Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

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> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people)

The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media.

For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being too left wing and too right wing by various loudmouths.

> Even if you pay the licence fee they are still overly limited in what they can let you watch - in doing so the regulators have probably killed off the BBC's long term prospects amongst the younger generation (no one my age watches TV by default anymore)

That's because the content is absolutely appalling. I speak as a BBC fan and proponent historically. Both TV and Radio output quality has been absolutely eviscerated in the last 10 or so years, for various reasons and by certain kinds of persons.

I challenge anyone to go to this link for tomorrow: https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6p/2020/09/26 and tell me how the premier/flagship BBC channel content on a Friday there remotely represents balanced quality output?

In prime time there are 3 reality/talent shows and Casualty, a terrible budget soap opera that's been endured for the last 35 years (with multiple spin offs) as well as a close to zero budget quiz show. That's the "good" content, the rest is even more miserable. How does that even remotely represent value for the $4billion a year they take by statutory arrangement?

That's only BBC One. BBC Two, BBC Four, and BBC News also exist. Of course, if one only looks at one channel things seem lopsided. Providing different services on different channels was partly the point.

> Providing different services on different channels was partly the point.

No, BBC one's remit is not to just show fluffy nonsense

It's remit is in fact:

> BBC One’s remit is to be the BBC’s most popular mixed-genre television service across the UK, offering a wide range of high quality programmes. It should be the BBC’s primary outlet for major UK and international events and it should reflect the whole of the UK in its output. A very high proportion of its programmes should be original productions.

No. The BBC One service description is actually:

> a mixed-genre channel, with versions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and variations for English regions and the Channel Islands, providing a very broad range of programmes to a mainstream audience;

As I said, the different channels are different services, which is partly the point. BBC Four's service description is, for example:

> a channel providing an intellectually and culturally enriching alternative to mainstream programming on other BBC channels;

My item was a direct quote from the BBC trust's description of the channel remit. Indeed it was the remit in full

Well I've gone one better than you by quoting the formal public service description that is part of the formal list of "UK Public Services" under the Agreement between the BBC and the U.K. Government. There are eight television services, not just BBC One as you had it, and they are different services on different channels.

So you deny the remit of BBC one is as stated and the BBC doesn't operate under that principle?

Is there a difference between being "most popular, wide range, mixed-genre" and being "mainstream audience, broad range, mixed-genre" ?

> offering a wide range of high quality programmes

How often do you watch a show on BBC One?

> Both TV and Radio output quality has been absolutely eviscerated in the last 10 or so years

Who was in power all that time?

Are you suggesting the editorial direction has been set by the government? Please provide evidence if so

The BBC is overseen by a government minister

The BBC is fully independent and there are multiple levels of oversight to ensure that. I'm sure you can furiously Google a more apt response than that. Evidence please

Massively arms length.

The head of the Radio division is literally an ex Labour minister, in Blair/Brown government.

The BBC, to me, over the last 2-3 years has demonstrated massive pro-Conservative party bias. The mechanism for that is not apparent, but look at Kuenssberg and you see someone who has regularly been followed by accusations of strong bias with ultimately, it seems, nothing being done about it. To my view she (or the team she's in?) directly interfered in the last election; she didn't seem to be hindered in any way. Someone caught divisively lying on several occasions (each damaging Corbyn/Labour) yet remaining in post says to me their is political control over the BBC. She did grill Johnson after the election when it no longer mattered though.

Ironically Radio 4 (taken as a whole) seems to provide a reasonably level playing field; but their listeners are a small fraction of BBC1's viewers.

I think the parties involved are smart enough not to leave evidence lying around in public. The "postal vote" debacle was either a direct attack on democracy, out in the open, or a complete failure of the entire editorial team that should have seen them immediately sacked.

Interestingly the Cabinet Secretary, head of the civil Service - which headlines itself as having open public recruitment - was chosen by Johnson on entry to Downing Street.

My personal opinion is this is a drip-drip-drip erosion of balance to allow the current government fascististic levels of control.

Most recently reports are that some satirical comedy shows are being stopped as the government see them as too critical of Tories and not critical enough of others (they must have forgotten who is in power). How is it possible the BBC aren't being interfered with in removing some of their most popular domestic broadcasting when the only extent reasoning is 'to reduce on-air criticism of the current government'.

I'm sure you'll wave your hand and say this is all anecdote. In general Trump's playbook has been copied by Johnson, control of media/reporting is a part of that.

Are you saying that Labour controls print media and the BBC in the UK?

> Are you saying that Labour controls print media and the BBC in the UK?

No, how did you arrive at that invalid summation?

Possibly because:

"The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills"

is difficult to understand.

How so? It seems unambiguously straightforward to me on reflection.

For one thing, as other people are trying to explain, opposition parties are not "unelected".

