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Which important cultural figure does the BBC Newsnight ask to come on to discuss President Trump and American politics?  A West Coast Leftist of course.

We don’t dispute that any TV channel can interview whom they like, but the BBC is supposed to be a redoubt for the highest standards in broadcasting, not a spin-off of MTV.

What If The BBC Is Privatised?

Time and again we hear from the BBC’s critics that if only the TV licence is ended and the BBC moves to subscription-based viewing and advertising, or some sort of privatisation even, all will be well.  We also see that commercialisation is now UKIP policy.  The argument is shallow, unimaginative and misconceived, and if implemented, would leave us in a worse situation. 

To reiterate, we call for:

1. Complete abolition and closure of the BBC; all transmissions to cease; its Royal Charter revoked; its assets broken-up, and fragmented and sold on the commercial market.

2. A total end to state involvement in information, media and broadcasting.

3. A new era of plurality and choice with the free market assuring independence and standards. 

These changes would be as epochal as the formal abolition of slavery - and we purposefully draw a parallel between the two institutions.  The existence of a state-owned and state-controlled media amounts to the perpetuation of slavery through mass psychology.

That being said, we are not mad marketeers.  If a state-owned media is wrong, then so is a transmogrified statist media owned by private interests.  We do not want that either.  In so far as we believe in the so-called ‘free’ market as a concept, it is in the sense that we regard it as part of the natural order of a healthy society.  We do not want corporate media dominance – but then, that’s one of the very reasons we oppose reforms and ‘improvements’ to the BBC. 

It follows that our understanding of ‘privatisation’ is quite different to that of neo-thatcherites.  To us, privatisation is simply a process in which state assets are returned to the public, the most efficient means of doing this being via the market – either through sale of the entity as one or more operating concerns or closure followed by asset-based sell-off.  In the case of the BBC, we favour the latter.  The BBC has fulfilled its mission and is now functionally redundant.  Its assets must be sold and the proceeds returned to the public, minus any legacy contractual and legal obligations to the BBC’s staff, pensioners and other creditors.  To continue the BBC and allow it to operate in whatever form – public or private – would be to continue a sham and a deceit and allow the enemies of this country to run rampant. 

But some will not be convinced by the case, so here we would like to offer a vision of what broadcasting would look like under a Privatised BBC.  We consider it dystopian.

Watch this:

    

That’s a video from The Guardian about people who voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.  We see here how unconscious biasing works.  The casual viewer might regard The Guardian’s treatment as ‘fair’.  We disagree.  The Guardian interviews various individuals who are articulate and well-spoken but in some way slightly eccentric.  Much like Nick Clegg’s feature on Wales for the BBC that we eviscerated yesterday, The Guardian misses out the majority category and in doing so (intentionally or otherwise) presents the viewer with a distorted picture of things.  You will notice that The Guardian does not interview the white English working class who would represent normative England.  They are entirely absent from the feature.  This is because The Guardian does not regard such people as articulate or well-spoken or having the ‘right’ sort of views.  Certainly, the people interviewed have voted Brexit and are in opposition to a large part, perhaps all, of The Guardian’s agenda, but they are able to put across why in a way that The Guardian and its audience finds acceptable, or at least relatively inoffensive.  You will note that even in the segment with the man in Lincolnshire in which the problem of immigration is discussed, he negotiates around the central issues carefully in a way that must leave the observant viewer deeply annoyed and frustrated.  The result is an unconscious biasing towards relatively unchallenging opinions and the censoring-out of any genuine dissent against The Guardian’s agenda.  It’s a subtle process and even The Guardian’s own journalists and producers may not be entirely self-conscious or self-aware about what they are doing.

With this instructive example under our belts, we turn to what a Privatised BBC would be like.  We must remember that the BBC is not a pleasant little radio and TV outlet with nice smiley people all working fluffily in the public interest.  It is a state-owned and state-controlled diversified multi-media state conglomerate with interests in:

(i). the broadcasting of TV and radio programmes, now entirely digital;

(ii). the production of radio and TV programmes, for the BBC itself and other outlets (especially S4C in Wales);

(iii). news-gathering and other journalism;

(iv). the arts and creative industries;

(v). vocational and graduate training in management, broadcasting techniques, the arts and journalism and other relevant fields;

(vi). books, magazines and other publications;

(vii). various websites.

