Country Bumpkins Newsflash

One thing that we’ve been missing in our lives is the experience of being condescended-to by supercilious Germans:

The BBC is not a state broadcaster. It is neither state owned (it's the British Broadcasting _Corporation_), nor state controlled, much to the annoyance of most, if not all, British governments. And the British government doesn't fund the BBC. So why would you want to abolish it? https://t.co/75edbciAw5

— Ayden Férdeline (@ferdeline) August 22, 2018

He's assuming that we're thick ignoramuses who don't understand or are not aware of the relevant concepts and lingo.  He is wrong on that count and in his understanding of how the BBC works in reality.  The belief that the BBC is not a state broadcaster but in fact a 'public service broadcaster' is a weasel formulation and does not reflect what really goes on.

We repeat here some brief facts we have previously posted about the BBC, its origins and history, and the way it operates today:

(i). The BBC (as the then-British Broadcasting Company) was established in the early 1920s as popular radio broadcasting technology began to emerge.  The first BBC was a conglomerate of various interests in the radio and communications industry - so originally, the BBC (or its immediate precursor) was a private enterprise. However the government intervened early on and started meddling in the running of things to allow for ‘remote state control’ of broadcasting (a phrase used at the time).

(ii). The BBC was soon turned into a statutory Corporation by Act of Parliament, and re-named the British Broadcasting Corporation - operating under Royal Charter, and run by government appointees. 

(iii). State editorial control of the BBC has happened recurrently.  The obvious example is during the Second World War.  The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1948 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was based on the BBC.  A more recent example is the BBC’s policy on coverage of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The BBC’s senior management wanted to adopt a critical editorial line, and the BBC’s defenders often use this affair as an example of the BBC’s independence – often mentioning the Gilligan Affair - but this was soon put a stop to and in the event, the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq War was bland and conformist.  The truth is that the BBC folded like wet cardboard.

(iv). The BBC has failed to cover other wars in a critical way on numerous occasions.  Another example would be Britain’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, in which the BBC’s coverage was mostly bland and supine.  These examples illustrate the dangers of having a broadcaster under state influence and control.

(v). Today, the senior managerial and executive tiers of the BBC are thoroughly politicised, much like the Senior Civil Service.  The BBC is formally accountable to government ministers for its operations and ministers decide the terms and parameters for the operation of the BBC.  The government awards parts of the BBC grant-aid out of general taxation and even settles the TV licence fee each year.  This political control will inevitably have a broad influence on the BBC's editorial direction, its institutional culture and values, and its editorial narratives concerning key issues and controversies.

(vi). Five members of the BBC Board - its governing body - are appointed by the state, including the chairman and one non-executive member for each of the Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).  Members of that Board are analogous to shareholders in a limited company, thus state appointees strategically direct the BBC.  It is the case that a majority of the Board are appointed by the BBC itself through its nominations committee, but it would be naive to assume that there is no government influence in these appointments.

(vii). Furthermore, all senior management appointments at the BBC must be approved by government ministers.

(viii). It can be added that the TV licence fee is officially regarded as a tax, and payment is ultimately enforced by the state with the assistance of the police (albeit the police only assist passively), the courts and prisons.

Then there's this information, from a former BBC journalist [click on the image to read it]:

It's clear that the BBC is a state broadcaster and is under a degree of state control.  The German is the ignorant one.  He should stick to commenting on his own country.

Weasel Words of the BBC's defenders

The Left have gone through seventy-three years (and counting) of selective pressures that have brought them to the top of Britain's Establishment.  That means they are clever.  Many of them have high verbal intelligence especially.

Among the weasel formulations they use to give the BBC sentimental and emotional pull with the public are the following, all of which have been put to us:

"The BBC is the national broadcaster"

The BBC is a state broadcaster.  The difference is crucial.  The BBC is not this fluffy, harmless broadcasting organisation loved by the nation.  The BBC is owned by the state.  Furthermore, many of its directing Board are government appointees, its senior management appointments are approved by government ministers, the government sets its terms and the government settles the TV licence fee and awards it grant aid out of general taxation.  It is conceded that the BBC operates largely autonomously and has editorial independence, but political control of the BBC is undeniable and ineluctably leads to the government setting the political tone at the BBC and influencing its institutional culture and values.  Furthermore, there is a long and disreputable record of editorial interference and meddling from governments at key moments in history.

The BBC is a state body that is imposed on us and those who resist are bullied.  The funding of the BBC is ultimately enforced by the state - with the threat of court summonses and prison as the final sanctions.  No other broadcaster imposes itself on the public in this way.  If we decide we don't like Sky, we simply don't watch it, settle up our bill and we need have nothing further to do with that broadcaster.  If we decide we don't like the BBC, we must still fund it anyway, or ultimately face imprisonment.  That is outrageous.

"The BBC has nothing to do with the state.  It's a public service broadcaster"

This is the weasel formulation used by the BBC themselves.  Notice the fluffy, nice-sounding phrase, 'public service broadcaster'.  It's intended to trick you into not examining the true reality of the BBC, which we have already outlined.  These dishonest people want you to think that the state's ownership and control of the BBC are only notional, when the reality is a little bit more complex.  It is also intended to deter you from thinking any further about the matter.  For instance, you may wish to consider exactly what this phrase 'public service broadcasting' really means.

