Bbc After Labour

[jammo]

Well exactly.

If you want some unbiased news, you probably should go to one of the news agencies such as Reuters.

Yeah but the point remains that a majority of the UK gets BBC news each day. Even if they read news from a range of sources, it still filters through. I would get my tech news from a range of several sites, my science news from a few online sources and journals, my political news from a few sites (some admittedly biased, but I at least know and can factor the bias), but with the Beeb, this is the everyman news. This should be unbiased. Why should I go on bbci today and hear about the fantastic news of house prices going up for the first time in years. What exactly is good about that? There's no question. Same with their political bias. It's insidious brainwashing, and just because they can. And mainly because the majority don't have the curiosity to look elsewhere. Perhaps some can only read the big font headlines or pictures, I don't know. All I know is pervasive and dumbed down news seems to have infiltrated the vernacular of the sheeple (for lack of a better word). It should therefore at least be balanced if it is all that the majority get.

[Super Mario]

Yeah but the point remains that a majority of the UK gets BBC news each day. Even if they read news from a range of sources, it still filters through. I would get my tech news from a range of several sites, my science news from a few online sources and journals, my political news from a few sites (some admittedly biased, but I at least know and can factor the bias), but with the Beeb, this is the everyman news. This should be unbiased. Why should I go on bbci today and hear about the fantastic news of house prices going up for the first time in years. What exactly is good about that? There's no question. Same with their political bias. It's insidious brainwashing, and just because they can. And mainly because the majority don't have the curiosity to look elsewhere. Perhaps some can only read the big font headlines or pictures, I don't know. All I know is pervasive and dumbed down news seems to have infiltrated the vernacular of the sheeple (for lack of a better word). It should therefore at least be balanced if it is all that the majority get.

I get your point. The thing is, the BBC isn't just the news. It's shows like Top Gear, Torchwood, Mitchell and Webb etc. And even for the news, it's not actually that hard to solve, just put someone in charge with balls to stand up for the bbc's editorial independence - it doesn't need to fundamentally change it's remit.

[jammo]

I get your point. The thing is, the BBC isn't just the news. It's shows like Top Gear, Torchwood, Mitchell and Webb etc. And even for the news, it's not actually that hard to solve, just put someone in charge with balls to stand up for the bbc's editorial independence - it doesn't need to fundamentally change it's remit.

Yeah that's right. I would perhaps see a change in 5-10% of programmes if that, but I would be interested to see these changes, how they occur. One or two shows may abruptly end, some new ones may occur. As an interest, it would be educational politically to observe what happens and at what pace. It might give clues as to what is happening at the core. That perversely interest me. Now I'm off to bed!

[Guest Steve Cook]

What does the BBC do after their puppermasters have gone? Do they brazenly start to pander to the new power? Do they simply roll over that easily, or do they undergo noticable changes. Roguishly off topic, I know. I just can't picture how they reconcile their clear Labour and HPI bias under a new leadership.

They will lick the ar*e of whoever their new paymaster is.

As always.

Don't you remember the 80s, when all the BBC backdrops were blue?

The BBC is, by definition, the whore of the state when if comes to dissemination of public "information". They are there to report on and maintain the status-quo.

As for the rest.... education, entertainment and the like, the BBC is probably still one of the best broadcasting companies in the world

Edited July 28, 2009 by Steve Cook

[keef]

They will lick the ar*e of whoever their new paymaster is.

As always.

Don't you remember the 80s, when all the BBC backdrops were blue?

The BBC is, by definition, the whore of the state when if comes to dissemination of public "information". They are there to report on and maintain the status-quo.

As for the rest.... education, entertainment and the like, the BBC is probably still one of the best broadcasting companies in the world

I disagree utterly with you, Steve. I don't pay the TV Tax simply because the BBC is the most hideously biased piece of shit imaginable & anyone who thinks they were Conservative leaning in the 1980s is mental.

[Super Mario]

I disagree utterly with you, Steve. I don't pay the TV Tax simply because the BBC is the most hideously biased piece of shit imaginable & anyone who thinks they were Conservative leaning in the 1980s is mental.

