Why the BBC needs pushing off the taxpayers teat

Today, MP’s vote on whether it should cease to be a criminal offence to buy and watch a TV without paying a hefty fee for the production their propaganda, whether or not you choose to watch it. Nearly 10% of all court cases in the UK are for non-payment of this extortionate impost. Which of course is another burden on the taxpayer, who has to cover the cost of this TV tax enforcement. Most non-payers are people who don’t have enough money to cover all their costs and are claiming benefits. They need legal aid to fight their case. Triple whammy for everyone else.

If the BBC was a high quality broadcaster, we might be prepared to continue putting up with all this expense. But a string of scandals has so damaged its reputation and output that it has blown its credibility. The public has had enough of its antics, sins, omission, and bias. I won’t rehearse the list here, everybody knows. However there is one issue which has been successfully hidden by the BBC which deserves another mention. 28gate.

Jo Nova has an excellent post up covering David Rose’s exposé of the shameful 28gate saga. Here’s an excerpt:

First they take your money to force their opinions over you.

Then they take your money to hide what they were doing, because they knew what they were doing was wrong.

It was a turning point in BBC coverage. The 2006 seminar with “climate experts” turned out to be mostly a workshop with Greenpeace, industry activists and lobbyists. It was the point the BBC dropped even the pretense of impartial news reporting on the climate. After this “high-level” seminar the Beeb announced it didn’t need balance in the climate debate. Then having made out they were so scientific and honorable, they spent the next six years burning more money to hide the names of the experts from the public that paid for them.

Is there any better argument to explain why state funded media is not just a waste of money, but irresponsible, immoral and unethical political advertising?

There is no saving the BBC. Over the last decade climate change was supposedly the “biggest scientific” challenge for the world, and a massive cost to the citizens who were falsely told they needed to change the weather. More than ever, public funds should have been used to analyze both sides of the science and the politics. Instead what we got were the personal views of a select few, pushing their own political activism, while poor people were slugged for the cost of the news, the legal folly,  and worse of all, for the pointless expensive electricity.

David Rose, Mail on Sunday

The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds over six years trying to keep secret an extraordinary ‘eco’ conference which has shaped its coverage of global warming,  The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Helen Boaden. Phot: Chris Eades – Daily Mail

The controversial seminar was run by a body set up by the BBC’s own environment analyst Roger Harrabin and funded via a £67,000 grant from the then Labour government, which hoped to see its ‘line’ on climate change and other Third World issues promoted in BBC reporting.

Tony Newbery, 69, from North Wales, asked for further disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The BBC’s resistance to revealing anything about its funding and the names of those present led to a protracted struggle in the Information Tribunal. The BBC has admitted it has spent more than £20,000 on barristers’ fees. However, the full cost of their legal battle is understood to be much higher.

In a written statement opposing disclosure in 2012, former BBC news chief and current director of BBC radio Helen Boaden, who attended the event, admitted:

In my view, the seminar had an impact on a broad range of BBC output

Be sure to read the whole article.

Here’s my message to the BBC. Stop using our money to propagandise us. Stop gagging the people who pay for your existence. Stop giving fat payoffs to corrupt  employees. Stop trying to make out you are impartial. Stop doing £100m projects you are too incompetent to manage.

Start treating your consumers with respect. Start taking their complaints seriously and responding to them properly. Start unwinding the damage you have done to science and debate. Start thinking how you are going to raise the cash to stand on your own two feet. Because the writing is on the wall.