In evaluating the option of a future Commercial BBC, or Privatised BBC, one thing we need to do is imagine what the qualitative experience of its output will be like under those proposed situations, taking into account the BBC’s diversification and super-dominance.  It is by doing so that readers, we hope, will begin to understand why we insist on abolition and closure.  Obviously the exercise is little more than educated guesswork, but we can base our guesswork on the preponderance of what the BBC actually does now.

Here's an example which we think typifies the attitude of the BBC to the rest of the country outside London, the hip parts of Manchester, urban Bristol and its other metropolitan strongholds.  In other words, this is what the BBC thinks of the native white British, using its privileged position as a state broadcaster to tell us.  The message seems to be that if you voted for Brexit, you are somewhat of a xenophobe, and a bit of cad:

BBC Newsnight is not ‘news’, it is an ‘agenda’.  For comparison purposes, let's zoom back to The Guardian.  Here we have an exemplar of the genre. A jumpy little lefty with a squeaky voice, who looks like an overgrown first year university undergraduate, runs round the English countryside patronising everybody he meets ad hoc, snarkily inferring they are [stupid/backward] [country bumpkins/narrow-minded provincials] because they don’t agree with his Leftist predicates:

The BBC and The Guardian are the same people.  But maybe you’re not convinced?

Here’s another one from the squeaky little mouse:

The result of privatising the BBC will be that we are left with a multi-media conglomerate that looks like a hybrid of Channel Four, LBC, Virgin Media and The Guardian.  If you need it put to you bluntly: imagine The Guardian as a massive global multi-media empire and you have a sense of what a Privatised BBC could do.  Channel Four already tries its best to be the private sector's Leftist propaganda outlet of choice in Britain.  We don’t need another one.  Imagine furthermore this media empire retaining a Royal Charter (entirely possible, very many private companies are chartered) and having the mission of a public service broadcaster, with all the credibility and implied integrity that goes with it.

In response to these points, the supposition of many anti-TV licence campaigners goes something like this:

-The TV licence system becomes unsustainable and ends.

-It is then replaced by subscription-based viewing and advertising.

-The BBC then crumbles (a bit like ITV Digital did) because of insufficient viewers and subscribers.

This seems cogent enough, but a moment’s thought should tell you that it doesn’t hold.  The thinking is errored as soon as it comes up against what we know about the reality of the BBC’s institutional values and its broadcasting.  You don’t just change those things by changing the structure.  Even a public to private shift won’t change it.  The BBC already in effect operates much like a commercial entity.  Thanks to the John Birt era (an appointee of Thatcher), a large part of the BBC’s revenues and operating circumstances are commercial and resemble how a private company would function. Yet still the BBC is incurably Leftist and metropolitan; in fact, the more ‘commercialised’ the BBC has become, the worse its culture.  But then, why should that be a surprise?  Lots of private enterprises operate in this way and neo-liberal economics often goes hand-in-hand with social liberalism.  There was always a great congruency and alignment between Thatcherism and the social liberal Left.

Furthermore, we must consider the BBC’s accumulated strengths.  Whatever else may be said about the BBC, the following has to be conceded:

• The BBC is a prestigious brand with global market penetration and worldwide recognition.  Literally virtually everybody in the world, across cultures and languages, knows who the BBC are and broadly what they do.

• The BBC has had the benefit of nine decades of public investment, in its brand, its technics, its production values, its buildings, its talent.

• The BBC has a loyal following of many millions, and there is a hardcore (mostly Left, but many from the political Right) who will defend the BBC come hell or high water.

• The BBC has become intrinsic to the managerial-state, and each reciprocates the other with support and patronage (and probably bribes and favours too).  That will remain the case even if it is privatised.  Think we’re wrong?  Take a look at how privatised utilities work: they are in effect state bodies operating under the auspices of private capital, and in the case of some post-privatisation entities, the private sector status is nominal.  Suffice it to say that anybody who thinks commercialising or privatising the BBC in whatever way is a solution or would end its influence on the country is just being naïve.

Like it or not, those are facts or conclusions from facts.

Our view:

The BBC won’t crumble if the TV licence ends.  To the contrary: the BBC can and will thrive without the TV licence, and we think the BBC’s senior management (who aren’t stupid people) know this and privately want the TV licence system torn up for good.  They won’t say so publicly because they know why the TV licence still exists, despite its obvious ridiculousness.  It serves the interests of their political masters.

To be clear, the reason the TV licence remains in place is because it suits the political class.  For them it’s the perfect system:

-It allows the government of the day to exercise strategic and broad tonal control over the BBC, its output, its institutional culture.  As a hypothecated tax, it also avoids the problem of accountability and answerability that there would be if the BBC were funded out of general taxation.  Note, however, the rider below.

