Bbc

The ‘pre-appointment hearings’ system overseen by parliament’s select committees doesn’t exactly set the heart racing; a pale imitation of the American system, where presidential nominees (to the Supreme Court for instance) are savaged by senators sitting as a kind of hanging jury, our version is generally bloodless. Certainly Richard Sharp, the government’s candidate for chairman of the BBC, who dutifully presented himself for cross-questioning last week, emerged with never a scratch on him. Under the British system (unlike the American) the committee has no power of veto — the worst they can do is publish a disobliging report on the candidate and hope that will be sufficiently damaging to stop

Which is madder, bitcoin at $41,500 — oops, make that $31,000 on Monday — or Tesla shares at $880 apiece? Don’t get me started on the crypto-mania in which the Financial Conduct Authority has warned gamblers ‘they should be prepared to lose all their money’. But Tesla, relatively speaking, is a real thing: a California-based carmaker which has expanded the frontiers of the electric vehicle market that’s going to become huge in the next decade and could soon make carbon–fuelled road transport extinct. Put that way, it’s not so surprising — in tech stock terms — that investors should value Tesla higher than the rest of the US auto industry

If you wanted to start a revolution would you choose an Oxford educated multi-millionaire banker to lead it? Not the obvious choice is it? Which is why the news that the next chairman of the BBC Board is to be ex-Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp looks very like a retreat from any serious attempt to reform the Corporation. Tim Davie, the Director-General (DG) and the rest of the BBC executive board will be breathing sighs of relief; it looks very much like ‘business as usual’ at New Broadcasting House. The Revolution is postponed. In choosing Mr Sharp, a walking caricature of the Establishment, the Johnson government is signalling that it’s

Real men are not supposed to confess to feeling fear. But I am frightened, second time round, about the plague. There is superstition involved. Back in March, I had an underlying belief that I would be somehow immune. This time, I feel differently. It’s partly those vertiginous graphs and partly my gloomy streak, a ‘just-my-luck’ sense that if I did succumb, it would happen with the vaccine only a hand’s-grasp away. So I’m cautious. For many people, the latest lockdown is atrocious, job-destroying, family-wrecking news. For me, it’s more of the same. Work aside, I go out only for a daily walk, hobbling along the local canal or round Regent’s

Have you heard about John Price destroying a stretch of the river Lugg? If not, you have led a sheltered existence.  This month, Mr Price, who lives in the Luggside farm he was born in 66 years ago, in Kingsland, Herefordshire, has been attacked by the BBC (who ran denunciations of him unnamed), the Wildlife Trust (‘extreme vandalism’), Monty Don (‘it breaks my heart’), the Daily Mirror etc. He is said to have destroyed habitats by dredging, and by laying waste the bank on one side.  Something about the media unanimity aroused my suspicions, so I followed up. Mr Price, clearly a determined man, has spoken out in the Herefordshire

In this season for miracles, the rise of June Sarpong continues: she has been made a trustee of the Donmar Warehouse, that London theatre attended by City snoots and funded partly by taxpayers. Every era has its Widmerpool, the slaloming careerist in A Dance to the Music of Time. Who is our Widmerpool? Gove? Sir Peter Bazalgette? James Purnell? I’d plump for Sarpong. This London-born daughter of aspirational Ghanaians forewent university to work at Kiss FM radio. She became a teenagers’ TV presenter, appeared on Blankety Blank and was David Lammy’s girlfriend. Soon she was a Prince’s Trust ambassador and pals with Alastair Campbell. She now writes, adorns the British

Along with holly wreaths, unfeasibly large poultry and popular carols played on an endless loop, there is another ritual at this time of year; the BBC unveils its Christmas schedules — followed immediately by a chorus of sour complaint about the fare on offer. The Corporation published details of its programming at the start of December and, true to form, the Daily Mail and its readers were far from pleased: ‘Deja View’ ran the headline ‘BBC Christmas schedule in slammed by viewers’. In uncertain times it’s good to see time-hallowed traditions kept alive. The substance of the Mail’s complaint was that there were too many repeats and game shows —

This is an article about some difficult, complex subjects: suicide, mental health, support for transgender children. It’s also about something very simple: a horrible failure of journalism by the BBC. I’ll come to the BBC in due course, but given that this is about the potential for self-harm among young people, I think it’s important to take some time to offer some context and background facts. The first thing to do is to note the longstanding advice to the media from the Samaritans on how to report responsibly on the issue of suicide, in order to avoid the risk of adversely influencing the behaviour of vulnerable people. ‘Steer clear of

