The BBC and Channel 4 areĀ being outpaced and outgrown by Netflix and Amazon, Disney and Apple as peopleĀ seek their entertainment from downloads rather than tuning into the same scheduled programme as theirĀ neighbours. As a result the budgets of these large corporations to commission films and seek new content are much larger than the UK state institutions. The traditional media are finding it difficult to hold their audiences.
Channel 4 should be sold to new owners. It needs to seek new capital to expand and needs new direction to compete successfully in this multi media world, with audiences beyond one country. I favour giving employees in C4 some shares in the organisation on sale so they have a stake in the business going forward and a greaterĀ sense of alignment of their interests with those of the new dominant shareholders or owners.
The BBC has a well known brand in many parts of the world and has some global reach in both tv and radio. It is being held back by dependence on Licence fee funding. More and more people are dropping their licences by not having tvs at all and not using BBC services, whilst the cost of competing for talent and new material is rising on a global stage. The BBC does need to look for additional revenues from selling its services outside the UK on a global scale. It does not help itself by its systematic global establishment bias and wokish preoccupations. The U.K. competition authorities need to watch to see if BBC subsidised services are preventing competitors emerging or flourishing.
August 3, 2022
Good morning.
The BBC already sells its wears globally and I see not reason why C4 cannot do the same. By the way, is SC4 (Welsh Channel 4) still going ? If it is, then why not sell that off as well ? Or is it only when the English taxpayer has to subsidise others TV ?
People are voting with their purses. Good ! When the BBC had a monopoly over income (you have to pay the Telly Tax whether or not you watched their content on broadcast TV) there was no incentive to change anything. Now people, like myself, can watch what I want when I want where I want, and all it costs me is the fee for my home or mobile internet connection. Hell, I can even get it FREE in some places, even on a train.
I use to be of the opinion that the BBC would benefit from subscription but, my mind has changed. I am happy for things to stay as they are and let Old Auntie wither away.
The BBC is an echo chamber for the middle class wokerarty. That is its only use.
August 3, 2022
Addendum
I am currently listening to, Joe Rogan on Spotify. He is interviewing a YouTuber, Chris Williams. Currently they are talking about yesterdays subject, social care. When you listen to good talk shows like this you soon understand why the likes of Aunties days are numbered.
And not before time.
August 3, 2022
Mark, come on, how many times has JR made blogs about the BBC and how many times over the 12 years has his party and govt promised change and threatened to change it? All deception and lies.
The govt use the BBC as its media arm to promote cultural Marxism- as it does throughout the public sector. It also used it for covid scare stories. The govt could have acted and made good on its promises over 12 years, it CHOSE not to and therefore the only reasonable conclusion is that it never had any intention to do so. It was to quell the outrage of the Ā£154 tax we pay each year for over paid drivel.
Illegal immigrants for Pending applicants get free tv, free heating, free accommodation, pocket money and Home Office spend thousands on pizzas we read. I was told by a govt service provider the TV and pocket money is to help them speak English.
August 4, 2022
“It also used it for covid scare stories”
And that is why the present government will never abolish the TV Licence…
August 4, 2022
And is why I am not bothered anymore since the numbers of fee payers is falling.
Wither on the vine.
August 3, 2022
The BBC is simply unfair competition in the rigged market. This made worse by its endless lefty, pro EU, climate alarmist lecturing & propaganda. Plus its selection on diversity ground (over ability) agenda and other such woke lunacies like the “batter” rather than batsman/batswoman.
We also very damagingly have rigged markets and unfair competition in the NHS & healthcare, transport, schools, universities, energy, housing, law, planning and so much else.
August 3, 2022
Truss was of course right on regional pay. Pay should be determined locally by supply and demand. Teacher in some in demand subjects need different pay levels too. She was of course very stupid to bring the topic up at this time though.
She is also right to keep the triple lock and not to break the manifesto promise on this. What value are future promises if you rat on you existing ones. She should also keep Osborne’s promise many years back of a Ā£1million IHT threshold again defrauded on by the Osborne, Hammond, Javid, Sunak… still only Ā£325K each but with a bit of a messy absurdly complex fudge on the main home.
August 3, 2022
Of course she is right about regional pay. How indecent is it when a poor region has rich, well paid state employees, poor locals living on benefits, and not much else in between? Besides, private enterprise cannot compete to employ people in that sort of neighbourhood when up against the lavish state.
August 3, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
So the Tory leader ballot papers are being delayed – all rather convenient for Sunak but it surely will not be enough for him to win. Sunak would be a massive gift to Labour. He caused much of the problems we know suffer from, serial manifesto ratting, vast tax increases, a police fine, Non Dom Ā£ millions tax avoiding wife, green card issues, out of touch with realist, currency debasement and a net zero fool too.
But then Truss is not that much better – still a believer in the net zero insanity and no serious solution to the illegal migrants of circa 700 a day. But certainly better she is.
August 3, 2022
It looks a bit like rigging, rather as the acceleration in the first instance did: making sure less well known MPs had no time to lay out their stalls. They did this last time when they foisted Mrs May on us.
Just as worrying is the way the media are playing the same low trick they played on the PM – training the public to think the candidate is a liar just by asserting it over and over again. It isn’t just O’Brien. Simon Jenkins is at it again too and many others of his hue.
August 3, 2022
Is this the OāBrian who tried to trash the excellent and proven right Prof. Sunetra Gupta and Dr Clare Craig types? Another deluded PPE chap I think.
August 3, 2022
as a matter of interest – well, very slight interest, is the preparation, printing and postage cost paid by the Tory party? And are the return votes envelopes prepaid?
August 3, 2022
On your accusation about net zero, LL, Wera Hobhouse has helpfully pointed out (about the helicopter), it āmakes a complete mockery of her promises on Net Zero. Itās clear that she is not serious on climate change.ā
August 4, 2022
Do as I say not as I do in the Prince Charles & William, Emma Thompsonā¦ mode. I am no fan of Truss but she is clearly a better bet than halfwit, economic illiterate, serial manifesto ratter, net zero loon, tax to death, inflation causing Sunak and his tax avoiding wife. Rather understandable of her given her husbandās the piss down the drain agenda.
