Keir Starmer has privately vowed to face down any leadership challenge post-budget or May elections
Allies warn MPs of market chaos and say he won't quit if ministers demand he goes – but dare them to find 80 MPs and trigger a contest he'd fight
To be fair to him, unless Burnham returns to Parliament he is right. Streeting is a Starmer loyalist and won't run unless Starmer resigns, Rayner had to resign after an ethics breach on her part. So that leaves Ed Miliband, to whom if he challenges Starmer can say with some reason he won a landslide majority and 411 Labour MPs last year, while Miliband led Labour to just 232 MPs and its second worst general election defeat this century
EICIPM did not deliver the worst set of LE results since 1926.
SKS is going to in May
Self preservation amongst PLP will be a strong motivator.
Although of course it's too late as GE2029 is now a total wipeout with no sponge
SKS did of course deliver Labour's third-greatest election win only 18 months ago.
Meanwhile, a certain other leader we could mention delivered Labour's worst result since the abolition of plural voting...
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Perhaps unfairly, they’re like the Ratners of housebuilding.
Very unfairly. Lawrie Barratt made a fortune by creating homes that people wanted to live in. Mock Tudor might have horrified critics but clearly not the general public.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They could not change the reported testimony of rape victims for ideological reasons?
Stig Abell talking to John Pienaar on Times Radio this afternoon said there is overwhelming support for keeping the two child benefit cap:
Support 60%, Oppose 24% (presumably Don't Know 16%)
This is the first time I have ever heard anybody on any TV or radio station state this.
In every report I've ever heard on the subject reporters have just assumed everyone will favour more generous handouts.
This is Badenoch's big chance. Immediately after the Budget she and every Conservative spokesman has to repeat over and over again in every single interview:
"Your income tax is going up to pay increased benefits to people with more than two children."
It will cut through - because it's something everyone can very easily understand.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Perhaps unfairly, they’re like the Ratners of housebuilding.
Very unfairly. Lawrie Barratt made a fortune by creating homes that people wanted to live in. Mock Tudor might have horrified critics but clearly not the general public.
Keir Starmer has privately vowed to face down any leadership challenge post-budget or May elections
Allies warn MPs of market chaos and say he won't quit if ministers demand he goes – but dare them to find 80 MPs and trigger a contest he'd fight
To be fair to him, unless Burnham returns to Parliament he is right. Streeting is a Starmer loyalist and won't run unless Starmer resigns, Rayner had to resign after an ethics breach on her part. So that leaves Ed Miliband, to whom if he challenges Starmer can say with some reason he won a landslide majority and 411 Labour MPs last year, while Miliband led Labour to just 232 MPs and its second worst general election defeat this century
EICIPM did not deliver the worst set of LE results since 1926.
SKS is going to in May
Self preservation amongst PLP will be a strong motivator.
Although of course it's too late as GE2029 is now a total wipeout with no sponge
Why should we listen to anyone who doesn’t know how tenses work?
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They could not change the reported testimony of rape victims for ideological reasons?
Could you give me a link for that? I haven't heard that before so would be interested.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Whilst I'm generally in favour of public sector pay restraint, could we start paying prison officers, probation officers, and social workers a proper fucking wage? Surely it would pay dividends.
Number 3 is important and worth highlighting. If the devil catches you with your pants down, you can't claim innocence by attacking the devil.
The 'sinister Reform/Boris Johnson/far right/Jewish Chronicle/etc (delete where appropriate) agenda within the BBC board' argument is only relevant to this particular matter if Robbie Gibb himself edited the Panorama footage, promoted Stonewall talking points as gospel, and ordered BBC Arabic to favour Hamas. Otherwise the original criticisms need to be addressed.
I want the BBC to survive as a national broadcaster. I pay the licence fee and am happy to continue to do so. I value its output and consider it a national asset. But to keep its status it needs to meet certain standards.
The BBC is not claiming innocence though is it? Indeed, as far as I am aware, the BBC has not mentioned the agenda of those leading the attack.
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews First Trump attacks the BBC, now the Russians: ‘Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticised the BBC as "beyond redemption," accusing it of falsifying Russia-related stories. She says the BBC "fabricated" its coverage of events in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.’
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews And now Israel. Here’s part of a statement from its London embassy: ‘For years, we have repeatedly warned about the BBC’s consistent failures to uphold the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity expected from a public broadcaster.’