Name a better broadcaster? I bet you can't.

[MrPin]

They will lick the ar*e of whoever their new paymaster is.

As always.

Don't you remember the 80s, when all the BBC backdrops were blue?

The BBC is, by definition, the whore of the state when if comes to dissemination of public "information". They are there to report on and maintain the status-quo.

As for the rest.... education, entertainment and the like, the BBC is probably still one of the best broadcasting companies in the world

I am generally in agreement. The "PC" message of the Tory years was all about "privatisation", and deregulation".

I still think the factual programs are good, when indeed they are fact, and not just "what if" opinion.

[D.C.]

The BBC tv is 100% biased towards Labour, braindead propaganda driven garbage.

The surface of the BBC website is also heavily biased. There are on occasions some good bits buried on there, but the surface is pure propaganda again.

Content on the website and iplayer is regularly reedited if it is too 'off message'.

Two examples of this, the initial report of Brown getting photographed in front of nazi flags was quite critical of him, listed recent PR disasters and featured the nazi flag picture at the top of the article. About 60 minutes after it appeared it was pulled, the critical bits removed, the picture replaced with a smiling picture of Gordon Brown at the school.

When the original coverage of the olympic torch in London was aired the BBC coverage was 25 minutes of demonstraters, interviews with demonstraters etc and about 5 minutes of talks with atheletes. When it first appeared on Iplayer the program was as aired. Two days later it was pulled off Iplayer for 12 hours and then reappeared. The new version 29 minutes of 'aspirational' atheletes and smiling with a 20 second mention that oh, by the way some silly people demonstrated about something during the wonderful day.

Radio 3 / radio 4 are more balanced, with both left & right concepts discussed intelligently.

Channel 4 tv news is miles better, almost like a different country.

Aljazeera and Christian Science Monitor ( !) do a better job of reporting factual news then the BBC does.

They do make bloomin good nature documentaries though.

[Bob Loblaw]

I have not detected any bias towards labour from the BBC as a whole - news etc. I know that radio 4 and suchlike has quite a lot of leftie PC influence, but Labour is now a right-wing party anyway.

I think back to the later years of the last Tory government when Michael Hestletine used to get a lot of airtime during which he used to be very good at completely undermining the interviewer and totally evading all questions. And yet he kept being invited back.

"Do you like coffee"

"It's not a matter of what I like or what I like. What you have to realise is that I came here to discuss tea. The terms of reference for this interview clearly stated that the subject would be tea"

Ill tell you what I wont do

skip to 4:28

[Cogs]

It depends what Murdoch wants really, its his campaign and his money behind all this.

In the 1980s Maggie dealt with the BBC, it was really just a question of stacking the various appointments. She was the first PM to do this sort of thing, previously it had been considered a matter of honour to leave these things alone. But then previously nobody had practised such a divisive form of politics capable of generating such bad press. Labour to some extent have done the same since, for the Tories themselves they can just reverse this as the relevant vacancies come up.

There is apparently an argument recently that Murdoch feels he has gone a little far because if the BBC were to fall it would expose him to far greater scrutiny in terms of competition; this is is similar to the situation with MS and Apple back in the pre-iPod PPC,pre-iPhone, pre-iMac era (ie. during SJ's absence), and why MS ostensibly against their interests fed Apple with regular MS Office updates to keep them in the game. It depends what Murdoch decides and I'm sure he will instruct David Cameron appropriately to those ends.

I expect on balance they'll just find ways of systematically weakening the BBC financially rather than killing it off. Freezing and then top slicing, probably finding a way of confiscating the BBC Worldwide money etc. These tactics worked with the viable public utilities in the 80s, they will work again. The easiest way to deal with news coverage you consider 'biased' is to put people in the position of having to ditch their journalists and just handle stuff they get from wire agencies and press releases.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Cogs

[BlinkTooFast]

I really hope not. I've seen a lot of tv around the world and the BBC just cannot be beaten - no other broadcaster even comes close.