As we have explained elsewhere, if public service broadcasting means being impartial, balanced, diverse and upholding the highest production standards, etc., we have seen nothing to tell us that only the BBC can do those things, if it can do them at all, or that any decent commercial broadcaster cannot uphold such values to the extent that they are practicable.  In short, public service broadcasting is not the exclusive province of the public sector and the BBC is hardly doing a good job in what is supposedly its own specialist field.

The truth is that the BBC is flawed.  We think it should be abolished.

The State, Statism and Leftism

Conservative- and patriotic-minded people often think that if only they can capture the state machinery, it can be made to work in the national interest.  This does not follow.  The state itself is Leftist by nature, and 'statism' (i.e. the habitual or dogmatic reliance on the state to solve problems) always leads to the imposition of Leftist agendas.  

Margaret Thatcher came to understand this quite late in her career, and on becoming leader of the Conservative Party, set about trying to ‘roll back the state’.  The organised opposition to ‘Thatcherism’ came from the Labour Party, trade unions, the BBC,  local government, civil servants, academia, large companies, charities, and similar, not to mention opposition from 'wet' Tories within the Conservative Party itself.  Those forces remain in place today, and if anything, have been greatly strengthened.  They are the Left.  They are the people who rely for payment of their wages on enforced deductions from your wages: i.e. taxes.  They all work for the state or other public bodies, or in the case of charities and the corporate business sector, for organisations subsidised by the taxpayer.  Their opposition to Thatcher was virulent, bitter and at times violent, on a scale perhaps never before seen against a government of modern times.  The reason for this was not really because of Thatcher's policies as such.  In fact, virtually all post-War governments, both Labour and Conservative, had implemented similar policies (albeit not to such an ambitious or sweeping extent); rather, it was because Thatcher explicitly proposed to attack, undermine, and where possible, systematically dismantle, the very basis of the Left's power in Britain.

Thatcher's friends and allies were, variously, the entrepreneurial lower middle-class, most of the provincial Tory Party, much of the ordinary working class - especially in the south of England - and socially-conservative and patriotic elements within the Labour Party, who realised the Left was descending into lunacy.  Thus, the battle lines back then were quite similar to those that exist today over Brexit.  Thatcher failed in her objectives and, if anything, the reach of the state expanded under her governments.  One problem with Margaret Thatcher was that she had been formed politically under the post-War social-democratic consensus.  Her melodramatic Damascene conversion to Austrian economics and Gladstonian liberalism was her scientific intellect attempting to find a sufficiently-powerful antidote to her essentially leftist leanings, but she could not entirely shake-off those formative influences and was not sufficiently ruthless in dealing with the Left.  Nevertheless, 'Thatcherism' is a term coined in a British context for a style of government that goes against social-democratic policies in that it minimises state intervention; supports a concomitant contraction of the state; encourages economic liberalism, government spending cuts, tax cuts, deregulation, privatisation and flexible labour markets; and that pursues a patriotic stance at home and abroad.

We are not Thatcherites - in fact, we are not even supporters of the Conservative Party - and we have different motivations to Thatcher for attacking the Left, but we agree with her method.  In order to defeat the Left, we must dismantle the state – we think the BBC is a good starting point.  It is the centre of the Left’s power in this country.

Ours is not an argument against the state per se.  That is an entirely other subject and a different debate.  For us, the point is that the state, if it exists, must be minimal, and must - so far as is possible – work broadly in the interests of the indigenous population.  We believe the two things go together: a larger state bureaucracy means more Leftism, a lesser need for self-reliance among the population, a large number of intrusive and inefficient state-run or state-subsidised services that are available not just to the indigenous British but to all-comers; whereas, a smaller state bureaucracy, means less Leftism, a greater need for self-reliance among the population, but more focused and efficient essential services directed to the needs of the indigenous British people and no other.  We want the latter, not the former.  For that to happen in Britain, we must have a Ground Zero Revolution in which the state bureaucracy, and other similar bureaus such as those in local government and large companies, are dismantled under process of law.  This is true radicalism: a return to the roots of good governance founded in communities, families and individuals, instead of reliance on large impersonal entities that are funded at the point of a gun.  This blog focuses on the BBC, but from time-to-time we may touch on the other lines of attack and how radical reform can be achieved.

To be clear, it is not that we are uncaring right-wing free marketeers who want to remove social safety nets.  Quite the opposite: we want to see a system built around the needs and interests of the British people.  We think that requires a restoration of tradition, family, community, autonomy and responsibility, in which a minimal state agrees to provide safety nets on the understanding that people learn to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for themselves, their families and their local communities.

What could replace the BBC?  We want to see public broadcasting replaced with plurality.  There is choice already, but not enough.  Most broadcasting is bland and conformist, and we think the existence of the BBC has something to do with this.  The private sector will fill the void to a large extent, but local communities and conscientious individuals could organise their own broadcasting stations, covering issues that matter to them instead of having concerns and issues imposed on them.  With digital technology, this is now possible.  The BBC itself cannot contribute to a pluralistic and democratic media environment.  It was founded as a paternalistic broadcaster, at arm’s length from the state, intended to inform, entertain and educate – and this was perfectly admirable and laudable for its time - but as society changed, the BBC lost its way and has gradually become a maternalistic general purpose busy-body agency of the state, smothering and stifling everybody, and telling everybody what is good for them.