August 3, 2022
LL,
It is a rigged market. You might recall Jeremy Hunt MP (culture secretary) speaking in parliament regarding plurality over Sky some years ago. Where was his or the govt argument over the same for the BBC! For his incompetence he got promoted to another ministerial post! The BBC even had the cheek to make same argument against Sky! They wanted the closed market for their themselves!
August 4, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
The global credibility of the BBC and everything else British has been hammered by the ERG’s well-flakey, backward-looking, isolationist brexit, and by the Tories’ bad faith on international treaties.
Even if Rees-Mogg were right – but he isn’t – and all the problems at Dover attributable to the French, the UK’s exit from the institutions of the European Union prevents it from using these to require the French to address the matter.
That is the absolutely key point, the French know it, and it’s a hoot for them to hear him.
August 3, 2022
Do the Eu and French trucks/citizens get the same delays coming into the UK? We play this game too nicely.
August 4, 2022
Shouldnāt you follow the news a bit better:
2021/01/17 āBrexit: In Calais border controls slow down the flow of trafficā (tellerreport.com).
The difference is that in Calais (and Dunkirk) the port authorities have much more space than in the Dover cul-de-sac and actually expanded their facilities.
Port of Dover asked for money, Ā£33 m, the Government gave Ā£33,000 and dropped the project of having checks done outside Dover (cityam.com 16/12/2020 Govt rejects Ā£33m proposal for more passport booths at Dover leaving longer queues more likely).
As for 6 French customs officers arriving 75 mn late at their booths on 23/07/2022 and creating six-hour delay over most of the following week-end, I let you judge of how intelligent the average UK tabloid (and some better papers) readers can be.
Anything related to the UK now being a third country and requiring twice or thrice as much time per passenger with the papers to enter the EU? Didnāt we vote for it?
August 4, 2022
What a ridiculous post NHL.
You know the French are just playing us up.
August 4, 2022
Yes the majority did vote for it. Maybe a new leader will progress better now that Covid is over. I want nothing more than a level playing field. I do tend believe the BBC and Guardian, more fool me, they only seem to be reporting half of the stories.
The British probably paid for the French port authorities knowing just how much Boris gave away.
France will lose out eventually, it is just too much trouble to drive over there now. All that lovely money theyāve been used to will be lost to them. I travelled elsewhere in Europe this year where we were much more welcome and no problems getting in or out.
August 3, 2022
That comment must be joke of the day! The French government never helped, even when the UK was in the EU. They always demand large amounts of money to ‘help’ and then conveniently forget to supply the ‘help’ or have some half baked excuse. Then again, the EU was just as bad over the reducing our rebate in exchange for reforming CAP (I should say failing to do so) so no surprise that its members follow the EU example.
August 3, 2022
Well all the problems at Dover could certainly be solved by the French just taking back all who crossed and then no one would bother crossing. But I can see why they choose not do this but the French could certainly solve the problem if they chose to and in many ways it would help them by stopping the flow.
Another court defeat for Patel today it seems. Rule of law or is it now the rule of lawyers?
August 3, 2022
When did the EU ever require the French to address a matter? The EU is a Franco German Axis. We used to get our lamb burnt and nothing was done to stop it. Just one example of delinquent behaviour by the Franco arm. Dyson’s machines were wrongly classified for energy use by the German arm, to help Mr Miele. Nothing was done to redress the injustice and Dyson had to take the matter to court. It took him five years. On illegal immigration, we had the Dublin Agreement, but it wasn’t honoured by the EU countries nor enforced by the EU, and Frau Merkel finally drove a stake through its heart when she very publicly broke it in 2015.
August 3, 2022
would you care to explain ‘well-flakey’ ?
Is that a throwback to Eastenders ‘well ard’?
August 3, 2022
The last time I saw “hoot” as a description of amusement was probably in a Billy Bunter book.
August 3, 2022
Can you remember when the French were really co operative and friendly towards us NHL?
I’m struggling to think of examples.
August 4, 2022
Just on defence ā¦
23/01/2018 army-technology.com āUK and France reach agreements to strengthen defence cooperationā (Further in gov.uk 24/09/2018 āUK-France defence cooperationā)
26/07/2021 bloomberg.com āFrance, UK vow defence cooperation on Cyber, Pacific, Africaā.
Congratulations P2. Keep on the good work.
August 4, 2022
I was talking about borders and the French attitudes towards the travelling public and HGV drivers.
But thanks for your example of defence co-operation heffy.
Proving there is always one exception to the rule
August 3, 2022
Can you provide any evidence at all that anyone in France has even commented on what Mogg said ? Or have you just made that up ? I suspect like most Remoaners you have no interest at all in what actually is reported in EU countries.
UK exports to the EU are at the highest level since records began. Brexit going great !
August 4, 2022
Operation Stack is decades old, NLH.
August 3, 2022
There is still over a month before a new Prime Minister is in office. Meanwhile we have more interviews and promises from the remaining candidates plus suggestions from various quarters on what they should do when one of them finally gets the job.
We will not see how it all pans out for quite a while. Having been shamelessly lied to by the two previous incumbents, I donāt place much faith in the new candidates for the job. They donāt seem the types that would bring about big change like an Attlee or a Thatcher.
As for the BBC, a quango/panel recently came up with the daft idea that the subscription was not working but the institution was too precious to leave to the marketplace. They wanted an additional tax to fund it! That would clobber people like me who no longer have a TV licence. We would end up paying for a service we donāt want. Thatās what happens when you seek advice from quangos stuffed with establishment types.
The BBC should be trimmed in size and then privatised.
August 3, 2022
Surely in a week or so it will be very clear Truss has won and has to many voted to be defeated so Sunak should then concede.