I agree, and will cite two counts. Personally my political views align somewhere near Old Tories, so currently somewhere between BlooLab and UKIP, so no, I am not writing this to support RedLab but I AM writing this to defend BBC.

1/ I spent time in and travelling between UAE, UK and US in the time between the recent military actions in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and could compare all three national news services. UAE news was biased one way, US news the other, and BBC surprisingly neutral considering the UK had been and would be wading in.

2/ The majority of the UK newsapers are Tory rags, so if you are influenced by those (and it's difficult not to be if you see them), they will distort your believed neutral position towards BlooLab, so even if the BBC were 100% neutral, then you will appear to be biased towards Labour.

[Second Time Around]

To return to the question in the OP. I expect no change under the Conservatives ie. I will have to pay a TV licence or face going to jail.

What I'd like to see is pay as you view for all TV.

[Minos]

DC should implement a night of the long knives, starting on election night, otherwise I'll view him as a pussy. The BBC should be sold off completely within four years. If he fails to do so then the Tories will have revealed they are the flip side of the same coin as Labour and it will be time to vote for someone new.

[aa3]

DC should implement a night of the long knives, starting on election night, otherwise I'll view him as a pussy. The BBC should be sold off completely within four years. If he fails to do so then the Tories will have revealed they are the flip side of the same coin as Labour and it will be time to vote for someone new.

I feel the Tories are in total agreement with New Labour on the direction of the country, so the ideology of the BBC would remain the same. From free trade, to the war on terrorism, to mass immigration/multi-culturalism, to global warming, to heavy regulations. Sure they have their odd differences over specifics, but the same could be said of like different factions of any party. What I could see is some journalists who are 100% of the time pro-labour and anti-tory out of pure braindead partisanship, they will get sacked or early retirement or some such.

I think many people in the country are in your camp, they are going to vote for Mr. Cameron and give the mainstream one last chance to turn things around. But if its business as usual and the country keeps going downhill, in 2015 people are goign to go outside the mainstream.

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

What does the BBC do after their puppermasters have gone? Do they brazenly start to pander to the new power? Do they simply roll over that easily, or do they undergo noticable changes. Roguishly off topic, I know. I just can't picture how they reconcile their clear Labour and HPI bias under a new leadership.

You're making an assumption that the Conservative Party is conservative

It isn't

It is NuLabour Lite

Cameron is just a pretty boy PR stooge for the same behind the scenes powers that shape the socio-economic and political systems of all three of the main parties

It'll make no difference.

NuLabour are not the puppetmasters of the BBC, the state is. The state controls all the main political parties AND the BBC

We live in a totalitarian state.........we just have credit cards and 200 channels of crap on TV to disguise it and the fact that our democracy is a charade. Don't be fooled by notion that the state must mass murder people to qualify for the status of a totalitarian state. If people stopped believing their fairy tales and revolted, they would murder the people en masse. They don't need to because the bovine masses placidly accept they are free and have choices, fekkn morons.

And besides, The UK and USA have murdered millions in foreign nations for decades in pursuit of their ambitions and power games. Don't imagine they wont do the same thing to you, a British citizen, because they will.......If they need to.

[Minos]

I feel the Tories are in total agreement with New Labour on the direction of the country, so the ideology of the BBC would remain the same. From free trade, to the war on terrorism, to mass immigration/multi-culturalism, to global warming, to heavy regulations. Sure they have their odd differences over specifics, but the same could be said of like different factions of any party. What I could see is some journalists who are 100% of the time pro-labour and anti-tory out of pure braindead partisanship, they will get sacked or early retirement or some such.

I think many people in the country are in your camp, they are going to vote for Mr. Cameron and give the mainstream one last chance to turn things around. But if its business as usual and the country keeps going downhill, in 2015 people are goign to go outside the mainstream.

Like you say, one last chance then a true test of democracy.

[Minos]

You're making an assumption that the Conservative Party is conservative

It isn't

It is NuLabour Lite

Cameron is just a pretty boy PR stooge for the same behind the scenes powers that shape the socio-economic and political systems of all three of the main parties

It'll make no difference.

