My old mate Samir Shah can save bloated BBC and put it on a better course – he has no time for identity politics
ITS audience may be falling off a cliff. In some cases, throwing them-selves off a cliff in despair.
And it may be perpetually mired in one sort of crisis or another.
But at last, this week, there was some good news for the poor old BBC.
The Government’s choice for the new chairman is a bloke who is actually very well qualified to do the job.
This makes him almost unique in the corporation’s history.
His name is Samir Shah and I ought to declare an interest here, as Samir is a longstanding mate of mine.
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But don’t let that put you off. You shouldn’t hold that against him.
Because Samir is a first-rate journalist who has made some terrific TV documentaries.
He was also boss of the BBC’s political coverage at a time when you could just about believe what you were being told by the correspondents.
He’s got a wicked sense of humour and doesn’t have much time for the identity politics and tokenism with which the BBC seems obsessed.
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Together with Tim Davie, the Director-General, he may just be able to set the bloated corporation on a rather better course.
And burst the left-wing, middle-class, metropolitan bubble that surrounds its staff of more than 20,000.
But what an in-tray Samir has. Just a few weeks ago, media regulator Ofcom said working-class viewers and listeners were deserting the BBC in their droves.
They felt Auntie no longer represented — or respected — their views or culture.
No kidding, dudes. We’ve been trying to tell the Beeb that for the best part of 20 years.
That report from Ofcom came at the same time as a decision from the BBC to give up the ghost on its late-evening current affairs programme, Newsnight.
The audience for this once-excellent show is about 20 per cent of what it was in 2000.
At the same time, Radio 4 has seen a similar slump in recent years.
The reasons are the same in both cases, although Newsnight has been worse by many degrees.
An obsession with gender, transgender and race issues has turned the audience away.
So, too, what seems to be a corrosive loathing of the Conservatives, which leads on Newsnight to grotesquely biased interviews.
On Radio 4, leftie-liberal politics intrude into seemingly every programme, not just the news.
This is present in the dramas, in the woeful comedies, in the programmes on what should be politically neutral topics such as food and drink, books and films.
Samir may have a headstart with Radio 4, as his half brother is the controller. Have a quiet word, old mate.
Then there’s the bias in news reporting across the output.
The Israel/Hamas war has shown just how bad that can be, with the BBC castigated even by the liberal-minded Jewish Board of Deputies.
One of the reasons for the unbalanced coverage has been the astonishing fact the corporation employs a whole bunch of Palestinian nationals, living in Gaza and the West Bank, as correspondents.
There are no Israeli nationals as correspondents. How can that possibly be right?
It comes from the very woke idea that journalists in foreign countries, especially Africa and the Middle East, should actually hail from those countries.
It is an obnoxious policy and the Israel/Gaza crisis has shown it has failed.
Then, Samir, if you have time, trim the number of self-serving middle managers.
And encourage the BBC to be innovative with its dramas and comedies and not choose stuff which just reinforces the fatuous political line the producers agree with. Take a risk.
Oh, and there’s so much more — and that’s before we get to the issue of the licence fee and how the BBC adapts to a completely changed market.
You’ve got a lot on your plate, Samir. But you deserve the job and I know you’ll be brilliant.
Hell, who knows, you might even save the BBC.
OUT OF ORDER, SUSAN
AMERICAN actress Susan Sarandon is getting even more annoying than she was in Thelma & Louise.
She is the perfect example of the dim-witted leftie-luvvie.
Latest thing is, she’s been at a pro-Palestine rally suggesting that Jewish people didn’t know anything about suffering.
Which would come as a surprise to the relatives of those six million people who were murdered in the Holocaust.
As well as the relatives of those butchered by Hamas’s savagery on October 7.
The result is, she’s now been dropped from a new film and her agent has told her to get stuffed.
Now, I don’t agree with people being cancelled for the things they say, however stupid they might be.
Problem is, as a right-on leftie, Sarandon DOES deserve it.
What goes around comes around, Louise – now just watch out for that cliff.
I READ that nobody turned out to commiserate with Nella Rose when she was booted off I’m A Celeb.
Even her relatives stayed well away. If I were unfortunate enough to be her relative, I’d have kept my head down too.
Truth is, I’m not entirely sure why she was on there in the first place.
Celebrity? Really?
THE basket-state leftie banana republic of Venezuela is now mobilising its army.
Some experts think it’s about to invade the neighbouring South American country of Guyana, a former British colony.
Guyana owns a piece of land which the Venezuelans quite fancy, it being full of oil.
Bit by bit, the world is dividing into two.
There are the democracies, which side with the US and the West.
And then there are the tyrannies which, like Venezuela, have close links to Iran, Russia and China.
You can count most of Africa and a hefty proportion of Asia in that second camp.
Which means that we are very heavily outnumbered.
THE new Home Secretary, James Cleverly, is saying the right things.
Raising the wage level for skilled labour coming into the country is the right thing to do.
So is banning dependants coming over as well.
Cleverly suggests he might be able to cut immigration by 300,000 a year, largely as a consequence of this new policy.
But already the lawyers are getting involved. They suggest it might violate the human rights of those who do come here.
The answer, then, is simple. Don’t come here.
Clue to why Richmond people are happy? It’s is in the name
WELL, would you believe it?
The people of Richmond upon Thames, in South West London, are the happiest in the country, according to a new survey.
Isn’t that strange. Is it the noble deer in Richmond Park that makes them so delighted?
Or maybe ready access to a dip in the Thames?
I’m sure both of those things help.
But the real reason is that they are absolutely bleedin’ rolling in it.
To be able to afford a place to live in Richmond, you need one of the top salaries in the country.
Sad though it may be, it’s wealth that makes people really happy.
BOJO’S NOT TO BLAME
THE public inquiry into the Covid pandemic was explicitly NOT meant to apportion blame.
It was intended to be something we could all learn from, etc etc.
But it has become a blame fest – if you’re a Tory politician, but not if you’re a scientist.
Today it was Boris Johnson’s turn to get beaten about the head.
Bojo was repentant. He said: “Inevitably, in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms on either side of the decision, we may have made mistakes.”
He added: “I take personal responsibility for all the decisions that we made.”
Thing is, though, I suspect his instincts throughout the pandemic were more right than wrong.
Opposing the scientists who were demanding yet another lockdown at Christmas 2021 was possibly the best decision he ever made as Prime Minister.
OFF THE SOFAS, IDLERS
ONE of the big mistakes the Government made during the pandemic was furlough.
Letting people sit at home watching re-runs of Cash In The Attic but still getting paid.
The problem now is that people STILL don’t want to return to work.
According to a study by the Bank of International Settlements, furlough has caused a major economic problem for the UK.
Fewer people have returned to work than in other countries. And those to have now returned work fewer days per week.
The crisis is particularly bad in the hospitality sector.
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The bosses need to get a bit more involved, and sanction those who are still lolling around on the sofa half the week.
But higher wages might also be an incentive to get people off their a***s.