And this is why the BBC has f*cked up so badly. They’ve given the enemies of truth a massive weapon. And so unnecessarily
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
On the BBC and bias -
Until this happened there were non-stop complaints from the Left about giving Reform too much airtime and not questioning Farage hard enough. Also sane washing Trump. And attacking promoting stories that attacked the government.
Some SNP types on here suddenly discovered a love for Auntiee, as well.
Au contraire, I think the BBC (particularly the North Brit version) is as shit as I ever did, it’s just that there are even worse and lower quality people slavering over their travails.
I know that Unionists in anything other than name only are a dying breed, but some who clapped on the Beeb’s perpetual bias against the SNP (not to mention Corbyn) have suddenly discovered things they don’t like about a ‘great’ British institution. They may come to regret that.
Still, at least the Royal Family are as magnificent as ever.
I'm wondering who those SNP types are ... talking about Radio Shortbread, I was reading this the other day.
The second is just stupid bollocks by some careless junior, not worth losing much sleep over, still less suing BBC Shortbread for 500kpounds, but the first does require some fairly deliberate absence of critical thinking.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They could not change the reported testimony of rape victims for ideological reasons?
Could you give me a link for that? I haven't heard that before so would be interested.
Q: “Can you clarify where you said the Presidential Medal of Freedom is better than the Congressional Medal of Honor? Many veterans are upset about that”
TRUMP: “People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor are often horribly wounded or dead...”
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
True- though that doesn't mean that the criticisms are wrong, or even silly. (Though some, like the 'where was the balancing documentary on what's bad about Harris?' surely were.)
Yes agreed. The Panorama edit was poor but hardly a 'phone-hacking' level crime. You'd think maybe a retraction and apology would be in order.
I'm reminded of a comment made by a Private Eye hack that many newspaper corrections add to the inaccuracy of the newspaper publishing the correction. (Yes, that seems paradoxical, but consider that the correction will be steered by one participant in the story.)
I suspect that the Prescott report, by highlighting certain imbalances that some people see in BBC coverage, is having much the same effect.
Classic attacking the messenger there. Basically there are far too many people on here who either believe the BBC can do no wrong or, if they do wrong it is only against people you don't like anyway do it doesn’t matter.
You are just another bunch of apologists for your own special interests and it is amusing that you end up using many of the excuses Cyclefree highlights in her excellent article.
Cyclefree lists a bunch of things she's not really going to allow in defence of the BBC. Well that's like charging someone with a crime and then saying we're not allowing any of the usual defences like an alibi, CCTV, DNA evidence, witness statements, lack of motivation or opportunity, etc.
Just because @Cyclefree has listed them in a pre-emptive strike, it doesn't invalidate genuinely important points. Indeed most of her headlines have some validity in this case.
Most of all this was without doubt: 3. An attack by those with an agenda.
The so-called defences, that @Cyclefree are disallowing, are the generic bullshit reactions of organisations trying to shrug off problems.
Sorry, Timmy, you can't use "The Dog Ate My Homework" as an excuse.
@Benpointer is I am sorry to say talking nonsense because he has done what so many organisations do: formed his opinion (a right wing attack) without any regard to the underlying facts relevant to the criticisms. Also he thinks only an employee can be a whistleblower. Not true.
What I have set out are not in any sense "defences". They are the very common reactions to criticisms. They are hopeless. The best defence is evidence which shows the criticism to be wrong. That is precisely what the BBC is not doing. It is being its own worst enemy by not engaging properly with the criticisms and either accepting them, where valid, and putting matters right or explaining why they are wrong. It is a great pity.
As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others. The conflict of interest determining how women's rights should be discussed is much more serious both because it has been longer lasting but also because such conflicts are always by definition more serious and harder to resolve. It is notable that it is the one area which the BBC and many of its defenders have ignored in their responses. What's the agenda there?
I wrote this as a critical friend. It pains me to see organisations make such a hash of their responses to problems like this. It is not hard to get it right. It is so easy to get it wrong and it shouldn't be because so much should have been learnt from others. And there are lots of people who could help them get it right professionally. But too many organisations are too arrogant, stupid or panicky to realise that they need help. And so we see the shitshow we've been seeing in the last few days.
