Make good your pledges

Having the last laugh

Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, clearly thinks that we’re all far too worried about the economic climate and future tax hikes, and with the front pages dominated with pictures a rather grim looking Chancellor, has seized his opportunity.

I’m talking of course about his decision to allow Jonathon Ross to return to his £6 million pound a year job – with full regalia. He had concluded, presumably, that a month holiday on full pay (a tidy £500,000) constituted the “appropriate action” the Prime Minister called for.

In truth, Ross acting like a twat and managing to insult just about everybody is hardly surprising. It is entirely within character and presumably precisely what the BBC was hoping for when it offered signed him up on a record breaking 3 year £18 million contract. Undoubtedly they thought he would make them appear “hip, cool and relevant” and “reach out” to a younger audience.

It is now apparent, if there was ever any doubt, that from the very beginning of this scandal, the BBC had no intention of taking any real action beyond short term damage control.

Since it’s founding in 1922 the BBC has achieved a level of groupthink and consensus thinking that is possibly unrivalled in any organisation. The BBC has no intention of listening to the public because they view themselves as the guardians of what represents British moral standards and not the other way around. When BBC internal reports uncovers a culture of bias, it is treated with dismay not because it feels it doesn’t have to answer to anyone, but because it genuinely regards itself as representing the Vox populi.

And when the BBC airs a joke, be it about the Queen’s sexual organs, prank calls to old age pensioners about f—ing their granddaughters or simply asking David Cameron whether he masturbated about Lady Thatcher, it is by definition “edgy” comedy. Those who find it tasteless, crude or worse, have the temerity to complain are routinely dismissed as out of touch with cool Britannia, of which the BBC is standard bearer.

It is this attitude of utter incredulity towards it’s bonded financiers that must stop. The mentality that the British public can be forced to pay for what has long been a commercial enterprise and in return have it’s views and moral sensitivities trampled upon is a travesty. If the BBC wishes to be answerable to nobody but itself then it can damn well finance itself.

So ladies and gentlemen, I make the call. it’s time to make good your pledges and boycott the BBC license fee. That means you Charles Moore, and all the rest.

http://the-daily-pundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/campaign-to-boycott-bbc-license-fee.html