It's also unclear, to me at least, what you mean by "proposed" and by "shills" and who these people are, specifically, who you claim control the BBC and print media, since despite specifically referring to "Labour" you said you don't mean it's Labour.

> opposition parties are not "unelected".

unelected to government.

> , who you claim control the BBC and print media, since despite specifically referring to "Labour" you said you don't mean it's Labour.

I didn't use a present tense. Corbyn et al had a proposal to take control of editorial departments of major newspapers and tv media to set the agenda.

Your difficulty in reading comprehension is hardly relevant to the point

In the UK we don't elect any members of our government, so that seems a redundant statement.

Government in UK political and legal terminology ostensibly refers to the formation called the cabinet and the prime minister. If you do not win a general election you cannot form a government. Therefore you lose the GE you are not elected to government

> If you do not win a general election you cannot form a government.

On the contrary. All you need to form a government is some way to get a majority for Confidence, and all you'd need to make that a working government is Confidence and Supply. That's all Theresa May had, she did not win the election but she had DUP promises to vote for her on the question of confidence and where necessary for supply, and that was enough to limp on for quite some time.

The last election the second party lost by a landslide, they have no opportunity to form a government.

Of the last 4 Prime Minsters (Johnson, May, Cameron, Brown) of the UK, none of them became prime minister by heading a party who won a majority of seats at an election -- the last person to do that was Tony Blair in 1997. Before then it was Margaret Thatcher in 1979. It's an exception, rather than the rule.

Cameron did win a plurarity of seats in 2010, but his 36% of the vote wasn't enough on it's own.

It's exceedingly likely the next Prime Minister will equally be appointed without a public vote.

However, conventionally the Prime Minister will be chosen from the ranks of elected Members of the Commons, and all the Great Officers (the senior cabinet posts like Foreign Secretary or Chancellor) will likewise be MPs. So every Prime Minister in living memory was the elected MP for their constituents.

Since it's only a convention the Commons certainly could just decide not to do this, and of course there isn't anybody to stop them - but that would be extraordinary. It hasn't happened at all in the modern era.

I guess the most plausible way it could arise now is if there isn't any majority in the Commons after an election, a conventional senior-junior coalition partnership in which the larger party gets PM but the smaller party gets some other roles is impossible for some reason, and the "obvious" compromise centrist politician has meanwhile been elevated to the Lords.

Nothing in the existing rules actually forbids a Lord being PM, it would just be incredibly inconvenient (the Commons hold the PM to account not the Lords so...) and look undemocratic, so I guess in that case they might decide the way forward is we put this chap in place as caretaker, his executive gets us out of whatever immediate hole we're in, and then hold fresh elections. If there is a decent majority in the Commons for that idea, it's enough to make it happen.

> I didn't use a present tense. Corbyn et al had a proposal to take control

You didn't say Labour proposed to "take control", you said Labour proposed "shills" "took control". Took.

Why you're continually trying to pretend other people can't read what you wrote, when it's there[0] for anyone to see, is baffling.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24587997

Maybe it is supposed to be the more grammatical:

> The Labour opposition had proposed that activist shills take control of the editorial policy of ...

It's your turn to ask for "evidence please", I believe. (-:

> The unelected Labour opposition

???

*failed to win the election, unelected to government

They were elected... to be the opposition. They’re the elected opposition. If they were unelected they couldn’t be the opposition.

They were not elected to government,i.e. the cabinet and office of prime minister

Right... they were elected to be... the opposition. Isn't that what we were saying?

You sound like you aren't aware that Leader of the Opposition is actually an official paid position, listed in the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937. You can only get this official position by being a member of parliament (voted in all practical modern cases and in this case), and representing the minority party.

So they're in an elected official position, sworn to the Crown, with actual responsibilities and pay, set out in concrete legislation - and that's actually pretty rare in the British constitution!

And yet, they aren't the government and in no position to implement policy.

Do you have a point of any substance to make?

To give the full quote:

> The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media.

Really trying hard to parse

(The unelected Labour opposition)

OK, very wrong, but I think that's attempting to describe the elected labour mps in parliament

"activist shills"

I assume this means people who don't read the daily express

So I think I can parse this as

Some Labour MPs, at some point, proposed a group of people should take control of the editorial policy of the BBC and newspapers.

I'm not sure what story he's talking about though.

> Some Labour MPs, at some point, proposed a group of people should take control of the editorial policy of the BBC and newspapers.

This does indeed seem to be what this person is saying. Thanks for putting in the effort to parse, though I do have to apologise for the fact that it hardly seems to have been worth it!

So you deny it to be so?

Do you have any evidence for your claims?

Meanwhile in the real world, Charles Moor, former editor of the Telegraph, is mooted to become the chairman of the BBC and Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, is to be head of ofcom, the media regulator.

Not exactly paragons of impartiality are they?

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