As for its content, Simpson’s post summed up the BBC on several levels. Firstly, that its most senior journalists are simply unable to see the world as ordinary people see it. Politically motivated attack? Mate, the BBC literally edited footage. This was no innocent error; as Janet Daley put it, this was “a professionally crafted editing job which has to have been designed to produce a calculated effect for a political purpose”. Your bleating is only making it worse.
Secondly, that the BBC considers a Left-of-centre worldview to be the definition of objectivity. The Guardian is its ideological ally because both assume they are the privileged holders of sanity, grown-up thinking and the truth, which must be defended against the fascist hordes. When the chips are down, the BBC won’t even bother to hide it.
Thirdly, that any criticism of the broadcaster represents a bad-faith attempt to destroy a great socialist project that aims to redistribute the news to each according to his needs. Here lies the kicker: in pushing such a conspiratorial Leftist worldview, the doughty journalists of the BBC have apparently dispensed with the need for evidence.
– Jake Wallis Simons (£)
Plus the BBC also has the patience to weather the storm – and get away with it. Remember Jimmy Saville? Remember the Police raid on Cliff Richard? Even when the BBC has been found guilty they soldier on. In my opinion the BBC has not yet learned to fear the consequences for their actions.
Simons has been a busy chap at the keyboard of late.
Simons almost says what I shall now say. The BBC has been caught blatently with it’s pants down over Trump. These two sackings are sacrifical goats. They have turned the Trump debacle which they just couldn’t spin their way out of into an opportunity to do a mea-culpa (of sorts*) and by dumping the Chairman and the News boss they hope this is enough humble pie…
*Of sorts? Of course. They are not exactly lying when they say they “made a mistake”. They went too far and got caught. They made a mistake in the same way a murderer accidentally leaves a vital clue at the scene.
Everything the BBC itself does is “politically motivated” – motivated by its leftist political and cultural agenda, as is the rest of the modern establishment – including the vile “Ofcom” (the “regulator”).
End funding for the BBC and for “Ofcom” – allow many different television stations arguing for different points of view, different world-views.
Including the BBC – if its wealthy leftist fans wish to voluntarily fund it.
This was the thrust of Robin Aitken’s argument almost twenty years ago. And it was hardly news even then. In 1965, Michael Wharton (the Telegraph’s “Peter Simple”) wrote that to the people who make “thought-provoking” television, “to think means to think Left-wing”. We’re hearing a great deal from BBC types at the moment about how terribly, terribly hard they’re all striving to be impartial. The allegation isn’t that they aren’t trying. It’s that they don’t know what impartiality means.
NickM: Limited hangout. They’re hoping that if they make a big play of resignations over the fake speech, everyone will forget about the Gaza stuff. And the tranny stuff. And Tim Westwood. And Huw Edwards. And Jimmy Savile. And …