The important rider is that a move to a directly-funded BBC would be the easiest evolutionary option and explains why other broadcasting systems that have abandoned their license tradition have immediately took up direct funding models – it’s the path of least resistance, despite its difficulties.  It avoids a big legal or parliamentary showdown.  Abolition, in contrast, requires great political and moral courage and foresight.  Commercialisation and privatisation are legally and administratively quite tricky, politically-controversial and play into the hands of the relevant public broadcaster, which has a brand and whose elite management (and their private capital cronies and associates) want to be enriched thereby without state meddling.

Taking all the above into consideration, we hope you can see why an abolition campaign is needed.  Most of the alternatives don’t bear thinking about, but rest assured, they will be on the agenda should we reach the point where a boycott/non-payment campaign threatens the sustainability of TV licensing.

The BBC and Wales

There's dissatisfaction with broadcasting in Wales:

"A WOMAN has vowed to fight her case in court after refusing to pay her TV licence as part of a campaign to devolve broadcasting powers to Wales. 

"Heledd Gwyndaf, a former Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi pupil and now chair of Welsh-language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith, is one of three campaigners who are facing court over non-payment of the licence fee. 

"Cymdeithas said that more than 70 people are refusing to pay for their licences as part of the campaign, and that the three are expecting court cases soon."

Specifically regarding the BBC, we find the following on the Cymdeithas yr laith website:

"Language campaigners have expressed concern over BBC bosses’ lack of ambition for their Welsh language services today, saying that a new independent Welsh language provider is needed. 

"The news comes following Radio Cymru’s ‘national conversation’ about how the station should develop over the years to come. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg has responded by arguing that the fact the corporation has doubled the number of English language stations it broadcasts in Wales since the start of the 90s proves the BBC is not committed to its Welsh language services.

...

"Speaking today Greg Bevan added: “The BBC is institutionally anti-Welsh-language. Having doubled the number of English-language stations they broadcast in Wales, they’re now cutting the hours and budget of the only Welsh-language radio station in the world. For the language to flourish we must demand our own free and independent broadcaster.”

"According to the campaign group: “We can’t trust the BBC to ensure the future of broadcasting in Welsh after it has treated its Welsh language services as second rate for decades. The BBC should release finance … from its coffers to establish new interactive services by new multi-platform providers, free from the BBC’s British straight jacket." 

"In its correspondence to the British Broadcasting Corporation, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg’s Broadcasting group chair Greg Bevan says: “We are very concerned BBC managers in Wales aren’t doing enough to fight for expanding the corporation’s Welsh language services as they should. We also note that the pattern over recent decades has been to manage decline the Welsh language services, while there’s been a significant investment in English language services."

Comment

Public sector broadcasting in Wales is an interesting and complex aspect of the wider UK picture.  In addition to receiving the same public service broadcasting as everybody else (i.e. the BBC itself and Channel Four, as well as ITV, which has a public service remit), Wales also has its own dedicated Welsh language channel called S4C, which is overseen by the S4C Authority, claimed to be an entirely independent body, though its members seem to be appointed or approved by the BBC Board (presumably with input from government ministers).

Like the BBC, S4C is state-owned and it is almost-entirely funded by the public - 90% of S4C's budget comes from the TV licence, 8% direct from the UK government and only 2% from commercial revenues.  The government is now phasing out its direct contributions, meaning that by 2022, the only public funding source for S4C will be the TV licence.

To be clear, and contrary to what a government minister recently claimed, TV licence revenues are the BBC's.  In point of fact (and point of law), it is the BBC that negotiates the TV licence fee annually with the government (a government minister decides what it shall be and how much of it S4C receives) and it is the BBC that collects the TV licence fee.  In plain speak, the TV licence system belongs to the BBC.  That the BBC contracts-out the task of administration, collection and enforcement of the TV licence to the private sector does not alter the fact.  

We mention all this because the upshot of S4C's financial arrangements and its reliance on the TV licence is that the BBC basically pays for S4C, ergo it would appear the BBC owns S4C de facto, thus - contrary to what is being claimed - the S4C Authority is not independent at all, and S4C is, like the BBC, a state broadcaster, albeit at one remove.  Indeed, further reading on this subject reveals:

(i). The BBC is required to produce Welsh language programming, but screens these via S4C, providing much of the programming output for S4C.  The BBC has done this ever since S4C's establishment in the early 1980s.  Not a lot of people outside Wales or the BBC will know that S4C's most popular programme is a daily Welsh language soap-opera, Pobol y Cwm, which was first broadcast on the BBC in 1974 and is the longest-running soap opera produced by the BBC.