And those who will do anything to destroy the best of the BBC will get their chance. It is so important to distinguish between the destroyers and critical friends. The BBC needs critical friends right now. The John Simpsons and others are not being critical friends. They are reinforcing the impression of an arrogant aloof organisation which thinks it knows best. It is a great pity.
That makes sense.
But I'm now even more puzzled by the reference to the PO etc, and their respective investigations in the header.
Number 3 is important and worth highlighting. If the devil catches you with your pants down, you can't claim innocence by attacking the devil.
The 'sinister Reform/Boris Johnson/far right/Jewish Chronicle/etc (delete where appropriate) agenda within the BBC board' argument is only relevant to this particular matter if Robbie Gibb himself edited the Panorama footage, promoted Stonewall talking points as gospel, and ordered BBC Arabic to favour Hamas. Otherwise the original criticisms need to be addressed.
I want the BBC to survive as a national broadcaster. I pay the licence fee and am happy to continue to do so. I value its output and consider it a national asset. But to keep its status it needs to meet certain standards.
The BBC is not claiming innocence though is it? Indeed, as far as I am aware, the BBC has not mentioned the agenda of those leading the attack.
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews First Trump attacks the BBC, now the Russians: ‘Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticised the BBC as "beyond redemption," accusing it of falsifying Russia-related stories. She says the BBC "fabricated" its coverage of events in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.’
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews And now Israel. Here’s part of a statement from its London embassy: ‘For years, we have repeatedly warned about the BBC’s consistent failures to uphold the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity expected from a public broadcaster.’
And this is why the BBC has f*cked up so badly. They’ve given the enemies of truth a massive weapon. And so unnecessarily
The BBC became the enemy of the BBC.
If you want a reputation for balance and integrity, you have to welcome questioning of your balance and integrity. It has to be part of your day-to-day way of life. You have to work at it, all the time.
Not a Lesson That Will Be Learnt.
You have to love the struggle. Perfect Impartiality is impossible - but the journey is a useful one.
Number 3 is important and worth highlighting. If the devil catches you with your pants down, you can't claim innocence by attacking the devil.
The 'sinister Reform/Boris Johnson/far right/Jewish Chronicle/etc (delete where appropriate) agenda within the BBC board' argument is only relevant to this particular matter if Robbie Gibb himself edited the Panorama footage, promoted Stonewall talking points as gospel, and ordered BBC Arabic to favour Hamas. Otherwise the original criticisms need to be addressed.
I want the BBC to survive as a national broadcaster. I pay the licence fee and am happy to continue to do so. I value its output and consider it a national asset. But to keep its status it needs to meet certain standards.
The BBC is not claiming innocence though is it? Indeed, as far as I am aware, the BBC has not mentioned the agenda of those leading the attack.
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews First Trump attacks the BBC, now the Russians: ‘Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticised the BBC as "beyond redemption," accusing it of falsifying Russia-related stories. She says the BBC "fabricated" its coverage of events in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.’
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews And now Israel. Here’s part of a statement from its London embassy: ‘For years, we have repeatedly warned about the BBC’s consistent failures to uphold the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity expected from a public broadcaster.’
And this is why the BBC has f*cked up so badly. They’ve given the enemies of truth a massive weapon. And so unnecessarily
A couple of seats in the House of Lords, surely was worth it? They will sit on the unheard committees writing a report on the enemies of truth. The occasional piece on an 'arts' channel about how good the BBC was.
Meta’s chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun, a Turing Award winner who is considered one of the pioneers of modern AI, has told associates he will leave the Silicon Valley group in the coming months
Your joking....not another one.
At what point does Zuck realise that these guys want serious equity in the business, not just a telephone number salary?
More I think that LeCun was expected to report to one of the younger newbies being paid stupid money. Pretty insulting if he has any kind of ego.
Not a bad idea. Given the threat to the BBC, it would be an advantage to the corporation to have someone who understands where its critics (on the right) are coming from.
Number 3 is important and worth highlighting. If the devil catches you with your pants down, you can't claim innocence by attacking the devil.
The 'sinister Reform/Boris Johnson/far right/Jewish Chronicle/etc (delete where appropriate) agenda within the BBC board' argument is only relevant to this particular matter if Robbie Gibb himself edited the Panorama footage, promoted Stonewall talking points as gospel, and ordered BBC Arabic to favour Hamas. Otherwise the original criticisms need to be addressed.