The first rule of preaching is not to be preachy – and it’s here that the Vicar of Dibley slips up in lecturing her parishioners on Black Lives Matter in an episode broadcast last night. When I am training curates, I show them Alan Bennett’s skit ‘Take a pew’ from Beyond the Fringe (1961), where a clergyman’s painful attempts at being hip are sunk by the rising of his sing-songy parsonical voice. Dawn French’s character would have been wise to watch too. The normally inoffensive sitcom, which is being broadcast this Christmas in a series of ten minute specials, features the TV vicar ‘taking the knee’. Surely this year, more

Today presenter Nick Robinson has been reflecting on the political interview. He contrasts his interviews with scientists about Covid with those with politicians about policy, and thinks that it is the politicians’ fault that he never gets very far with them. It seems not to have crossed his mind that it might be his. Perhaps Plato (d. 348 bc) can help. Plato’s dialogues are the first examples the West has of extended discussions between interested parties on big topics — what we mean by justice, knowledge, goodness and so on. Socrates is at the centre of most of them, and is presented as a most delightful interlocutor — kindly, encouraging,

Less impartial than Channel 5. That will be the headline generated by Ofcom’s latest annual report on the BBC. In fact, what the regulator’s research finds is that, over the last two years, the percentage of BBC viewers who deem the Corporation’s output ‘impartial’ has fallen from 61 to 58 per cent, while Channel 5 has driven up confidence in its impartiality from 57 to 61 per cent. Indeed, Auntie is still ‘the most-used news source in the UK’ and 70 per cent of regular viewers still say it is ‘accurate and trustworthy’. Nor does Ofcom find the Corporation’s news service breached the Broadcasting Code’s requirements for due impartiality or

Another day, another breast-beating confession from a BBC news-wallah about how the Corporation has sinned against diversity. This time it was ‘head of newsgathering’ Jonathan Munro lamenting the fact that most of the editors who labour under him are highly-educated, middle-class white men: ‘I don’t think anyone can think that is right or justifiable,’ he declaimed piously in a Media Masters podcast. He added: ‘We don’t want all our editorial meetings to be dominated by what white people think. We don’t want any single group in society to dominate our editorial thinking, because we are not being diverse in our thought process.’ This raises an interesting point; does Munro think that

It is such a relief that Dominic Cummings has gone. Not for the sake of the country or the government — you can make your own mind up about that. No, no, I’m talking about me. Over the past year or so, the abuse I’ve received on Twitter and Facebook for reporting anything perceived to have originated anywhere near Cummings has been wearing. I’ve never endorsed anything he said or did. That’s not my job, as you well know. My job is to tell you the thoughts, plans, hopes and dreams of the most powerful member of the government (which he was for a period last autumn). Sometimes that was

The BBC and Channel 4 are self-censoring their comedy output because they are so terrified of offending people. So says Jimmy Mulville, the producer of Have I Got News For You, who claims ‘cancel culture’ has resulted in a fearful atmosphere in these institutions:  ‘People who cause offence now can be cancelled. And the BBC are worried about it. I know that Channel 4 is worried about it, they’re all worried about it. I’m not blaming them, it’s the culture in which we live.’ This is becoming a familiar complaint. Comedian Dawn French recently bemoaned how censoriousness and offence-seeking was suffocating comedy. She said it was increasingly impossible to make risky,

As time passes, there is — blessedly — ever less need to pay attention to ‘untold’ stories about Diana, Princess of Wales; but the Channel 4 documentary Diana: The Truth behind the Interview did make me sit up a bit. It revealed, and the BBC does not deny, that Martin Bashir and Panorama colleagues caused fake invoices to be created purporting to show that a rogue employee of Charles Spencer, the Princess’s brother, had sold stories about her to newspapers. It seems this forgery — and Panorama’s assurances about Bashir’s good character — persuaded Lord Spencer to meet Bashir and to urge his sister to do the same. The result

Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part of the ‘Vigorous Leaders’ range from Waddingtons), my wife suggested — for a novelty — that maybe we should take in the new political thriller starring Hugh Laurie, called Roadkill. We have fond memories of Laurie from previous dramas and are both mildly interested in politics, so it seemed an agreeable idea. ‘What side is it on?’ I asked, with a note of warning. ‘BBC One,’ replied the missus, and we looked at each other glumly and I said: ‘Oh Christ. It’ll be a woke BAME-athon. Isn’t there an old