As I get older and I see the institutions of British society twisted and distorted to fit the extreme neo-liberal agenda, I find myself advocating all kinds of responses which I would have found anathema even a decade below. One f these is that I definitely believe that the BBC should be abolished as a public funded institution, and the BBC poll tax (aka license fee) abolished.
The extent of BBC bias during the referendum campaign was breathtaking. I have worked, and specifically reported on the media, in dictatorships which had a less insidious and complete bias than the BBC has against Scottish independence. The relentless anti-Corbyn propaganda shows that the BBC exists to reinforce the neo-liberal narrative at all costs, both at home and abroad. Laura Kuenssberg achieved levels of disdain and ridicule in her report on Shadow Cabinet appointments this evening that ought to disqualify her forever from employment anywhere but Fox News. This was followed by “Reporting Scotland” and a long propaganda piece against the idea of a second referendum, replete with lies about pledges of “once in a lifetime”.
I do not think in the 21st Century we need a state broadcaster. If you want right wing propaganda, you can watch it on Murdoch, without paying a compulsory tax for it. I don’t want to watch baking, “celebrities” I have never heard of dancing, or people abseiling to win a holiday in Jamaica. If I did, I am sure I could find someone to provide it commercially.
The more worthwhile parts of the BBC’s output could be maintained or commissioned as arts spending and broadcast on commercial or internet platforms. You do not actually need a state broadcaster to have symphony orchestras and just a minute.
Even the Tories are occasionally right about something, and they are right that the BBC is a hugely bloated organisation, with 107 bureaucrats who earn over 100,000 and 23 who earn over 200,000. Forget all the ideas about reform. Just chuck the worthless bunch out on the street.
Craig Murray,
Thank You. I had never heard of Jeremy Corbyn until I read about him on your website when he announced he was a candidate..The Bookies gave him odds of 100-1 (I don’t Bet)
Hasn’t Dan Hodges Been Fired Yet???..Or Were You Even Cleverer Than Your Mum..Helping To Get Jeremy Corbyn Elected – By Continuously Slagging Him Off For 3 months every day..sometimes twice a day…didn’t find much did you?
You Tried To Smear Jeremy Corbyn With Shiit – But No Dead Bodies No Skeletons in His Cupboards…
Jeremy Corbyn just Presents Himself As He Is….
You Neocons can’t compete with That…
You ask him a Straight Question and he doesn’t Bullshiit and Waffle – He Gives You a Straight Answer…
The Guy is So Honest – He Doesn’t Know How To Lie..and We Can All See That..Even You.
Tony
So well said Craig, particularly the comments about Laura Kuenssberg. Awful…
In its glory days of the 1950’s, the BBC’s warned about the dangers of a government infiltrated by sinister elements (left unclear what Nigel Kneale really meant, but I suspect the Americans and military elements) in a show like Quatermass II. Unfortunately, those days are gone.
“the BBC warned,” I should have said.
Hiya Craig. There’s no telly here at the workshop. We’ve got a radio but no one uses it. Tim says “Absolutely. Spot on”.
Ah, the redoubtable neutral, Ms Kuenssberg. Who, when reporting on the Holyrood elections of 2007, did a vox pop on the streets of Kilmarnock, and everyone she interviewed was wildly opposed to the SNP, despite them winning the seat.
And then all of the vox-poppers turned out to be members of the Kilmarnock Labour Party. To which her father, Angus – while not a member – donated tens of thousands of pounds. Though not as much as he earned from the many quangos he was appointed to by the McConnell government.
Well said, Craig. You’ll have to admit to the unprecedented level of bias directed against Nigel Farage and UKIP in the run-up to the election. Though you won’t of course because you joined right in on it on that occasion. You were happy with the sustained media barrage against UKIP because it supported your own views.
Hi Clark,
I still haven’t got round to visiting, which is bad. Give my love to Tim, and others around (Eddie?).
The BBC were neutered after the Hutton report.
Tim sends his love in return and says it’d be good to see you here. We’ll see Eddie tomorrow.
Ohms, seconded.
It is years since I have watched beebeecee in any format, yet I have to pay the for the propaganda tax. It is as good a practice as Daesh charging their victims for the price of the bullets that they are going to be killing them with.
The awful truth is, the rabid supremacists and right wing have gamed the system and ended up dominating the discourse and the course of the events. We let it happen right under our nose, with being liberals and allowing a platform for these evil bastards to take over.
“I do not think in the 21st Century we need a state broadcaster. If you want right wing propaganda, you can watch it on Murdoch, without paying a compulsory tax for it.”
…followed by…
“Even the Tories are occasionally right about something, and they are right that the BBC is a hugely bloated organisation, with 107 bureaucrats who earn over 100,000 and 23 who earn over 200,000.”
Hold on. If the BBC is “right-wing”, and so are the Tories, then why on earth would they be complaining abojt it Craig?
I agree that the BBC is biased, but not to the degree Fox News is. The difference is that the BBC is made up of upper-middle class people for whom late-stage capitalism has worked very well – they are pretty similar in outlook and social station. However, there is no over-arching and organised conspiracy to oppose the Left.
Fox News however is quite openly biased, and not just to the Republicans, but to the crazy barking end of the party. I worry therefore that if we chuck Auntie out on the street – tempting after they did not stand up to the Iraq invasion – the bias and distortion will actually get worse.
