Radio 4's Midweek presenter Libby Purves has a piece in The Times called I can’t be proud of a barbed-wired Europe. Below the headline lies this summary of the piece:
Bickering about migrant quotas as women and children die in lay-bys or freeze in forests is not living up to EU ideals"Europe should man its borders with kindness as well as wire", says Libby, living up to BBC ideals.
It's always been a mystery how the talentless Purves has survived decade after decade leading a flagship radio programme. Part of the answer of course is that she never deviates from the BBC consensus. Can you imagine how long she would have remained the Midweek presenter if she had written a piece entitled "Mass immigration is destablising our society and will ultimately destroy it." ? She would either be replaced or the rusty old format would have been dropped.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a total mystery to me, too, but that's largely because I never listen to her: as soon I hear any variation of the words, "... and now, with Libby Purves", my arm automatically whips out and hits the off switch.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, a chum of mine who many years ago was an R4 researcher, tells me that the erstwhile trio of progs, Start the Week, Midweek, and the much-missed Stop the Week (with the late Robert Robinson) was known in-house as Pluggers, Nutters and Wankers.