August 3, 2022
Yes, Peter, more and more media people are talking about this new, extra BBC tax to be levied on every tax payer.
August 3, 2022
Neo-Marxist organisations deserving of institutional annihilation. That any Tory government tolerates them reveals what has happened to the Tory party more than it does about any other issue
These organisation promote hate, division, racial thinking, gender bias, intolerance for and against certain peoples, they lie and are highly ideological to the point of insanity and encourage authoritarianism across all areas of life
At their core, they are evil and that’s not hyperbole. They turn a blind eye to the reporting of any horrific issue if it fails to satisfy its ideological and political instincts
And digital media. Well, John may play dumb but he knows the OSB is a direct attack on free expression by his government. I cannot fathom what goes on inside the heads of Tory MPs. I don’t believe they understand that their actions are destroying our nation
August 3, 2022
Very well put, Dom and so true!
This is what globalism doesā¦ to break us all down sufficiently to entertain the replacement society they have planned for us, has taken decades to get where we are. The fear is, can we return to a society of accepting others as they are, having high social standards, having organisations that just do their jobs, not having EVERYTHING politiced, and a good sense of humour to take us through the bad timesā¦?
August 3, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
+1 BBC even make policy to support a particular ideological view without any other view being tolerated. How is that impartial, fair or balanced under the alleged charter? Yet very much supported by the fake Tories because it fits their agenda like staying in the EU. JR has previously blogged about BBC bias without apportioning any blame to his party and govt for allowing it.
August 3, 2022
In the 1970s folk spent Ā£50 to join a Video Club, equivalent to about Ā£700 today. That allowed them to go to the shop to hire a low quality tape for a day at further high cost with a penalty for late return.
When DVDs emerged, video tapes were left in piles at car boot sales with signs reading āTake away Freeā. Now charity shops refuse to accept DVDs because ānobody wants themā.
The BBC have remained stuck in a 1970s video club, trying to force a fee for survival while those who choose freedom repeat: Nobody wants them!
August 3, 2022
No alternative broadcaster could ever have threatened the BBC had it not betrayed its loyal audience so blatantly and cruelly.
The disappointment in the BBC, NHS and Monarchy are gut wrenching and psychologically distressing if not damaging.
We virtually never turn on the TV now and stopped listening to the radio years ago when they destroyed those lovely early morning programmes.
It is impossible to forgive the Marxist trashing of oneās country, culture,history and very existence.
August 3, 2022
Excellent comment.
They expect people to pay for this!!
August 3, 2022
+100%
August 3, 2022
Disappointing that you donāt propose something even slightly more analytical about the BBC – such as recommending changes in its governance to bring about the impartiality it is supposed to display. But of course the BBCās appalling bias in promoting say climate change zealotry suits this government very well with its insane net zero policy. We couldnāt have that challenged by the national broadcaster could we?
August 3, 2022
@MPC – As you say:- “But of course the BBCās appalling bias in promoting say climate change zealotry suits this government very well with its insane net zero policy.” Indeed the levels of deluded propaganda pushed out on this topic is massive.
It also suited Cameron to have the overwhelming BBC bias on the EU (especially in guest choices for programmes like Question Time) this still persists but fortunately the public saw through it.
As does their the NHS is the envy of the world B/S. It is one of the worse systems around measured on outcomes which is surely what matters to most people.
August 3, 2022
Was Mr Cameron as pro EU as is made out? Didn’t he loathe going there? Didn’t he resent the volume of EU law which had to be translated into ours? If Sir John had been the Chancellor instead of George Osborne, wouldn’t it all have been different?
August 3, 2022
Well Cameron made out he was a cast iron, EUSceptic and a low tax at heart Conservative to win the leadership then proved to be none of this. He negligently and appallingly failed to prepare of a leave vote outcome and then pathetically abandoned the bridge like a petulant child.
August 4, 2022
Yes, it was negligent, but the greater negligence was by the civil service. Whenever there is an election, they prepare for it going either way. In 2016 they arrogantly didn’t.
August 3, 2022
We will be ditching the licence at the end of this period. My partner was the hold-out but the end of a favourite series and the antics of broadcasters turned them against the Beeb. I suspect the wall-to-wall rainbow, unicorn farts, sell your loft/shed/junk and property development shows tipped the balance.
Live news will come from Radio and on-demand web services will cover the rest. But they did raise the question of how people will be alerted in emergencies .. something government should address in some way.
On CH4 sell off. I don’t care what the new owners do for employees after the sale but none should benefit in any way ahead of licence and taxpayers as part of the sale process. Why should the public have carried the cost and risk of startup only for some senior management to be rewarded even beyond ridiculous salaries.
August 3, 2022
We will also do the same.
It should also be said that you require a licence to receive ANY live television broadcast regardless of where it comes from.
Why should I need a licence to watch SKY or RTL or any non-BBC broadcast?
August 3, 2022
Yes, they have to ditch that. Why should I pay the BBC, if all I want to watch is al-jazeera.
August 3, 2022
Dixie, “none should benefit in any way ahead of licence and taxpayers as part of the sale process” I agree. They have their reward the likes on newsreaders earn astronomic sums, Bake Off made household names of Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood and Mel and Sue.
How much does C4 make from selling its best shows to the rest of the World on subscription channels?
I like the fact they often use British companies to create the programming, British workers and British talent to make the programs and British living staff to run the station. When we sell off things like C4, we end up with Spanish, French and German owners, who end up using sub-contract labour so not even contributing to the Employer’s national insurance services, foreign labour that they insist needs bringing in, profits go overseas without passing the UK tax bank.
August 3, 2022
Slightly off topic
Next Wednesday, 5pm, Alistair Stewart, GB news, is interviewing Liz Truss. (Sunak another date) Iām so pleased theyāve secured that interview. I feel theyāll do a better job than a lot of other channels (no names mentioned!)