NuLabour are not the puppetmasters of the BBC, the state is. The state controls all the main political parties AND the BBC

We live in a totalitarian state.........we just have credit cards and 200 channels of crap on TV to disguise it and the fact that our democracy is a charade. Don't be fooled by notion that the state must mass murder people to qualify for the status of a totalitarian state. If people stopped believing their fairy tales and revolted, they would murder the people en masse. They don't need to because the bovine masses placidly accept they are free and have choices, fekkn morons.

And besides, The UK and USA have murdered millions in foreign nations for decades in pursuit of their ambitions and power games. Don't imagine they wont do the same thing to you, a British citizen, because they will.......If they need to.

How's Oregon? My biggest disappointment with it is that it has the internet.

[Johnny Storm]

Name a better broadcaster? I bet you can't.

Sky.

Frankly I dont care what happens to the BBC, I just want them to stop forcing me to pay for shit I dont want to watch.

Ive been doing an experiment this last fortnight, trying not to watch any broadcast tv. All I really watch is Sky News anyway. Whenever I wonder whats been going on I put it on and I seem to drop on Childrens News Time, you might know it as the sports coverage.

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

How's Oregon? My biggest disappointment with it is that it has the internet.

My biggest disappointment is that I have to fly back to the fekkn Boot Camp known as the United Kingdom on saturday

I can't tell you how much I am hating the prospect after being here, enjoying the relative freedom, the non-existent crime, being able to leave my home without locking the door, and the weather......which has been wonderful

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

Name a better broadcaster? I bet you can't.

There aren't any good broadcasting companies in the UK, just as there aren't any worthwhile political parties.

It's all about the illusion of choice when there is NONE

Take a look at pretty well every High Street in the UK and you'll see the same corporate chain stores. We are told we have choices. In reality there are none. Same with politics, the media and consumerism. Corporatism and 'democracy' masquerading as freedom of choice

You don't have any choices, you have owners, now be a good, dumb bovine moron, switch on the tube and watch 200 channels of crap masquerading as choice and flash your wallet full of plastic to the corporate gods of consumerism.

When you're done, go buy an overpriced house and sell yourself into debt slavery for the rest of your adult life

And above all, DON'T THINK.

[waitingandsaving]

They will lick the ar*e of whoever their new paymaster is.

As always.

Don't you remember the 80s, when all the BBC backdrops were blue?

The BBC is, by definition, the whore of the state when if comes to dissemination of public "information". They are there to report on and maintain the status-quo.

As for the rest.... education, entertainment and the like, the BBC is probably still one of the best broadcasting companies in the world

+1 I seem to remember the colour changing about a week after the elections. I was young at the time, and automatically presumed that if you were in power the BBC changed the colourway to match. Will be more of a challenge now, as each of the BBC channels has there own colourway. But they could still get rid of the red news set, and put a nice calming blue one in... they could also bring back Moira Stewart.

[Reck B]

Scrap the fee. We shouldn't be forced to pay for anything which has a political agenda which the BBC clearly does.

Why would the conservatives allow the continued funding of a rivals media machine?

[jackalope]

Name a better broadcaster? I bet you can't.

A better broadcaster is any one that people can choose to pay for or not.

[dubsie]

What does the BBC do after their puppermasters have gone? Do they brazenly start to pander to the new power? Do they simply roll over that easily, or do they undergo noticable changes. Roguishly off topic, I know. I just can't picture how they reconcile their clear Labour and HPI bias under a new leadership.

They have always been government puppets. I can remember an interview with a BBC veteran some years ago and he talked about how the government has a screening office at the BBC that monitors all reported news....the government has the ability to pull a story when ever they want. Probably true about all news rooms but more so at the BBC.

[weebag]

I really hope not. I've seen a lot of tv around the world and the BBC just cannot be beaten - no other broadcaster even comes close.

Totally agree - whilst they are not perfect, and there HAS been a certain amount of dumbing down, its still the broadcaster of choice (for me at least).