Jon what fucking left are you talking about? You keep going on about left, who are these lefties, and what is their impact in the wider political direction country and ultimately the lives of we the people?
The only glimmer of organised left has been the appearance of Corbyn and wait and see how far will that go?
Fox news belonging to the same oligarch who owns the sun and the rest over here too, holds Hitler to be a communist! He had a “socialist” in the title of his national socialist party.
However won’t you agree covert bias is far more pernicious than open ad overt bias?
Nobody knows how to sneer like Laura Kuensberg.
‘The difference is that the BBC is made up of upper-middle class people for whom late-stage capitalism has worked very well – they are pretty similar in outlook and social station. However, there is no over-arching and organised conspiracy to oppose the Left.’
Excellent point Jon, although the 107 bureacrats Craig mentions benefit more from a command economy model from which notions of economic justice have been progressively removed. The outlook is socially liberal and vaguely ‘progressive’ (hence the distain directed at the Beeb by the Tories) but at the same time (paraphrasing Mandelson) ‘very relaxed’ about the ‘best people’ getting very rich at the licence payers expense.
‘The more worthwhile parts of the BBC’s output could be maintained or commissioned as arts spending and broadcast on commercial or internet platforms.’
The quality production, just before tonights news/Corbyn hathcetjob no 94, of Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’, is a case in point.
“However won’t you agree covert bias is far more pernicious than open and overt bias?”
Yup.
That’s why Medialens and others concentrate on the BBC, Guardian etc.
The others openly flaunt their bias and are well-known for it.
The BBC and Guardian play a much more insidious role.
The BBC however, can be saved.
It was Thatcher’s purging of Milne in 1987 that set it on the path it finds itself upon today.
What was done, can be undone.
To quote Orwell “the more one claims to be impartial,the more one is biased”.This would be a perfect epithet for the craven BBC,which even by their own risible standards,has in recent years hit a new nadir.BBC News is,essentially,a parakeet for the establishment and an apologist for massive state violence.
When I was studying at Oxford in the early 1970’s, I listened all the time to Radio 3 and Radio 4. At that time, at least, they were both very much worth spending time listening to.
Some years ago, I watched the 1954 film of An Inspector Calls, with Alastair Sim playing the inspector. My recollection is that I quite liked it.
Kuensberg keeps up her anti Corbyn editorialising on the BBC website, claiming the appointment of John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor will be ‘very hard to stomach’-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34240869
‘very hard to stomach’ for whom ?
Some years ago, I watched the 1954 film of An Inspector Calls, with Alastair Sim playing the inspector. My recollection is that I quite liked it.
Lysias- tonight’s version was good, but not that good !
For some years after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, some editorial independence was still allowed to such newspapers as the Berliner Tageblatt and the Frankfurter Zeitung. Because they displayed some glimmers of independence, and of journalistic excellence, they were more effective as propaganda than the more obviously controlled newspapers.
During World War Two, Goebbels substituted for them the new weekly Das Reich, which employed excellent journalists, and whose cultural coverage in the Feuilleton section was well worth reading. Which served to attract all the more attention to the regular leaders that Dr. Goebbels himself contributed. Including such infamous pieces as “Die Juden sind schuld!” [“The Jews are to blame!”], which served to justify the Holocaust then in progress.
Whoever controls the sounds and images controls the game.
The Establishment basis of the BBC is clear, but it always has been. Would one expect the BBC to give impartial, objective analysis during WW-II, and would any British person (then, or in retrospect) have wanted it to do so?
It’s the voice of the Establishment, granted. We pay for a hell of a lot for the Establishment – they’ve been riding our backs for centuries, and will continue to do so. At least the BBC will hear us occasionally, and even campaign on our behalf once in a while. They do entertain us, and produce work (eg, Blue Planet) that no other organisation could pull off. Millions of pounds, and five years until it can be broadcast! Ha!
And at least the BBC are entirely up-front about the way they’re stiffing us, as one of our numerous necessitated contributions to the Establishment.
It has many faults, and let’s criticise and correct them as we can. But just jumping on the BBC bash-wagon isn’t helpful. It already has enough enemies, for 1000 different reasons, many of whom (amusingly enough) whine “We just can’t compete with the government! Not Fair!” from state-capitalism stooges, who grovel at the alter of the fixed “free” market!
Long live the BBC, I say.
The bias of the BBC’s current affairs output is obviously skewed, and always frustrating. At times it is cringeingly obsequious, and on royal coverage, the BBC becomes almost North Korean. James O’Brien’s work on Newsnight is the exclusion that proves the rule.
However, did you see Armando Iannuci’s James MacTaggart Lecture, in which he argues in support of the BBC? If so, what did you think of the case he presented?
Here it is, if you’ve the time and/or inclination. Armando is always good value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyJFZgK__j0
Kuenessberg,Peston et al…
Vetted to the max first then got the gig and now just repeating what theyre told to.
Still embarrassingly poor in any sense of objective analysis.
Jon,
“I agree that the BBC is biased, but not to the degree Fox News is. The difference is that the BBC is made up of upper-middle class people for whom late-stage capitalism has worked very well – they are pretty similar in outlook and social station. However, there is no over-arching and organised conspiracy to oppose the Left.”
Ffs Jon! Did ye actually type that with a straight face???
Don’t pay. Turn it off. Throw it out. I did. It works.