I want the BBC to survive as a national broadcaster. I pay the licence fee and am happy to continue to do so. I value its output and consider it a national asset. But to keep its status it needs to meet certain standards.
The BBC is not claiming innocence though is it? Indeed, as far as I am aware, the BBC has not mentioned the agenda of those leading the attack.
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews First Trump attacks the BBC, now the Russians: ‘Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticised the BBC as "beyond redemption," accusing it of falsifying Russia-related stories. She says the BBC "fabricated" its coverage of events in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.’
John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews And now Israel. Here’s part of a statement from its London embassy: ‘For years, we have repeatedly warned about the BBC’s consistent failures to uphold the standards of accuracy, impartiality, and integrity expected from a public broadcaster.’
And this is why the BBC has f*cked up so badly. They’ve given the enemies of truth a massive weapon. And so unnecessarily
The BBC became the enemy of the BBC.
If you want a reputation for balance and integrity, you have to welcome questioning of your balance and integrity. It has to be part of your day-to-day way of life. You have to work at it, all the time.
Not a Lesson That Will Be Learnt.
You have to love the struggle. Perfect Impartiality is impossible - but the journey is a useful one.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Whilst I'm generally in favour of public sector pay restraint, could we start paying prison officers, probation officers, and social workers a proper fucking wage? Surely it would pay dividends.
The government should name Trevor Philips as new BBC DG, give him a licence to clean house and bring back impartiality.
I think that is an excellent idea. I have a huge amount of time for Trevor Philips.
iirc the BBC Board decides the DG?
Indeed. And I am not sure Philips would be the government's choice anyway. Doesn't stop him being an excellent candidate.
Isn't Robbie Gibb likely to want someone like Richard Littlejohn as DG?
Sadly yes.
What about Andrew Neil?
He is going to run the BBC from his villa in the South of France? He seems to be there full time now, every time I see him commenting on Times Radio he is there.
He’s also 76, and presumably quite likes working a couple of hours a day from home somewhere sunny.
In fact most of the names suggested so far are well past retirement age, for what’s very much a full-time executive position.
Who do we have aged 55-65 in the running?
The The Rest Is Entertainment shortlist mentioned upthread;
Alex Mahon 52 Charlotte Moore 57 Jay Hunt 58
which puts them in the right sort of age frame for a Chief Exec running things. (I'm sure that part of our problem as a nation is the generational bulge resenting the idea that policemen, bishops, newsreaders and BBC Director-Generals can be younger then they are.)
The DG is appointed by the BBC Board and Board members are in place until their term runs out. So Robbie Gibb will have a say, and based on reported events, a very strong say as he appears to dominate the other members.
So anyone from C4 can be ruled out
Other potential runners James Harding (think he's ruled himself out) Will Lewis?
Which is a pretty good illustration of what a dreadful appointment he was.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Whilst I'm generally in favour of public sector pay restraint, could we start paying prison officers, probation officers, and social workers a proper fucking wage? Surely it would pay dividends.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
That would be hilarious. We're already losing admin/support staff in .ac.uk because they don't qualify for the wages cut-off. Still, few borderline positive headlines in the Mail - probably worth it. Until the bad headlines about the downstream results come in.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Whilst I'm generally in favour of public sector pay restraint, could we start paying prison officers, probation officers, and social workers a proper fucking wage? Surely it would pay dividends.
The government should name Trevor Philips as new BBC DG, give him a licence to clean house and bring back impartiality.
I think that is an excellent idea. I have a huge amount of time for Trevor Philips.
iirc the BBC Board decides the DG?
Indeed. And I am not sure Philips would be the government's choice anyway. Doesn't stop him being an excellent candidate.
Isn't Robbie Gibb likely to want someone like Richard Littlejohn as DG?
Sadly yes.
What about Andrew Neil?
He is going to run the BBC from his villa in the South of France? He seems to be there full time now, every time I see him commenting on Times Radio he is there.
He’s also 76, and presumably quite likes working a couple of hours a day from home somewhere sunny.
In fact most of the names suggested so far are well past retirement age, for what’s very much a full-time executive position.
Who do we have aged 55-65 in the running?
