Bbc

Thursday

Emily Rhodes

Writing of walking

At 3pm this afternoon Radio 4’s Ramblings with Clare Balding will broadcast a programme about The Walking Book Club, to which Emily Rhodes belongs. ‘I love walking in London,’ said Mrs Dalloway. ‘Really it’s better than walking in the country.’ As a keen reader, writer and walker, I am always intrigued when an author writes a walk into their work of fiction. Clarissa Dalloway’s walk from Westminster to Bond Street at the beginning of Mrs Dalloway is one of Virginia Woolf’s most astonishing authorial feats. Woolf notes the outside world – ‘shop-keepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds … June had drawn out every leaf on

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Shapps aide delivers next blow in BBC cuts row

Eric Pickles has been at war with the BBC over the way it reports council cuts for a while now. But today the battle took on a new front following the corporation’s reporting of a report on council tax benefit cuts. This morning the Beeb picked up on a report from the Resolution Foundation which warned council tax bills for the poorest families could rise by as much as £600. The way the story, which you can read online here, was reported has angered Jake Berry, PPS to Grant Shapps, sufficiently to fire off an angry letter to BBC director of News Helen Boaden. The letter, which I’ve seen this

Sunday

Rod Liddle

Will Self, writer in residence at BBC Radio 4

I see that Will Self is being lined up as a “writer in residence” at BBC Radio Four. I think this is very good news. Self is an excellent writer and while obviously of the left, is not doctrinaire or predictable in his views. He has wit, he is well-read and very clever. Good luck to him. I commissioned Will to do an essay every week for the Today programme back when I was editor (1998-2003). They were invariably funny, provocative and beautifully expressed; he takes such a pleasure in using our language. But I alternated Will with Freddy Forsyth, who I fancied was a similarly iconoclastic voice, but from

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Syria exposé shows the BBC at its best

Superb piece of journalism on the BBC News from Lyse Doucet. A horrible story, of some appalling mass murder in Syria – told calmly and bravely; unpartisan, questioning and undoubtedly exposing the team to danger, for our benefit. The very best of journalism. You can see it here. Actually, the piece which followed Doucet’s wasn’t bad either – a fine report from Damian Grammaticus on the Chinese economic slowdown as seen from the ghastly city of Wuhan. I mention this because the corporation isn’t simply a handy base for collective noncing, overpaid middle managers and political bias. I write about that stuff often enough, probably too often, because if the

Monday

Rod Liddle

Mary Fitzpatrick made the BBC less ‘hideously white’

Anyone remember Mary Fitzpatrick? She was the BBC’s ‘Diversity Czar’ back in the middle of the last decade, paid £90,000 p.a by the licence payer to spout egregious pc bollocks. From a quick Google she now appears to be coining it for doing precisely the same job for the UK Film Council. Nice work, etc. Her most infamous pronouncement, when she was at the Beeb, was that the BBC had too many white foreign correspondents. People reporting from Muslim countries should be Muslim, from Chinese countries Chinese and so on. The audience, this berserk woman suggested, needed ‘valid and culturally accurate’ reportage, which meant far fewer honkeys. Everybody, at the

Friday

Douglas Murray

Any suggestions for ‘Any Questions’?

I’m doing Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions?’ tonight with Harriet Harman and Simon Hughes. It’s a strange news week, in which almost anything could come up.  But I wondered if Spectator readers had any ideas, points or questions they think should be put to my fellow guests?

