Morning:
10°c
THE hash Newsnight made of covering the effects of the recession in suburbia shows more tellingly than the Ross affair the depth of the trouble the BBC is in.
Instead of understanding that the middle classes also experience anger and despair when the redundancy slip comes, Alex Ritson arrived in Surbiton and gurgled: "It's real! I thought for years that Surbiton had been made up by some BBC executive for a Seventies sitcom like The Good Life or Reggie Perrin, but it's real!"
In 1989, New York jurors sent down the notorious hotel magnate Leona Helmsley for saying: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
Ritson's mock-shocked condescension is from the same stable. Who would believe it? Little people living in boring semis in joke towns. Look at them worrying about redundancy while always knowing that they must pay my salary, even if their jobs and homes go.
Yes, all right, you don't have to remind me that the BBC does much fine work. Hard-won experience has also taught me that all journalists make mistakes, which was why I couldn't get excited about Ross and Brand.
As Ritson brought up the subject of BBC executives, however, remember that 50 are pocketing more than the Prime Minister's £189,000 a year. "It is in the nature of the BBC that it takes risks," Mark Thompson, the director general, told MPs yesterday. But there is little risk in being a public sector bureaucrat and no market justification for their exorbitant salaries. They are taking the money because they know that everyone must pay the licence fee even if they never watch their programmes.
Or nearly everyone. An odd group of semi-celebrities including Noel Edmonds and Charles Moore is refusing to pay on principle. The BBC won't prosecute them because it doesn't want to have high-profile "martyrs" in prison cells. However, it will continue to prosecute little people in boring places such as - oh, I don't know - Surbiton.
It's another double standard, and the politicians are starting to notice. Labour ministers were once on the BBC's side. I now see an ominous glint in their eyes when they talk about its over-mighty executives and stars. As for the Tories, David Cameron recalled "sitting next to a BBC presenter at a function and being told it was just about all right to have Conservative politicians on the radio, but 'there weren't really any you would want to see socially'."
Having had similar private confirmations of BBC bias I can say with assurance that a sliver of ice enters the heart when you realise some at the corporation can never be even-handed.
My guess is that the Tories in power will slash funding, and Labour will do the same if it wins. It's the smart political move, after all. There are more votes in suburbia than the Groucho Club.
Hare's end-of-the-peer show
After a cataclysm, nothing feels as remote as the day before it came. On 12 September 2001 New Yorkers could barely remember their worries of the 10th. So it is for us with the Britain before the crash.
Sir David Hare's Gethsemane at the National is set during the cash for peerages scandals of the Blair years, and I had to shake myself and wonder if that was all I thought readers had to worry about. Still, see it if you can. When recovery comes Britain will remain Europe's only “democracy” where rich men can buy a place in its Parliament.
Not that the offer of seats in the Lords is made as crudely as that. As the political fixer explains: “I'm not going to spell it out. But obviously, all right, if you go to the barber's often enough, then eventually someone's going to cut your hair.”
Our East End's austerity Olympics
Even Olympic sceptics had to admit that no area of Britain needed regeneration as badly as Stratford. I nosed about the site in the spring, and the East End was alive with busy workers and optimistic residents. Not now. The banks can't lend money because of the liquidity squeeze.
Without money the Games have to be cut back because the taxpayer is already busy propping up the bust banks and has no change to spare. So the Olympic Village has shrunk, as has the Aquatic Centre. Most mournful as you drive past are the homes developers were throwing up in the hope of beating the 2012 deadline. Work on them has stopped because no one wants to buy them.
Austerity is what the East End is always trying and failing to struggle against. It is its bad luck that recession has turned the golden Games into an austerity Olympics.
Reader views (7)
Mr Ritson does not understand an important distinction.He and the BBC colleagues may well be "paid"less than the PM....they do not "earn" the salaries which they are paid being vastly ovrrewarded for very little talent.
- P.Doff, surbiton uk
I don't worry so much about BBC bias. I don't real;ly want ANY BBC exectives at any dinner party. Ever.
Why?
Becuase its is an organisation that thrwos money away. See their covearge of the US elections, and the Olympics.
The biggest press delegations form all countries? the BBC
From Channel 5, BBC1, 2 etc amd lots of the,
A normal organisation could cut 50% of their staff and they would still be overmanned - or is it overwommaned?
Look at news presenters. Channel 5 succeed with one as do Channel 4.
The BBC need a minimum of two plus another one to cover sport.
AN dthen the BBC spend money on : BBC BBC which no-one watches.
Time to reduce the licence fee by 25% now and another 5% a year for 4 years until they become efficient.
As for chooisng who goes first? I'm not biased. Those with most complaint of bais against them.
that should solve the issue...
- Madasafish, Stoke,
Nick Cohen is just another hack toeing his boss's anti BBC line. Nick himself should see out the recession fairly comfortably, with two newspaper columns and ever ready to air his neocons views on any Radio or TV stations prepared to accept him, including the BBC. Kettle and pot comes to mind.
- James Hennessy, london england
It's been obvious for decades that overall the BBC is biased towards the left and against the right of centre, a scandal given that it is a publicly-funded body with a remit that includes impartiality. Why has no government of left or right had the guts to enforce proper standards of journalism on this bloated and complacent organisation? Individual complaints made by members of the public such as myself about bias in the coverage of particular issues are brushed aside with airy statements that overall coverage of such topics balances out over several programmes, without any evidence that this the case, and considerable evidence that it is not.
- Richard, London, London. UK
Nick,
I think you've got the wrong idea about the idea I was trying to get across in this report.
I have long lived in the suburbs - in fact, I actually live in Surbiton.
This recession isn't just hitting well paid people in the city - it's already hitting my friends and neighbours. They're not particularly wealthy - they are decent people who work hard and do their best.
Also, I think your suggestion that I should have included a rant about the salaries of BBC executives is a bit cheap. For the record, I earn a great deal less than the Prime Minister - as do the vast majority of my colleagues in BBC News.
Kind regards,
Alex Ritson.
- Alex Ritson, Surbiton
Speaking as someone who grew up in Surbiton, there were times I doubted it existed myself.
- Roy, England
Personally I couldn't care if Messrs. Ross, Brand and the dreadful Clarkson swore and ran around naked on the BBC. What I object to is funding their pointless careers.
I would like my £150 tax back so that I can pay my fuel bills.
Could someone also let me know why the BBC are helping fund Americian made movies with UK tax payers money.
- Taxfreetv, london, UK