Itās called The Peopleās Forum and is taking place before a live audience in Greater Manchester.
August 3, 2022
Get both to go head to head with Mick Lynch. A true test of depth and mettle.
He’s been tearing up politicians and broadcasters for loo paper.
August 3, 2022
I would rather it had been Brazier or Steyn. Stewart is a bit star struck by the Treasury and its various agents. He seems to think it responsible to bring about a recession and doesn’t wonder where the extra tax will come from then – what one might call “unfunded tax rises”. Is being an economics graduate a drawback? On the other hand he is very civilized and polite and where else do you get that but on GB News?
August 3, 2022
Disgusting also how MSM in general ( and repeated ad nauseam by the BBC) ,use tragic stories as political footballs.
In a current case probably to further an International treaty.
Tugging on the heartstrings.
Do they always tell the truth?
Or are they really THAT Machiavellian?
August 3, 2022
It is emotion over brain every time for the BBC, lefties and much of MSM.
August 3, 2022
Except that it is confected emotion and utterly heartless, dropped in a moment when no longer convenient.
August 3, 2022
‘I favour giving employees in C4 some shares in the organisation on sale …’ Well I don’t. The Channel 4 Filth has worked against this country for as long as I can remember. The public finances should benefit from the sale to the maximum possible degree. Employees wishing to take a stake in the company should pay for their shares.
August 3, 2022
Sell it off and it will be bought by overseas investors. Thereafter all advertising revenue will go offshore and profits untaxed. The operation in the UK will be given just enough for its running costs.
Retain public ownership of the assets and the business can rent them, yielding a continuing benefit to the exchequer in addition to corporation tax.
August 5, 2022
The most senior Channel 4 journalist, Jon Snow, chanted “F the Tories” at Glastonbury. He shouldn’t be given a penny from the sale. All the proceeds should go to the public finances.
August 3, 2022
In an answer to a Question in parliament I think I heard a minister state that the CEO of C4 has had a 20% pay rose to Ā£1.2m. About 2x the DG of the BBC. She and the BBC āstarsā who get paid a fortune must be the highest paid civil servants. Yet, incredibly she is able to use her position to campaign openly against the decision of her owner, the govt, to sell, in a way which would be inconceivable outside the public sector. Of course C4 should be sold. If it can be sold to an investor who gives the staff some shares so be it. but that wonāt work most likely if itās a strategic purchaser. But it must be sold and the new PM must not cave in to the leftwing campaign to keep it as now. Both the BBC and C4 are now part of a broadly leftist media who push leftwing lines.
August 3, 2022
The BBC is suffering from the well-known phenomenon of “go woke, go broke.”It is also a dumbed-down and blatant propagandist.
Since the late ’80s and certainly since the mid-’90s, the people running it have destroyed what used to be a great British Brand. As far as I’m concerned it is beyond redemption now.
August 3, 2022
The reasons why many are ditching the BBC in my experience has already been laid out in previous comments to this thread.
Cultural Marxism, woke ideology the ever sneering middle class so called intelligentsia types of the arts/media world (oh, and a has been footballer!!) who are some of the biggest hypocrites ever to walk the earth.
Their views, their politics, rammed down people’s throats morning noon and night.
I’m finding it hilarious to read of all their finger wagging at Russia and the banning of dissident views.
The BBC may not put an official ban on people or organisations but their very actions are as good as.
They are anti-English.
A lot of the above refers also to the entire establishment which is possibly why nothing has ever been done to call time on BBC.
I ditched the license fee years ago, and have had success in convincing others to do the same instead of feeling permanently angry and frustrated at BBC alongside the others who all peddle the same.
August 4, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
I like programmes that don’t need to ‘compete on a global stage’, but are simply interesting and well-made, put together by editors that have something interesting to say or show us, without costing a blockbuster budget. In Germany they have regional TV channels that do that. I would be prepared to pay a modest licence fee for a slimmed-down BBC with that sort of role. It no longer covers most major sports events I’m interested in anyway and I don’t waste my time with BBC news reporting.
Channel 4 can go.
August 3, 2022
Being prepared to pay is one thing – being forced to pay for endless deluded BBC propaganda is not acceptable. Nor is it very sensible to be forced to pay for the NHS, state schools, other people’s housing, duff degrees, public transport… if you do not use them. (Other than in certain exceptional cases where people really cannot afford it).
August 3, 2022
It’s especially objectionable to be forced to pay for the NHS when the service you get when you need it most is so crap, or when they fail to deliver any care at all and you have to go private.
August 3, 2022
The BBC World Service is the most valuable part for the UK Government as it provides an authoritative voice of news and information to much of the world with the *British* Broadcasting Corporation brand, improving our reputation abroad. I agree the licence fee should end but it seems wrong for the Foreign Office to have ceased direct funding of the World Service in 2014, with a five-year grant ending in 2020. That’s one area where the country’s brand would suffer under the necessary cut-backs at the BBC.
August 3, 2022
The Government has just renewed World Service funding for three years with Ā£4 million extra for government’s Ukraine/Russia requirements. For Ā£13.25 per household month (Ā£159/year), BBC Television costs Ā£7.29 a month; Radio Ā£2.09; BBC World Service Ā£1.30; Other services and production costs Ā£0.72; Online Ā£1.27; Licence fee collection etc Ā£0.58. ( Licence raises Ā£3.8 bn plus Ā£1.6 bn from its Commercial Group.)
If you had all Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple TV subscriptions, they will cost you Ā£444 a year. Which would you cancel in order to pay your gas and electric bill next January? Because that is what is starting to happen.
August 4, 2022
No one would subscribe to four streaming services when one is more than enough to watch so your Ā£444 is an exaggeration. (I subscribe to none of them and watch on average an hour of video a day.)
August 3, 2022
Which begs the question, Ralph, of what is the country’s brand? I’ve just looked at today’s World Service schedule and I don’t recognise any of it as having much to do with my life in Britain today. As for the BBC being ‘authoritative’, too bad for anyone abroad who believes that. I’d say it’s up to the British goverment to improve our image abroad by its actions, and there’s not much sign of that at the moment.