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Andrew Marr recovering following a stroke

Andrew Marr is recovering from a stroke in hospital, the BBC has said this evening. We at Coffee House wish him well in his recovery. The BBC’s statement on Andrew Marr’s condition: “Andrew Marr was taken ill yesterday and taken to hospital. The hospital confirmed he has had a stroke. His doctors say he is responding to treatment. His family have asked for their privacy to be respected as he recovers. “We will continue to broadcast The Andrew Marr Show and Radio 4’s Start The Week with guest presenters in his absence. His colleagues and the whole BBC wish him a speedy recovery.” Acting Director-General, Tim Davie, said: “I am

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

BBC begins to see that the Arab Spring has not sprung

Hugely exciting Ten O Clock News last night on the Arab Spring – or ‘Arab Uprising’ as the BBC now prefers to call it, the word Spring usually being associated with nice things like lambs and daffodils. They had George Alligator in Egypt and Lyse Doucet in Tunisia and some other bloke somewhere else. I like Lyse Doucet, she’s less credulous than most. George Alligator, in a piece which was largely a string of clichés, said that Egypt’s democracy was ‘a work in progress’, at which point I fell off the sofa in hysteria. Still at least they have now all come around to the view that the Arab Spring

Tuesday

Steerpike

Time ticking away for Mark Thompson?

Is the net beginning to tighten on Mark Thompson? The Sunday Times have run a story on either the ex-BBC chief, Savile or Newsnight every week since 28 October, and a picture is emerging that Thompson may have known more than we had previously thought about Newsnight’s now infamous axed investigation of Savile. I hear that Thompson, now the $4 million chief executive of the New York Times, has been forced to postpone two long-standing open meetings with his new colleagues. He was originally going to chair the ‘Town Hall’ meetings on December 17 and 18. These were supposed to have been ‘a chance for as many people as possible to see me

Tuesday

Camilla Swift

Lord Patten’s select committee catfight

Sparks flew this morning in the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, as Lord Patten came to verbal blows with Tory MP Philip Davies over the extent of his involvement in the BBC. Patten has previously come in for criticism over allegedly holding down 14 separate jobs – including his role of chairman of the BBC Trust – but when asked about his day-to-day work at the corporation, he dismissed the MP’s ‘impertinent question.’ ‘Do you want to know my toilet habits?’ Patten scoffed. Fortunately, Davies didn’t, but he went on to describe the BBC as ‘a shambles’, asking: ‘Have you been actually putting in the hours?’ Perhaps wearied by

Thursday

David Blackburn

Tony Hall appointed Director General of the BBC

It seems that Lord Patten has been reading the Spectator: Lord Hall, the BBC’s former director of news and the man who revolutionised the Royal Opera House, has been appointed Director General of the BBC, an appointment recommended by Tom Bower in last week’s Spectator Diary. The BBC Trust states that Lord Hall will take over in March. Hall is a hugely respected figure. Here’s what Tom Bower wrote about him last week: ‘To avoid chaos, Patten cannot be fired without the government naming his successor. Step forward Tony Hall, the Royal Opera House’s chief executive. Hall was a respected editor of flagship broadcasting who resigned as the director of BBC News in

Monday

Douglas Murray

Bigotry on the Beeb

I have only just caught up on the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions’. In that programme, from All Saints Church in Somerset, a Mr Stephen Bedford asked the panel this question: ‘Despite all the foreign aid and support Israel has spectacularly failed to get on with its neighbours.  Does Israel deserve a future?’ More people have been killed in Syria in the last twelve months than have died in the whole of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians over recent decades. In addition, the Assads have spent recent decades destabilising the Lebanon, assassinating leading politicians there and much more. Yet who would even think of going

Thursday

David Blackburn

Lord McAlpine speaks out

Lord McAlpine has just given an incredibly moving interview to BBC Radio 4’s World at One. He talks about how the false accusations affected him. He said, ‘It gets into your bones, it gets into your soul. There’s nothing bad as this you can do to people.’ The damage, he said, could not be repaired because of the British proverb ‘that there is no smoke without fire’. As Andrew Neil tweeted moments ago, ‘Many should be hanging their heads in shame – and not just at BBC!!’ You can listen to the whole interview here: listen to ‘Exclusive interview with Lord McAlpine – The World at One’ on Audioboo

Wednesday

Nick Herbert

Who are the BBC to question the legitimacy of Police & Crime Commissioners?