The The Rest Is Entertainment shortlist mentioned upthread;
Alex Mahon 52 Charlotte Moore 57 Jay Hunt 58
which puts them in the right sort of age frame for a Chief Exec running things. (I'm sure that part of our problem as a nation is the generational bulge resenting the idea that policemen, bishops, newsreaders and BBC Director-Generals can be younger then they are.)
The DG is appointed by the BBC Board and Board members are in place until their term runs out. So Robbie Gibb will have a say, and based on reported events, a very strong say as he appears to dominate the other members.
So anyone from C4 can be ruled out
Other potential runners James Harding (think he's ruled himself out) Will Lewis?
Which is a pretty good illustration of what a dreadful appointment he was.
Given that Robbie Gibb appears to be controlling the entire BBC from a position on the board, even though everyone in the organisation doesn't like him.... Has anyone considered him for PM?
The government should name Trevor Philips as new BBC DG, give him a licence to clean house and bring back impartiality.
I think that is an excellent idea. I have a huge amount of time for Trevor Philips.
iirc the BBC Board decides the DG?
Indeed. And I am not sure Philips would be the government's choice anyway. Doesn't stop him being an excellent candidate.
Isn't Robbie Gibb likely to want someone like Richard Littlejohn as DG?
Sadly yes.
What about Andrew Neil?
He is going to run the BBC from his villa in the South of France? He seems to be there full time now, every time I see him commenting on Times Radio he is there.
He’s also 76, and presumably quite likes working a couple of hours a day from home somewhere sunny.
In fact most of the names suggested so far are well past retirement age, for what’s very much a full-time executive position.
Who do we have aged 55-65 in the running?
The The Rest Is Entertainment shortlist mentioned upthread;
Alex Mahon 52 Charlotte Moore 57 Jay Hunt 58
which puts them in the right sort of age frame for a Chief Exec running things. (I'm sure that part of our problem as a nation is the generational bulge resenting the idea that policemen, bishops, newsreaders and BBC Director-Generals can be younger then they are.)
The DG is appointed by the BBC Board and Board members are in place until their term runs out. So Robbie Gibb will have a say, and based on reported events, a very strong say as he appears to dominate the other members.
So anyone from C4 can be ruled out
Other potential runners James Harding (think he's ruled himself out) Will Lewis?
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
On the BBC and bias -
Until this happened there were non-stop complaints from the Left about giving Reform too much airtime and not questioning Farage hard enough. Also sane washing Trump. And attacking promoting stories that attacked the government.
Some SNP types on here suddenly discovered a love for Auntiee, as well.
Au contraire, I think the BBC (particularly the North Brit version) is as shit as I ever did, it’s just that there are even worse and lower quality people slavering over their travails.
I know that Unionists in anything other than name only are a dying breed, but some who clapped on the Beeb’s perpetual bias against the SNP (not to mention Corbyn) have suddenly discovered things they don’t like about a ‘great’ British institution. They may come to regret that.
Still, at least the Royal Family are as magnificent as ever.
I'm wondering who those SNP types are ... talking about Radio Shortbread, I was reading this the other day.
The second is just stupid bollocks by some careless junior, not worth losing much sleep over, still less suing BBC Shortbread for 500kpounds, but the first does require some fairly deliberate absence of critical thinking.
I think there are a lot of eg SNP, Green, lefty, woke and EUrophile types living in PB heads without reference to actual examples.
Your two examples sum up BBC Scotland; institutional bias, a reflexive need to report everything in Scotland being shite and generally poor quality reporting. Viewers in Scotland have their own programmes indeed.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Whilst I'm generally in favour of public sector pay restraint, could we start paying prison officers, probation officers, and social workers a proper fucking wage? Surely it would pay dividends.
Starting salary at Wormwood Scrubs is £44,474 for 41 hours a week.
What do you think it should be?
Apparently I was misinformed. Thought it was not much above min wage.
Cf Tube drivers though.
Getting to be a tube driver involves a very long queue. According to a friend who wanted to do this, the best way is to join Tfl and then get "in" with the union. The queue can be er.. jumped in certain circumstances.
In his case, he turned out to have such an aptitude for his work that he ended up a station master, while waiting. And earns more than a tube driver would.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
On the BBC and bias -
Until this happened there were non-stop complaints from the Left about giving Reform too much airtime and not questioning Farage hard enough. Also sane washing Trump. And attacking promoting stories that attacked the government.