August 4, 2022
I don’t think the World Service is meant to have much to do with your life in Britain today. It’s meant to give more accurate information to listeners around the world than their local news services which are closely controlled by the government. This is why some countries ban it.
August 4, 2022
RC, +1
August 3, 2022
Since the last century, the World Service is no longer British. John Tusa started the cultural revolution there, saying it was no longer representative of Britain today. What he meant was that it was excellent. It didn’t take long to pull down the excellence and the education. How could any foreigner now learn English from it as they used to? Its concerns are not with the British national interest, but with other countries and peoples. The only British thing about it is the money behind it. I would go further and say it is as subversive as the Home Service.
August 4, 2022
Short-circuited to ground.
August 3, 2022
Why sell C4? Rather than distribute some shares to its employees, distribute them all. They can rent the assets from the state until they either buy them outright or replace them. Let them sink or swim.
Why does anything British always have to be sold off? Most likely to an offshore corporation with creative accounting, with profits whisked away untaxed.
Our gas prices are sky high because North Sea gas was sold off to the energy companies for a song. Now we have to compete at world energy prices for home grown gas.
August 3, 2022
The UK has been selling things off and wasting the proceeds for decades. There is an article that was published by the Institute of Engineering and Technology called “North Sea oil: A tale of two countries” comparing how the UK and Norway managed their North Sea oil revenues.
In essence, Norway invested their revenue and are now reaping the benefits, the UK did not and is now paying the price of those decisions, many of which were taken by a Conservative government.
August 3, 2022
I remember telling Thatcher to start up a soverign wealth fund with the proceeds from North Sea oil, but the useless woman ignored me.
The same attitude of flog it off still pervades the so called upper echelons. Who owns Arm now ?
We are rulled by morons, but it’s the electorate who elect them in the first place.
August 3, 2022
And home grown food. Sold at world prices. (Seen the price of locally caught crab ?)
The Uberisation of the UK workforce is leading to us becoming like the third world, which can be food rich but doesn’t get to eat any of its own food because the rest of the world can buy it.
Is inflation really the fault of workers demanding pay rises ? Wages have been stagnant in the UK since 2008 yet inflation is through the roof.
August 3, 2022
Previously commodities, food, energy were priced mostly in USD. If the $ value goes up versus the Ā£ then imports cost more. BOE can print Ā£, not dollars, and it has. So unless we produce more in the UK and or foreign imports can provide lower prices or same prices in GBP, we import inflation.
Low cost UK produced energy would help a lot if we maintained a supply balance surplus in the UK in excess of any export capacity.
In the short term we need coal/gas plants running with stocked easily stored reserves from UK mined coal, gas if you can store it. I would be inclined to run them at capacity to ensure we maintain an excess of export capacity.
All our deals with EU are incredibly expensive be they Energy , Food, Health etc? Notable examples being the WA itself and contracts for nuclear builds. Why? WTO deal would be better as would self-sufficiency. It seems EU survival is still paramount even at our expense.
If we added our official EU contributions, Other EU side or other not included under the table contributions, Foreign aid, WHO aid, UN, wars of dubious nature , Border Home office costs etc up over 50 years would that be 50% or more of our national debt? If we had maintained our strategic nuclear and more heavy industry and manufacturing instead of EU subsidies to degrade UK capacity.
BBC just end the tax. Let it sink or swim. No further taxes for luvvies. Also the license fee or subscription / shareholders should entitle the users to appoint the contenders and the winners to the board directly via the web.
Maybe it should be classified as overseas aid, because its no use to me, its worse.
August 3, 2022
Why sell C4 ? Weāll start by explaining why the state should own a TV company which peddles pornography like Naked Attraction ? It is absurd.
August 3, 2022
Good morning
There is a small and rapidly closing window to salvage something of the dismal BBC, controlled by extremists and on a trajectory to state funded irrelevance like so many public service propagandists worldwide.
It’s deliberate damage to free expression in the UK is immense.
The BBC’s tentacles through its network of hundreds of ‘local democracy reporters’ have infiltrated local as well as national news reporting, destroying editorial independence.
This needs to stop, and the inaction of Parliament is risible.
August 3, 2022
The producers at the BBC seem to have an average age of 24. The damage to R2 for example is immense. Especially with the loss of Steve Wright. I often wonder if I’m listening to R1. We have gone from Boomer Nostalgia ’70s, skipped generation X (as though Madness or Depeche Mode never existed) and gone straight to Radio Hip Hop.
They already have Radio Hip Hop on R1.
And now watch what’s going to happen. Double football on TV because of women’s football. What about the majority of people (and it IS a majority) who don’t like football, male or female ???
August 3, 2022
True, but should we assume, Pat, that MPs are even capable of realising for themselves what’s going on around them?
August 3, 2022
And in other news, Liz Truss, the so called apostle for change, less and more efficient state spending took less than eight hours to crumble into a u turn ditching a major policy on regional pay boards.
So a saving of 10 billion lost plus a commitment to the triple lock so 30 billion plus at the drop of a political hat.
So yet another potential leader with big ideas but zero backbone so the result will be whenever Big State pushes back, she will give in.
Truly a Boris wastrel, all talk no change continuity candidate.
Why does she/anyone bother. I/we donāt believe a word she says.
August 3, 2022
The only benefit I see from the BBC is no adverts to have to skip through.
August 3, 2022
record almost everything – then fast forward through the ads.
Eliminating the ads saves so much time and you keep your brain reasonably active.
August 3, 2022
They have advertising breaks all the time, to advertise themselves.
August 4, 2022
Rose – They are constantly advertising. Artists, actors, films, designers, authors, comedians…. They do this on chat shows an on radio they segway it awkwardly into DJ chatter, “D’ya know ? I can’t wait to see Top Gun Maverick at the weekend !” and that sort of thing is dropped in totally randomly.
