I would stress that I do not share the sentiments of the headline. It comes from an online forum dedicated to exposing the BBC’s “left-wing bias”. Because of my own left-wing bias, I won’t be naming it or providing a link. Their other suggestions for what BBC stands for include “Big Brother Coverage” and “Blatantly Biased Corruption”.
The moderator, Teddy Bear, and his rabid chums cite examples of how the BBC is mounting a virtual Communist attack on Good Old Blighty, financed by the unwitting licence-payer. It won’t surprise you to learn that the most quoted sources of “evidence” are The Sun, Mail On Sunday and Daily Telegraph‘.
These part-time Beeb-bashers – as opposed to full-time Beeb-bashers like Rupert Murdoch and the owners of the Mail group of “newspapers” – see the BBC as an ultra radical organisation that’s on the side of the extreme left, Islamic militants, the European Union, and on a crusade to replace experienced broadcasters with unkempt yoof.
Examples include how back in the 1980s, Dr Who was nothing more than a thinly disguised attack on the Thatcher government (proof: “a spin-off Doctor Who children’s novel called Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma, which was published under licence by the BBC in 1987, featured a despotic villain called Rehctaht – Thatcher spelt backwards”); that the Archers is a hotbed of radicalism (“During the first Countryside March, the Archers managed not to mention it at all, but mentioned the Gay Pride March instead”); that only pro-EU propaganda makes BBC news; and getting rid of jazz programmes on Radio 2 in favour of “soft rock”: “Only a few days since a Newsnight editor attacks the BBC for their ageist and youth obsessed policies – a Radio 2 presenter has quit and done the same.”
Most sinister of all is their belief that the BBC is pro-Islamic and anti-Christian. A whole thread on this theme is illustrated by a BBC logo in which the “C” becomes an Islamic crescent. Here are a couple of examples:
“How is it The Telegraph with resources far less than the BBC is able to cover this story from Bangladesh (“Rape victim receives 101 lashes for becoming pregnant”), yet no mention of it on the BBC site? Can it be that the BBC prefers to hide stories that show the real depraved mentality of these extremist Sharia law Muslim states? Of course it is! Same as it has done with the numerous other similar type stories mentioned on this forum, and the many many more covered by Jihad Watch or Religion of Peace.
“Is there really any doubt about the insidious immoral nature of the BBC?”
and…
“Why is it that whenever a Palestinian is supposedly shot or killed by Israeli troops, and certainly when by an Israeli civilian, it receives instant headline status on the BBC website, but when, as in this case, a Christian is murdered in Pakistan by Muslims for refusing to convert, there’s not even a mention of it?
“This is not a rhetorical question – How do YOU explain it?
“If you really want a glimpse of how many atrocities are committed globally by extremist or fundamental Islamics without any mention on the BBC website, check out this site. See if after you have any doubt about the bias of the BBC in this domain.”
You’d think that Teddy Bear and his crew could be dismissed as part of a lunatic fringe, but it seems that a significant number of Brits feel the same way. Newspapers bash on about it endlessly and there are dozens of similar websites. A quick Google search for “BBC bias” came up with 1,500,000 hits.
Through reading their comments, you can build up a profile of who these people are. Almost without exception they are white, middle-class, middle-aged – or older – Tory Christians. (A significant number appear to like Trad Jazz and warm light ale, and fancy Joan Bakewell). What their house newspaper (The Daily Mail) likes to call The Silent Majority.
Although members of the Silent Majority tend to do very-nicely-thank you, they and their mouth-pieces like to paint themselves as victims. Victims of the loony left local councils who won’t let them call rubbish sacks “black bags” any more, and who have seemingly turned “man-hole covers” into “person-hole covers”. These are people who actually say “It’s political correctness gone mad!” with no sense of irony.
They see themselves as victims of a mass immigration that’s threatening to overwhelm their tiny homeland and change our way of life forever. Of “bogus asylum-seekers” (sic) who are either taking our British jobs or else scrounging off the dole… depending on what the angle is.
Most of all, they are victims of a left-wing BBC who continually pumps Socialist propaganda into all our homes. “And what I object to most of all,” foams one correspondent, “is that I’m paying for it through stealth lefty tax”. Or what sane people call the BBC Licence Fee.
I can’t help but be amazed that these people really do think that those in charge of the BBC (the “commissars”, as they are often termed!), really do have a secret agenda. That they meet in their marbled halls to scheme new ways to corrupt our naturally-Thatcherite white-skinned nation with their honey-coloured, left-wing filth.
Of course, the reality is that the BBC is run by predominantly middle-class, middle-aged white people. The staff and freelance payrolls are made up of thousands of individuals: Labour-voters, Lib-Dems, Greens, SWP, UKIPs – maybe even a few Tories. I’ll bet that a few of them don’t possess strong political views at all.
The BBC Licence Fee is a bargain. For £139 a year (a smidgeon over £2.67 a week), I get access to six television channels and a mass of radio stations. When compared to what Sky satellite TV costs or the daily cost of “The Mail”, it’s a double-bargain. Don’t tell anybody, but I’d gladly pay £2.67 a week just for BBC Radio 4, BBC 4 TV and BBC 6 Music alone.
I don’t listen to Radio One very often, if at all. The same goes for BBC3, Eastenders, National Lottery Live, Strictly Come Dancing, Women’s Hour, Moneybox Live, The Eurovision Song Contest, BBC Radio London, The Organist Entertains, BBC 5 Live, and a whole load more. But do I think they should be banned and taken off the air? Do I heckers like.
The Silent Majority, on the other hand, only considers the negative. To them, it’s all about what they don’t like. How terrible that their licence fee goes to fund the lifestyle of some lefty comedian or long-haired radio DJ. The SMs insist that everything should be how they want it. Anything that’s not to their taste must be eradicated. The scary thing is, politicians of all persuasions now feel that they have to cosy up to them. Even the BBC concedes more and more to their demands.
The Jonathan Ross/ Russell Brand “debacle” is a case in point. People who listened to the programme as it went out didn’t think to object to what they heard, but once the Mail On Sunday had highlighted the issue, a week later, hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn’t know Russell Brand from Russell Grant, suddenly decided that he and Jonathan Ross should lose their jobs. Now they’ve both gone, and the BBC is poorer as a result.
Anyone with half a brain can see that the BBC isn’t overtly left-wing or pro-Islamic Fundamentalist. I don’t remember a BBC announcer ever suggesting we assassinate a Tory MP, or Eastenders hatching a storyline involved with bringing down the financial establishment. Very few sitcoms centre around the desire for Sharia Law and you’ll hear more about “saving our bangers” and how crazy the EU is than how we must join the Euro-Zone.
Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, often cited by ‘The Silent Majority’ as a hotbed of socialism, spends a good quarter of its air-time on Business News. This involves financial moguls and City barrow-boys celebrating capitalism and denouncing the likes of the Minimum Wage, paid maternity leave and the prospect of tax rises. My leftwing perspective is that the rest of the programme seems to consist of interviewers sneering at the naivety of Labour politicians and not interrupting Tory toffs half as much as they deserve.
But that’s just my view. I don’t advocate sacking John Humphrys or Evan Davies or dismantling the BBC. I might shoot off an email giving my views, but my ultimate sanction is the “off” button. I’ll just stop listening.
I wish the Silent Majority would shut the fcuk up.