What’s the test of success of the Police & Crime Commissioners policy? It is, surely, whether the 41 individuals who will be elected tomorrow succeed in cutting crime and antisocial behaviour, and rebuilding public confidence in policing. This is not, however, the test which the BBC – and others – intend to apply. Their correspondent Danny Shaw told the Today Programme this morning that ‘the initial verdict on the success of the PCC experiment will hinge to a large degree on the turnout ….’ Setting aside the throwaway line that giving people a vote is an ‘experiment’, this is surely a deeply contentious comment. Who, you might say, are the

Grace Goddard and Barbara Speed

Oxford students: Chris Patten needs to devote time to being our Chancellor

As students at Oxford University, we are told repeatedly by tutors, proctors, and the Chancellor himself that we’re not allowed to do much outside our degree. We cannot do more than eight hours of paid work a week, and extracurricular activities are monitored carefully by colleges, who can revoke your right to do them at any time. Any major positions at the student union or Oxford Union require you to take a year out. And, as we can vouch for, taking on an editorship of a student newspaper isn’t exactly welcomed by teaching staff. We’ve handed (nearly) all our essays in on time; but Lord Patten has arguably spread himself

Tuesday

Steerpike

Murdoch’s son-in-law advising the new BBC chief

You have to hand it to Rupert Murdoch. The BBC is in turmoil and now being led by Tim Davie, its former audio and music chief whose journalistic experience does not even run to making cups of tea at the Scunthorpe Gazette. Mr Davie needs help, especially as he fancies his chances of keeping the top job. So who is he turning to? Mr Steerpike is reliably informed that he’s being advised by his old mate Matthew Freud. That’s right: Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law. Our dynamic duo has not had the best start. Yesterday, Mr Davie filmed a car-crash interview with Sky News in which he revealed that his broadcasting skills

Sebastian Payne

Revealed: who decides the BBC’s climate change policy

Just when you thought the BBC had no more scandals, Guido Fawkes has revealed what the Beeb tried very hard to cover up: the 28 mysterious individuals who have been informing its climate change reporting policy. As a state-funded broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to provide balance. It rejected this on its environmental coverage after taking advice from people in a now-infamous 2006 seminar from people whose identity the BBC was keen to keep secret. I wrote on Sunday how it had refused FoI requests to reveal those names. But Maurizio Morabito has revealed a list which the BBC cannot describe as a bunch of dispassionate scientists: it’s a veritable who’s who

Monday

James Forsyth

Abu Qatada evades deportation, again

On any normal day, the fact that Abu Qatada has won his appeal against deportation would be a major news story. But today it has been pushed down the running order by the slew of BBC stories. The court’s reason for granting his appeal is that Qatada, in its judgement, would not receive a fair trial in Jordan. The government, which negotiated extensively with Amman to try and satisfy the courts on this point, will appeal. I suspect that Theresa May’s statement to the Commons on the matter later this afternoon will be defiant. It does seem absurd that someone who is not a British citizen, came here illegally and

David Blackburn

The BBC saga distracts from Abu Qatada deportation and bail decision

The decision to award George Entwistle a £1.3 million payoff appears, as my colleague Rod Liddle notes, to have misjudged the public mood (and indeed the mood of the majority of hard working and underpaid BBC staff). It is the sort of development about which the government feels it ought to comment, to provide a source of moral leadership. There is an added complication because the government must do so without infringing the BBC’s independence. There is even more danger in this case because the Chairman of the BBC has launched a very spirited assault on the corporation’s detractors in the Murdoch press and elsewhere; this is a possible culture war in the making. Naturally, the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

George Entwistle’s parting gift

Have to say, I wish I’d got a year’s salary plus pension when I made an, er, dignified resignation from the BBC. The outgoing DG, George Entwistle, will receive an entire year’s salary plus various other stipends, amounting to more than a million quid. He’s had a horrible time of it recently, for sure – but this is another example of the BBC, and in particular Fatty Pang Patten, neither understanding what happens in commercial organisations nor indeed understanding the mood of the public. Nor, still further, understanding the BBC’s vast majority of employees. They are for the most part underpaid and have no secure tenure, working on short term