August 3, 2022
Judging by actions rather than words, the Parliamentary Conservative Party is clearly part of ‘the Blob’ .
It has no intention of defending free expression.
This has been highlighted recently by electing to broadcast the leadership hustings exclusively via the Blob, rather than allowing open debate on GB News or any other editorially independent outlet.
August 3, 2022
And off topic for today.
The UK government needs to understand the risk of allowing the Chinese to buy the Newport Chip Fab. Just like the Americans have rather late realised electronic production is seriously at risk if Taiwan falls to the Chinese.
So:
1. UK Government should buy the Newport Fab.
2. UK Government should take a very small portion of the money that is being throw away to HS2 and Covid loan fraud ad invest in more Fabs based in the UK.
August 4, 2022
And build more reservoirs !
August 3, 2022
I agree that Channel Four should definitely be sold off.
However, for all its faults, and there are many, one thing is certain about the BBC : if the licence fee is scrapped. the cost of buying BBC services will climb dramatically. One only has to look at the cost of a Sky subscription : even if you don’t opt in to the ludicrously expensive Sports channels, the cheapest available Sky TV subscription is Ā£26 per month or Ā£312 a year, almost double the licence fee. (We make do with a licence fee and Freesat).
Privatise the BBC and the corporation will charge what the market will stand and that will almost certainly be at the very least as expensive as a Sky subscription. They will probably throw in a few other existing channels in the deal, but those will cost them very little.
I am not sure the public will forgive the Conservative for going down this route. Far better to reform the corporation and maybe do a deal to include Netflix in the licence fee to restore the availability of more high quality drama within their offering.
A good start has been made on reform by recent senior appointments, but the effect has not yet been seen in the output. There is a huge amount of work to be done to weed out all the leftie-liberals and thus eliminate the shocking level of bias in the current affairs and one or two other key departments.
Question Time is a lost cause and should be dropped from the schedule and Countryfile, is in need of a complete rethink. They could, for example, bring back Jeremy Clarkson to produce a farming programme, he has done so much for the cause of farming with his excellent and entertaining Clarkson’s Farm series.
August 3, 2022
Thereās a worrying video from Dr Mike Yeadon being aired on Rumble entitled
Dr Mike Yeadon – Fraud, Fear and how herd mentality has brought us to the edge
It explains exactly how weāre being controlled
Will this make it past moderation, if it doesnāt our host is complicit in the fraud
August 3, 2022
He makes some good points, especially on central bank digital currency. This is an important topic that should have more of an airing on this blog.
He also talks about all-cause mortality and lockdowns, but I believe the point is well understood now, and if Liz Truss is Prime Minister, there will be no more lockdowns.
August 4, 2022
The loss of swimming pools to lockdown inflation will mean far fewer people learning to swim. Will drownings be counted as lockdown deaths too ?
August 5, 2022
It is good that L_Cās comment went through moderation so anybody can see what he is an avid consumer of.
Is that the same Mike Yeadon who told us that respiratory viruses do not exist, that Covid was not airborne transmitted, that the UK Covid infection had stopped in summer 2020, that vaccinated women would become infertile, ā¦ etc ā¦
Am I allowed to take his musings with some spoonfuls of salt? Specially when CBDCs have only been issued by the Bahamas, the Eastern Caribbean, the Jamaican and Nigerian Central Banks.
There certainly is something to be learned about Central Bank Digital Currencies. I am not sure Mike Yeadon is the best person to inform about them.
August 3, 2022
People including myself have stopped watching the BBC because their content is biased and woke. They waste vast amounts of money paying top wages to presenters who quite frankly arenāt that good. There must be hundreds of presenters who could do the job for a fraction of the price. The BBC used to make great comedy and drama programs that could be sold around the world but I canāt remember the last time they produced any decent content.
Too many countries are allowed to watch the BBC for free. Those within reach of a transmitter, those with a VPN service, those with dodgy cable and satellite packages. Itās time the BBC upgraded its licensing system to ensure viewers had to enter a valid reference number. Also, why do British taxpayers have to pay for a free world service? The BBC acts as if it still exists in our colonial past. Letās face it the BBC is just a state propaganda machine.
Same applies to C4.
August 3, 2022
Nigel did a marvellous segment on GB News yesterday about the criminal invasion across the channel which the Government is facilitating by offering a free ferry service to undocumented young men who have paid criminal gangs for the “danger” of crossing 12 miles of water (often accompanied by the French navy) into British water where they can be “rescued” by the navy, Border Farce or RNLI.
And then given a life of “free everything” courtesy of British taxpayers.
And the PM candidates’ solution to this? Basically DO NOTHING ….. except Priti Useless wants to shovel even more Ā£millions to the French to NOT stop the boats.
Neither of them are worth a vote.
August 3, 2022
Then they lie to us about our carbon footprint needing cut backs.
August 3, 2022
Donna: Utterly shameful & when will we hear from the Home Office, ministers, ambassadors, just, please, anyone in reaction to this disgrace. They all know this is happening. Basically ‘services’ were being advertised & offered with good availability & put out on a prominent named social media platform by people smuggling gangs of a specific nationality even offering special rates & guarantees and a boast of their being the best group in France to transit people without problems.
August 3, 2022
It was suggested some months ago, that the boats being used are imported into Germany from China as legitimate trade.
A simple trucking into France or Belgium, border check free, gets them to the Channel beaches.
The Germans make money, as do the traffickers, and the French get rid of a problem.
August 3, 2022
Itās on the Hearts of Oak podcast
August 3, 2022
HBO does drama so much better than the BBC and makes popular heroes and villains of all races and sexes without quotas and without patronising them.
The BBC simply foments hatred of stale, pale English males aged over thirty.
This is the basic, predictable format of what they like to call drama. It is dull, dreary and irritating. I cannot bear to watch.
August 3, 2022
Sorry, OT I know.
