Ideologically-driven Conservatives have seized the economic crisis to knock back the BBC – and it only took 48 hours, writes Left Foot Forward's Joy Johnson.
So the Tory-led coalition government has gone on its rampage and at the last minute demonstrated the shambolic nature of the cuts, or more correctly I should imagine, Tory ideological calculation, the BBC was ambushed. Commercial opponents have long wanted to diminish the BBC and in the pages of the Daily Mail and News International its programming and its people come in for a battering. Even in the last few weeks there were complaints about the number of BBC people in Chile covering one of the truly great global stories.
The warning signs came with James Murdoch’s speech in Edinburgh which took the attacks to a different level. Pursuing News Corporation’s business interests, which sees profit in everything, he railed against the BBC’s brilliant web service and declared that the BBC was embarking on a land grab. This was all too much for the Murdochs; for them, the only empire that should grow is News Corporation.
James Murdoch argued:
“The BBC is dominant… Other organisations might rise and fall but the BBC’s income is guaranteed and growing.”
And so you had it. Clear warning signs that took the BBC hierarchy a whole year to counter-attack with Mark Thompson’s speech in the same venue last August. Thompson didn’t go all out with guns blazing but he did make an important, and with today’s news, prescient point:
“A pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of [the] UK creative economy. Once gone, it will be gone forever.”
It was a defiance that lasted all of a three months. Faced with government battalions, he waved the white flag. The Corporation will now have to pay for the BBC World Service previously paid for by the Foreign office. And the licence fee is frozen for six years. Osborne also gave Rupert and James what they wanted – a commitment from the BBC to spend less on its website.
And calls for the BBC to go down the subscriptions route have already begun. It must be avoided at all costs. The consequence of the ambush has meant that public service is no longer regarded as a public good. The BBC fat cats with their bloated salaries lived high on the hog and it has weakened them; ideologically-driven Conservatives have seized the economic crisis to knock back the BBC – and it only took 48 hours.
49 Responses to “Payback? Osborne’s raid on BBC gives Murdochs exactly what they wanted”
Henry
I do love to hear Tories drivel on about ‘metropolitan elites’. What on earth do they think Osborne, Cameron etc are?
Jack Stone
RT @leftfootfwd: Payback? Osborne's raid on BBC gives Murdochs exactly what they wanted http://bit.ly/9csrah
yorkierosie
RT @leftfootfwd: Payback? Osborne's raid on BBC gives Murdochs exactly what they wanted http://bit.ly/9csrah
goktay koraltan
RT @leftfootfwd: Payback? Osborne's raid on BBC gives Murdochs exactly what they wanted: http://bit.ly/bFcM3K
Ryan
Henry, you raise a valid point I’ve been meaning to rant about for some time.
The Conservatives are quick to condemn those who mock David Cameron on the grounds of his wealth and privileged upbringing. On this issue, I agree entirely with them! Reverse snobbery is a nasty, petty and insecure that only distracts from the important issues of ideology and policy.
And yet these very same Conservatives are the ones quickest to make frequent reference to “the liberal metropolitan elite”. Well, which is it then, lads? You either endorse class war or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways.
Just as you defend the rich as wealth creators, so you must acknowledge the “liberal metropolitan elites” as educated academics. You may disagree with them – it may surprise you to learn that far from being a lefty myself, I actually truly despise the Labour Party and am quite classically liberal… hence my infrequent posting here! – but said disagreement does not give you the right to mock your peers in the same way you decry those who imply something from David Cameron’s background.
TL;DR: stop being hypocrites, mates.