(ii). The BBC and S4C annually negotiate S4C's budget, for which the cost centre appears to be BBC Cymru (BBC Wales).  A complication is that S4C also seems to be consulted by the government during annual TV licence fee settlement and there may be negotiation with S4C over what its annual slice of the TV licence revenues should be, though it's unclear and everything seems to be relatively informal.

We will be investigating S4C further.  It's a rather obscure area of British state broadcasting and we expect most British people are not even aware a channel called S4C exists or have ever watched or know about any of its programmes.  We must admit that until we sat down to write this piece, not one of us had heard of a Welsh-language soap-opera that apparently everybody in Wales (or every Welsh speaker, at any rate) raves about.  We were quite oblivious.

For present purposes, we will observe that this year, the S4C Authority has entered into a memorandum with the BBC which (among other things) supposedly maintains S4C's independence from the state broadcaster (they claim), but allows the BBC to screen S4C programmes through its iPlayer.

The claims of Welsh language activists need to be evaluated against all this.  There are the good points that a Welsh language public sector broadcaster is operating, and the BBC are at least giving it access to its digital platform and continuing with a mandate to produce Welsh language programming.  There is though the bad point that for Welsh speakers who wish to watch television in Welsh, choice seems limited to one channel and the BBC itself is not catering for Welsh speakers or even for wider Welsh culture on its own channels through BBC Wales.  This arguably is a further point that reflects badly on the BBC's monopolistic character.  It should be said that the only private sector Welsh language television stations are a minor satellite children's channel and a local station that broadcasts only to Swansea and which appears to mainly advertise small businesses.

We are very sympathetic to Welsh language provision, especially given that the loyal and patriotic Welsh voted overwhelmingly for Brexit, and it seems that here we have an example of the BBC not fulfilling its public mission to ensure diversity.  In this case, the BBC is failing to fully accommodate an entire indigenous British culture: the Welsh and their beautiful and important language, still widely spoken throughout Wales, and a first language in large parts of north and west Wales.  We wonder how similar complaints from the Moslem community would be addressed?  We suspect Moslems and other non-white cultures, both here and abroad, receive a more favourable reception from the leftist BBC than do the white British, whose national and regional indigenous ways and traditions are being snuffed-out by the BBC's anodyne multi-culture.

As if to underscore this, consider the recent contribution of Evan Davis and BBC Newsnight to discussion of the Welsh language:

"The BBC has said it "regrets" an item on its Newsnight programme that asked whether the Welsh language was a "help or hindrance to the nation". 

"The broadcaster had been urged to apologise after Wednesday's programme.Welsh Language Minister Alun Davies said the BBC had a "cultural problem" in London and a "serious question" needed to be asked. 

"Campaigners want an independent review to look at all BBC content containing a reference to the Welsh language. 

"A BBC spokesman said: "Whilst different perspectives were included in this item on the Welsh language, the discussion of such an important subject would have benefited from more thorough analysis and debate. 

"We regret that, but believe it was important to look at this topic and we will do so again in the future."

That relates to a BBC Newsnight programme broadcast in August 2017.  Sadly, we can't find a clip - we rather suspect a shame-faced BBC have removed it wherever it appeared online, which is a pity.  Embarrassingly for the BBC, the Welsh Language Minister (Welsh Government), Alun Davies, was moved to say this in response:

"They (the BBC) don't understand what the UK is, they don't know what the culture of the UK is and they don't understand Wales. 

"This problem goes beyond Newsnight, last night's Newsnight reflected the problem. But I believe the BBC's problem goes further regarding the BBC in London's editorial values. 

"It's a very serious question for the BBC." 

He added: "Can you imagine the programme asking if the first language of any other group or nation was a hindrance? 

"The tone was as if the Welsh language had to justify its own existence. 

"Newsnight seemed to have no knowledge of the fact that Welsh is the first language of many people in Wales and all those who do speak Welsh also speak English.