Tobias Ellwood being interviewed by Tom Harwood (GB News) this morning. I must confess that I had my doubts about him but was prepared to cut him a bit of slack. Not any more.
It is clear to me that he should be honest with his Party and, more importantly, his Constituents and cross the floor of the House and join the Lib Dems.
August 4, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
It’s reported that Netflix are now “rushing out” a platform based on advertising (no subscription) due to plummeting subscriber numbers.
The effect of the Sussexes deal was not what they expected, but the drop has continued and is clearly a much wider issue. The belief appears to be that as more subscription based platforms come online, their customers are increasingly unable to afford multiple subscriptions and with the spreading of quality content across too many providers, the value/quality of each service’s offering is being eroded to the point where value for money is highly questionable.
Subscribers responded by swapping providers each month to binge-watch their content, cancel, then do the same at another provider the following month. The platforms tried to fight this by releasing series as episodes, but that makes little difference since people will just wait until it becomes fully available the next time they’re due to subscribe to that platform in a couple of months. The net effect is simply to annoy their customers and make their offering even less attractive.
So the winning model seems to be the ITV-style one (and that of Ch 4) – adverts funding their content. FreeVee (formerly IMDb) is doing this successfully while showing far fewer ads than ITV/C4.
BBC and government should take note. The future is fee-free, advertising based. Any remit the BBC might have as a State broadcaster has changed to be largely one of providing unbiased news (which they fail to do now). When they were the only outlet as both broadcaster and content provider they had a wider responsibility to society but now that role should be covered by Ofcom or similar regulatory body ensuring that the content providers as a bloc do what is required for society.
If there is to be any State funding, it should be for news only and there must be rigorous oversight to ensure impariality, regaining trust in the World Service news. This is a very small function compared to their current panoramic service offerings which do appear to be stymying growth in the private sector.
August 3, 2022
The BBC represents a large minority and has done a lot to promote extreme ideas and has succeeded in making some of these ideas appear “mainstream” and, I believe, this has translated into government policy and legislation. This has made many people unhappy.
The views of the majority are not well represented by the BBC.
The government needs to give the BBC a couple of years to prepare to fund itself. The BBC would presumably try to persaude licence-fee payers to carry on paying by switching their payments to a subscription.
I believe this is urgent as our democracy is being badly damaged by the BBC’s propaganda.
August 3, 2022
The BBC is pushing for a change in licensing model to be the opposite of what’s wanted by the people cancelling their TV licences.
The BBC wishes to find a model whereby everyone pays, one way or another. Their suggestions to date have involved a broadband tax and general taxation. This means that none escape, one way or another all households will pay, since almost all households have broadband and they all pay tax in some form, even if it’s only VAT.
A government that gives in to this obvious gaming of the process will not be popular.
August 3, 2022
The BBC is no longer a state broadcaster employing journalists, presenters and entertainers representing the nation with a wide range of views and opinions.
It is now the UK equivalent of the Russian Agitprop organisation staffed by communist activists constantly running down the country and western democracy, spreading social disharmony and pushing the Marxist inspired scam of CAGW/Net Zero to bring about western economic collapse.
August 3, 2022
Sir Jonn,
I have just had to pay the tv tax (Ā£159) yet the only time I use the BBC is for the occasional foreign drama or film on the iplayer. Unfortunately it’s necessary to watch GB News which is broadcast live. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs. A subscription service would be far better.
Channel 4 can be sold off to Comcast. They already own Sky and are big donors to the Democrat party.
August 3, 2022
Channel 4 is not a normal broadcaster. It’s not allowed to make its own content. It has to buy it’s content, supposedly to encourage small content creators.
Seems YouTube has done a better job of that, encouraging countless small content creators.
August 4, 2022
+1
August 3, 2022
Since we are covering the broadcast media, I’ll bring in an OT but related matter. No doubt we all remember the hysteria and sensationalism about the rise in petrol prices. Almost every penny rise was reported with doom-laden forecasts.
I have not seen any reporting of the recent fall in price. I bought at Ā£1.66 today, probably 30p down. Trouble is it’s good news and they don’t like that when it goes against their agendas.
August 3, 2022
Lost the plot BBC makes me cringe with the truly woke non-stop brain washing messages and it gives an impression that Britain is soft and deluded to our competitors abroad both near and far away. My wife unfortunately prefers not to rebel against the licence fee as a good law abiding citizen which is the beeb’s blackmail co.
The opening ceremony of the Commonwealth games has a pink stooge dressed as a fairy saying you are all welcome here unlike the government. Not funny how they mock our country instead of responsibly acknowledging their public bestowed monopoly privilege as entitlement.
They need to feel the heat of rabid, fierce competition to wake them up from their daydreams. It is too London based even after locating some up north to Salford which dances to London’s woke tune.
August 3, 2022
More like beeb’s blackmailing claws.
August 3, 2022
Dear Sir John, As a wild generalisation, most privatisations of the Thatcher era have been beneficial, for which congratulations. But those since , eg rail,coal and nuclear, have been lamentable and have given privatisation a bad name. Rail has since been mainly renationalised. So has nuclear, the difference being that it is now owned by the French Government rather than the British.
I fear that Channel 4 will be no different. The argument for selling is plausible but unconvincing. I fancy that the real motive (apart from making a few quid to appease the Treasury) is embarrassment at owning a broadcaster that daily pumps out values that are alien to many people. So much easier to wash your hands of it than to change it for the better.
August 3, 2022
I was waiting for that moment, when somebody with poor arguments reverts to use the adjective woke or wokeish. Well done Sir John.
I am now looking forward to you as Chancellor and producing your daily comment why the inflation now at 9.4% is not decreasing as fast as you had said it would (2023, remember), why the country will have entered stagflation, and why the UK productivity Ā“with better jobs and better paysā might not happen before ā¦ 2050 a la JR-M, 2030 Ć la D.Hannan or whatever date youāll produce out of your radical Thatcherite coiffure.
