Actually, it is even worse than that.
– An unnamed BBC news journalist with whom I unexpectedly found myself drinking on Saturday, when asked if the BBC really is the Stalinist bureaucracy it is reputed to be.
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OK, I’ll bite. On behalf of all of us, How can it be worse that Stalinist?
Maoist? Brownite?
The try to be stalinist, but they are no good at it?
They try to be stalinist, but are no good at it?
At a meeting several weeks ago I heard almost exactly the same quote from a senior BBC programming director. His main gripe was not just the faceless bureaucracy soaking up public funds but that the recent BBC ‘makeover’ appeared to just be another Potemkin village. Almost 3 years ago it was estimated that more than 3,700 support staff could be culled from Auntie’s ranks with no loss of quality in programming. Now, not even taking into account the potential of redundancy of many positions due to emergent technologies, that figure is apparently closer to over 7,000.
Perhaps the most damning remark was that the BBC was described as ‘not quite a curate’s egg’, i.e. while the curate’s egg might have been good in parts there is little to see now that is good about the media giant that to all observers (even their own) appears to be completely out of touch and completely out of any semblence of control.
Well, maybe we need the BBC to fall apart from the inside? It is obvious to all that it is creaking ever further leftwards, could this be the beginning of the end?
What’s worse?
That old saw:
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
comes to mind.
Next: consider the composition of the inmates, and how they came to be there, and how they came to take over.
I think the sentiment meant was “It is even worse than widely believed” rather than “It is worse than Stalin”, in truth, but I couldn’t resist posting it none the less. I then heard more of a story of vast numbers of consultants and bureaucrats who do not understand what is going on and trying to cut costs by sacking people almost at random. My sympathy for the BBC as an institution is not high, but from the description it did not sound like a fun place to work.
Well, Paulist would be worse than Stalinist, because he wants us to mind our own business. It’s a madness, I say, madness! That’s why I support John “The Pro-Any-War, anti free-speach, Environmentalist Compassionate More-or-Less-Conservative” McCain!
Don’t forget “Use-taxpayer-money-to-re-elect-incumbents-while-silencing-opposition” McCain.
The BBC is one among hundreds of channels on my cable station. I saw it (5 mins)about three years ago and never again! It really is so trite and authoritarian. Regrettably a cent or two from my cable sub goes to those monkeys.
So far my cable station won’t give me Fox Bussiness, a much better news source. Go figure?
People who snear at John McCain are helping make the United States a vast B.B.C.
The Marxist assumptions and doctrines (often without using the word “Marxist”) that the B.B.C. people were taught in school and university are exactly what Senator Obama and the class-of-1968 Democrat leadership in Congress have also been taught.
As for the war – the alternative to winning the war is not “peace” it is defeat.
If you want lower taxes for companies and individuals (indeed an optional flat tax), an end to “earmarks”, a roll back of farm subsidies (such as on eth) and entitlement program reform – then vote for John McCain.
But if you prefer to wait for a 100% pure candidate whilst the United States (and the West in general) has yet more decline – well then go f*** yourselves.