Please feel free to make what you want of this (and I'm reserving judgement for the time being), but.....
.....according to the Telegraph, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale warned the BBC within weeks of being appointed not to be pro-EU membership in the forthcoming referendum:
In a letter dated June 15, Mr Whittingdale wrote to Rona Fairhead, chairman of the BBC Trust, seeking assurances over “impartiality” in the BBC’s coverage of the upcoming EU referendum.
It is understood the Culture Secretary said the vote would be very “high profile” and that “timely” processes for dealing with breaches of impartiality must be in place
A similar letter was sent to Sharon White, the chief executive of Ofcom. Both replied promptly to say impartiality was paramount. None of the letters have yet been made public.
"None of the letters have yet been made public"....
...which, if so, wouldn't be much of a surprise! Transparent, the BBC certainly isn't.
...which, if so, wouldn't be much of a surprise! Transparent, the BBC certainly isn't.
This doesn't mean what you think it means. Okay, it does mean one of the things you're thinking: that the Beeboids are pro-EU and have to be told to dial it back. But it doesn't mean Cameron wants a fair referendum, or that he doesn't want the BBC to influence the public. They just have to be more subtle about it.
ReplyDeleteThe eager young Cameroons who write for the Spectator gave it away a while back: Cameron wants everyone on his side (IN) to put on a fairness front. The number one priority for him is to make sure the public doesn't see the referendum as being rigged or the public obviously manipulated to an IN vote by No.10 or the media. Because it will be.
Whittingdale may be a euroskeptic, but this isn't a maverick letter. It has to have been approved by Cameron, who is on the same side as the BBC. Whittingdale may be....um....unwittingly playing into Cameron's hand.
This is part of that marketing plan. This is now two issues on which one can be reasonably suspicious of some kind of quiet collusion between Cameron and the BBC. He can claim to be super tough on the BBC (the Telegraph article was filled with Tory frowning on the BBC, laid it on pretty thick), and the BBC can keep up the victim status, attacked at every turn, the poor lambs, the nasty Tories want to destroy the National Treasure, while at the same time getting to preen over how they're fighting for the editorial independence, etc.
This appears to be fraud on a grand scale. Both Cameron and the BBC want an IN result. Both Cameron and the BBC want to push the "Nowt To Do With Islam" agenda at all costs. Both Cameron and the BBC want the BBC to stay as alive and strong for as long as possible. We already know that the supposedly cruelly draconian new deal won't be anywhere near as bad for the BBC as advertized, and in fact might improve their finances in the long term. It's all been good PR for both of them, hasn't it? Has either side been publicly damaged by these "rows"?
As Rod Liddle says in his latest piece for the Spectator, the BBC is pro-Establishment, and it doesn't get more Establishment than this. I know this is getting to be tin-foil hat stuff, but the evidence is hard to ignore.