August 3, 2022
Hefner
Well written thank you
August 4, 2022
Hef if you don’t know how damaging woke broke, no joke is see DT article “The collapse of the ādiversityā industry canāt come soon enough”. It is damaging the very people it thinks need protecting from racism and discrimination.
You are out of touch unlike the football players who have woken up to not now taking the knee as it is counter productive and backfiring.
It is not trivial as it’s become beyond reason and devisive we cannot afford.
August 4, 2022
ukr123, Please tell me how āwokeismā has actually affected you, with examples, please.
August 4, 2022
Have a look at examples on the Free Speech Union website hef
Still in denial that wokeness effects many people I note.
August 4, 2022
It is because there has been no radical Thatcherite policies for decades that we have the economic position we are now in Hef and Bill
August 4, 2022
Radical Thatcherite policies might have been good in the 1980s when there were large nationalised sectors to sell (and to cut taxes with the profits). Now that most UK manufacturing industries have been privatised and essentially belong to non-UK entities, this call to āradical Thatcherite policiesā is as vacuous as ā¦ your thought process P2?
August 4, 2022
You relate only to industrial policies heffy
Thatcherism policies were far more than that.
But as usual hef…rarely a post without personal comment.
Sad.
August 5, 2022
So P2, could you be more specific and tell us over which sectors (other than manufacturing/industry) you would now apply radical Thatcherite policies to get us out of the present economic position? Thanks a lot in advance.
August 5, 2022
Four Police officers visited a man who had offended someone else and arrested him recently.
Where I live if you are burgled or your car is stolen off your drive Police are too short staffed to visit you.
Have you checked out The Free Speech Union site yet heffy?
You think wokeness is a fantasy
Hilarious
August 5, 2022
Overall Thatcherite policies benefitted all sectors heffy.
Reduced inflation, small state, sound monetary policy, privatisation, right to buy, shareholding for a wider number of citizen, less nationalisation, an encouragement of free markets, a reduction in socialist centralised planning, a reduction in Trades Unions power, lower taxation for all.
In short everything you hate.
August 12, 2022
You are getting worse and worse P2. Who could be against reduced inflation, sound monetary policy, shareholding for a wider number of citizens, lower taxation for all?
As for āsmall stateā, āprivatisationā, āencouragement of āfreeā marketsā, āreduction in socialist centralised planningā, the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997 only reduced the state by selling huge amounts of the UK manufacturing industries to private/foreign entities with the results we are seeing today in the water, gas, and electricity markets.
The UK is becoming a shade of what it had been just 40 years ago. Are you happy with the result, or is it only because if Labour policies?
August 3, 2022
” It is being held back by dependence on Licence fee funding” – an arrangement that has enabled a smug, complacent, self-satisfied management to ignore the realities of the market place, reposed on their Ā£5 billion annual income cushion. So not so much “held back” as left languishing in a past rapidly being replaced by a different model.
A dexterous, innovative, in-touch, entrepreneurial BBC with vision and ambition (had there been one) could have out-smarted and out-classed the likes of Netflix, succeeding in their stead, placing itself at the top of world info-entertainment media. What a lost opportunity!
August 3, 2022
The government needs to put pressure on the BBC to be more responsible and honest to complainants. So far, Ofcom has lamentably failed to hold the BBC to account. In one recent example (highlighted by History Reclaimed) in a travel programme about Sierra Leone the presenter had dragged in his own biased opinions about slavery: it “was what white British people didā and āthe standard of living [in Britain] is built upon benefits that were gleaned from slavery.ā Yet Freetown’s very name (as well as a memorial World Heritage Site in the town) commemorates the British fight against African slavery.
When an historically aware viewer wrote in to omplain about these egregious errors, the BBC Complaints Director missed every possible point in replying that ‘given the varied and impressionistic nature of the programme, it was perhaps not surprising that more detail was not supplied about the history and legacy of slave trading in the country. For these reasons I am not upholding your complaint.’
So it is fine to slip in politically tendentious and unqualified errors into a programme, as long as it also deals with other topics? This illogical nonsense is typical of the devious way the BBC constantly shrugs off any criticism. It has been going on for decades, and for its own sake, the BBC must address its critics more honestly. No other corporate board would get away with such poor governance.
August 3, 2022
I wonder exactly what Larkin would say
Regarding the windmill that caught light today
Smothering Hull in black plastic smoke
Showing up greencr*p as just a bad joke.
Heād probably sayā¦.
āYour government f*cks you upā.
August 4, 2022
See Holy Smoke Wokery Batgirl!
Why was new $90million superhero movie axed?
“the audience feedback was so awful that ā in an almost unprecedented move ā Warner Bros has decided the reputational damage of releasing such a dud would be even worse than wasting the tens of millions of dollars it has already spent on it.”
The BBC not woke central and wasting our precious tax payers millions on woke social engineering. It should be allowed to fail too unaided by tax payers.
August 4, 2022
+1
Very good.
August 4, 2022
BBC aka Woke Central.
August 4, 2022
“More and more people are dropping their licences by not having tvs at all and not using BBC services”
Not quite true. Lots of people simply avoid watching LIVE TV, which is what you need a TV licence for.
This is a ludicrous situation, where people cannot watch ANY live TV, even that from another country, because they don’t pay the BBC.
BBC is currently a subscription service, just that it’s unusual in being an enforced subscription for anyone who ever watches live TV. Or… any household where any one individual ever watches live TV.
And that’s the thing – when I tell people that I’ve ditched the TV licence, a reaction I hear often is “I wish I could, but even if I told my kids not to watch live TV I can’t be sure that they wouldn’t do it”. Partly that’s because the rules cover any broadcast that is currently being shown live… somewhere, anywhere. So even if they watch something on YouTube, they can fall foul of the daft rules if it also happens to be simultaneously shown live on normal TV.
How can anyone follow rules like that, let alone expect kids to do so? It’s a fear tax.