heads should surely roll (but I guess they won’t given the liberal-fascist regime at the BBC).

           11 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        ‘The horse is dead’

        Loving the inclusive ‘we’ bolted on to a claim based on… nothing.

        The horse may be dead to you, but while trying to create a full stop and move may work with the BBC on stories not fancied, or to terminate threads not holding to narrative, I don’t think it works here.
        The lack of self-awareness in that comment does remind me..
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_the_Dead_Donkey
        Meant to be anti-Murdoch of course, but I always saw it as a fair satire on our whole sorry media in a state:
        ‘ a greater sense of realism…’ Like the ‘news’, only with enhanced narrative?
        ‘…trying to make the show more sensationalist and suppress stories’.
        Like, what, ‘watertight oversight’, when needed?
        Interesting the title seems to have been a thin air pluck. Given Mr. Dandy’s latest equine attempt to tell one and all that he wishes to move on, I thought a BBC manager, confronted by a stroy that really needs killing pronto, might well see fit to exclaim… ‘that horse is dead’!
        If the staff agree it needs killing, then it will be an ex-pony. If not, then expect as much attention as a ‘just don’t’ email from the respected ‘Hugs’ Boaden, up to run the corporation after Mr. T.
        Respect is earned of course, so telling folk what is and is not… and what needs to be done as a consequence, or not… is seldom a fruitful course to try and impose.

           1 likes

  4. LondonCalling says:

    “Quality inspection” is a hopelessly flawed concept for something as complex as a hospital, which typically has 200,000 admissions and over a half million outpatient attendances a year, and employs 3-5,000 staff. It was introduced to replace “death by numbers”, but has little hope of actually doing what it says. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells was given a pass one minute, then patients told to crap in their beds as nurses were too busy. But told by whom? By a couple of the thousand nurses? Impossible to detect.
    Relatives bitch endlessly about the care their mum gets, very often the same relatives that don’t want mum home, even though she doesn’t need to be in hospital, as long as care is free.
    The media sit on the sidelines like at a coconut shy, looking for a chance to lob a ball at the other political side.
    Both parties ignore the fact the NHS is a crap system, because the voters like not paying for anything. Ask people who work in the NHS, what a shit system it is.

       7 likes

    • Wild says:

      Socialism relies on the lowest motives for its support. Telling people that they do not have to pay, or care for relatives is an example of this – widespread neglect and abuse of the elderly (with box ticking doctors and milking the system and putting their own interests before the interests of their patients) is socialism personified. The essence of successful capitalism is love your customers.

         2 likes

  5. RCE says:

    ‘This horse is dead’. Yeah, that’s right. The issue has been thoroughly dealt with.

       2 likes

  6. Joshua says:

    The math in the article is off. 1 million pounds is not less than one ten-millionth of the NHS budget of 105 billion pounds. It’s less than one hundred-thousandth of the NHS budget.

       0 likes