And here's a real Welshman on why the language matters to the Welsh:

The problem with the BBC and Wales isn't just the way Wales and its people, language and culture are portrayed (or not, as the case may be).  The Welsh language controversy is also an example of how the BBC stifles creativity and innovation by virtue of its sheer mass and dominant presence, though it has to be said that the responsibility is not just with the BBC.  When the lady-campaigner in the newspaper article (mentioned at the beginning of this piece) says she wants to “devolve” broadcasting to Wales, what she means is that she wants to continue to impose the TV licence on the Welsh people.  Why not instead support a campaign to abolish the BBC and fill the gap in provision with commercial and independent content that caters to Welsh speakers?  This could include content that Welsh speakers, like these campaigners, devise and produce themselves.  Why not?  But then, there's also the question of why they should wait for the BBC to be abolished (or reformed) to do this?  Why is it assumed that services have to be provided for us by a Big Mummy state when everybody has equal and neutral access to digital platforms?  Again, we highlight a little-mentioned difficulty caused by having this massive state conglomerate dominate everything: risk-taking, creativity and initiative have been discouraged.

Here's another, slightly better, example of how the BBC likes to portray the Welsh.  

To the casual observer, the feature seems to have its good points: it seems balanced and well-made.  But it's neither.  It's crap and an example of the BBC's shallow journalism.  Wales (like northern England and Cornwall) is generally always portrayed by the BBC's national journalists as 'run down' and full of problems. This is no doubt well-meaning, if rather patronising - and, we must remember, Wales does have problems - yet it also reflects a London-centric and metropolitan attitude to provincial Britain.  Notice too how Clegg fails to solicit the opinions and views of ordinary working people.  Instead he goes for two extreme demographic groups: older people and the very young (a bunch of Sixth Formers).  There is nothing wrong with seeking the opinions of those groups of course, but they're hardly going to be representative.  Sticking to those groups allows Clegg to portray the simplistic dichotomy that suits his agenda: older prejudiced 'conservative' people on one side of the fence, and younger 'progressive' people on the other.  We don't hear from the people who are actually paying for Newsnight.  We do hear from a rather dim A-level Politics student with spots and a scruffy beard, who one may imagine has never done a day's work in his life, and who dismisses concerns over immigration as 'fear'.  We may ask: fear of what?  If he had any brains, he would ask that too.  Meanwhile, a young lass who looks like she's not even old enough to vote informs us that everybody should be treated equally in the Welsh job market, regardless of where they are from, and foreigners should be allowed to take jobs meant for locals.  We can only wonder if the Welsh people who actually pay for the TV licence think the same.  We wonder, but we don't know, because Nick Clegg doesn't bother interviewing any of them.  The BBC and Mr Clegg want to censor out the native Welsh working class by omission.

"A Broadcaster of Distinction": Comedy Hour

More serious news analysis from Britain's "broadcaster of distinction".  The BBC is not dumbed-down at all.  Oh no.  They're totally impartial too, we promise.

"Inform, Educate and Entertain..." Update

Today’s “Inform, Educate and Entertain…” is brought to you by Evan Davis of BBC Newsnight, interviewing that vital cultural figure, Spike Lee:

Political-correctness demands that we say it is wonderfully informative and educational to hear Mr Lee's considered views.   But if nothing else, it certainly provides entertainment.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

Whatever else we may say on this site, it is unlikely we will ever suggest that the BBC is short of journalistic talent.  The problems that the BBC embodies and causes are mostly not due to a lack of capability, and the people who appear on the BBC’s television and radio programmes are generally among the best anywhere in the world at what they do.  The BBC’s sins are due to it being a state broadcaster and having an institutional culture that is Leftist and metropolitan and that is blind to, or ignores, provincial concerns.  This is especially so when the concerns come from the ethnic group that the BBC despises most of all, the white British, and especially from the socio-economic group the BBC hates: the white working class.

Now and then, the BBC’s journalists will put their abilities to good use.  Some time ago, Newsnight ran a series of short features on problems in northern England, and this turned out to be among the best work that programme has ever produced.  It left some of us feeling poignantly sad because we wondered how this country might be different today – and better – if the BBC, which styles itself as our ‘public service broadcaster’, had actually sought to be just that, fulfil its public mission and report critically on this country’s problems. 

Here’s another good feature recently broadcast on Newsnight, this time about problems in Sweden:

It’s painful to watch the people interviewed in that clip carefully avoid the central issue.  The reporter does some of that as well, but at least he makes an attempt at some proper journalism for a change.  Should we praise the BBC for this sort of work and undertake to abandon our campaign if they promise to ‘reform’ and ‘change’ and turn over a new leaf, so to speak?  Is it a case of ‘better late than never’?

We think not, and it’s to the above video clip that we return to explain why.  To credit the BBC for this report would be akin to praising an arsonist for setting fire to a building simply because he had the good manners to alert the fire brigade.  Imagine furthermore that our hypothetical arsonist only does the right thing after waiting for the building to be burnt out and reduced to a pathetic shell.  That analogously describes what the BBC have helped inflict on Britain.  The journalist’s work is good – we must give credit where it is due - but he has done nothing that has not already been done by scores of independent media, while people like him at the BBC were probably calling them racist and bigoted.  He is not even playing catch-up.  The BBC are just covering their backs, and perhaps also strategising a retreat and ‘row-back’ from the obvious failure of the Left’s grand social engineering project.

We are also struck by the fact that we have not seen the BBC do anything remotely similar in their coverage of Britain.  We can’t help but think that the reporter’s decision to cover problems in Sweden is an analogue, a decision taken – perhaps unconsciously – because he knows he could not portray an English town in the same way.  Britain has the same problems as Sweden and the BBC knows this very well, and if the BBC had actually fulfilled its public mission and sought to report on these issues when they were coming to light and ordinary people were complaining, the relevant problems might never have arisen in the first place.  The role of journalists, after all, is to use their critical and observational skills to alert society to problems.  Whatever else may be said about them, the BBC’s journalists are not lacking in skills or intellectual abilities: their problem is that they are beholden to hothouse social dogmas and this colours and influences their reporting.  The distortion is evident even in the above clip.

The poor policeman who appears early on obviously knew the truth but dared not state it plainly, while the reporter was slyly goading him and tried to make him look stupid.  This same reporter would call him racist and have him booted out of his job if he actually told the truth.  We wonder whether this See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil tendency found among ordinary people and petty officials like the police might have something to do with organisations like the BBC and the bullies who work for it?  The reporter then snidely concludes the feature by implying that people with concerns about Sweden – it could be equally be Britain, and that seems to be the import – are being lulled into a fake narrative.  We will certainly credit the reporter for a degree of professionalism and for attempting to fulfil his duties properly, but even he cannot entirely let go of Leftist social dogmas.

This is why we focus on the BBC.  Broadcasting is not an esoteric issue, it is a powerful tool and in the right hands can be used to do good.  The misdeeds and indiscretions of the BBC go to the root of the problems in this country.  Imagine if the BBC had done its duty over the last few decades and had reported on the problems of mass immigration and the lack of public consent for it.  Imagine if, back in the 1980s, the BBC had started reporting on Pakistani Moslem grooming gangs.  Imagine if back in 1992 the BBC had given balanced coverage to the Maastricht negotiations and the issue of European integration.  Where were the BBC reports about white displacement or the concerns of the white working class in areas of east London, the West Midlands or parts of West Yorkshire? 

Yes, we eventually heard from the BBC about these issues, but only inadequately, only through the BBC’s own warped frame of values, and only when the problems had developed into crises of such magnitude that even the BBC couldn’t any longer hide them by omission.  Likewise in Sweden.  Suddenly a sole BBC journalist turns up and interviews a few people, comes to a lot of sweeping conclusions, listens sympathetically to a white working class Swedish man he would probably sneer at and call racist in private, and we’re supposed to be impressed?   We are in little doubt that had the BBC done its job over the years, such reports would be unnecessary.  As it is, the BBC is a veritable Curate’s egg: it has got to the stage that any ‘good’ it does cannot compensate for the bad and even, as here, only serves to highlight the long-unaddressed inadequacies and smouldering grievances and resentments of normal people who look on in bewilderment and disgust at this organisation’s mendacity and hypocrisy.

That is not to exclusively blame the BBC for this country’s problems of course - there are many villains in this tale - but it is to highlight the power and privileged position of a large media organisation such as the BBC.  The BBC has let this country down and must now pay the price: it must be closed down for good.  Any shallow attempt now from the BBC to appease genuine concerns from the public should be met with the scorn and derision it deserves.  Yet we know that a large part of the public fall for this stuff.  As an indication, look at the comments on YouTube under the above video.  The praise demonstrates the power of the BBC brand and the enduring legacy of the Reithian principles: it’s not that the public really think that the BBC stands for impartiality and high journalistic principle, it’s that they think the BBC should and can stand for these things and they seize enthusiastically on any exceptional instance when, as here, the BBC does a halfway honest job.  This is dangerous because the cold reality is that the BBC no longer stands for these things, if it ever truly did, and it can’t.  It is a propaganda machine that hides behind a favourable public perception to push its insidious narratives.