Some SNP types on here suddenly discovered a love for Auntiee, as well.
Au contraire, I think the BBC (particularly the North Brit version) is as shit as I ever did, it’s just that there are even worse and lower quality people slavering over their travails.
I know that Unionists in anything other than name only are a dying breed, but some who clapped on the Beeb’s perpetual bias against the SNP (not to mention Corbyn) have suddenly discovered things they don’t like about a ‘great’ British institution. They may come to regret that.
Still, at least the Royal Family are as magnificent as ever.
I'm wondering who those SNP types are ... talking about Radio Shortbread, I was reading this the other day.
The second is just stupid bollocks by some careless junior, not worth losing much sleep over, still less suing BBC Shortbread for 500kpounds, but the first does require some fairly deliberate absence of critical thinking.
I think there are a lot of eg SNP, Green, lefty, woke and EUrophile types living in PB heads without reference to actual examples.
Your two examples sum up BBC Scotland; institutional bias, a reflexive need to report everything in Scotland being shite and generally poor quality reporting. Viewers in Scotland have their own programmes indeed.
Quite. Many of our Scots seem to be too independent/critical to be pigeonholed. And not just LG. I'm genuinely unsure how many of then would even vote SNP. Which adds to the interest of their comments.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
My answer would be - "Your company has exactly the reputation they have worked hard for. Invested billions in."
I know of no large company that is building quality.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
It makes a certain amount of sense, yes. But limiting investigational findings to facts that all parties can agree on is going to gloss over about 90% of the arguments about BBC News reporting.
That would probably be a good thing, but it wouldn't satisfy many people.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
Didn't we have one of our own snuff videos on here? Wasn't it Gallowgate and his new house with damp climbing up a wall because stupid?
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
Good read, and it illuminates a problem which I don't know how to solve: the ontological problem. She is correct when she says the BBC is at heart a one-to-many disseminator of the metropolitan middle-class worldview - The Voice Of (soppy middle-class) Britain, so to speak - and in the modern day when people align to supranational affinity groups instead of Britain, there is increasingly no place for this. What price The One Truth when there are now many truths and online wars are incessant over My Truth Is The Truth And Yours Isn't?
(I think John Gray mentioned something similar in a recent interview in the Staggers. He definitely mentioned the death of Keynesian economics as unachievable due to the lack of fixed boundaries)
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
Last time I had my boiler serviced I got chatting to the guy. Said he'd walked off a building site for 'Eco' houses in disgust. They were pinning ultra-eco-plus-plus insulation up, taking the required photo's/docs/whatever to get their certification, then peeling it back off the wall to pin to the next bit of the wall. Houses were basically left as shells.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
Last time I had my boiler serviced I got chatting to the guy. Said he'd walked off a building site for 'Eco' houses in disgust. They were pinning ultra-eco-plus-plus insulation up, taking the required photo's/docs/whatever to get their certification, then peeling it back off the wall to pin to the next bit of the wall. Houses were basically left as shells.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
You're half wrong.
This government has very great desire for more semi-arbitrary largesse.
I would suggest that a not inconsiderable number of Labour politicians think the answer to everything is more, and more again, semi-arbitrary largesse.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
The essential tenor of this government is that the courts are the third chamber of Parliament and the one to be deferred to. They have taken the place of the House of Lords, pre 1911.
This is despite the courts (including the Supreme Court) trying to make their position clear - that they are just interpreting the law.
The government seems to not to want to *make* law.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
My answer would be - "Your company has exactly the reputation they have worked hard for. Invested billions in."
I know of no large company that is building quality.
I’d never consider buying new build. The more I read and watch the videos the less enamoured I am with them. I have cycled round a few new build,sites by me. Hmmmm.
@Peston · 3m We are witnessing full-on Downing Street chaos tonight - which has led the official spokesman for the health secretary Wes Streeting to give me a formal statement denying that Streeting is plotting behind the scenes to oust the PM.
So many aspects of this are comic. But my favourite is that Kitty Ussher, who used to be a Labour Treasury minister and is now a senior director at Barclays, gave a presentation to all Labour special advisers, at the invitation of Downing Street officials, in which she said government bond prices were depressed because investors fear that Starmer and Reeves would be ousted.
The message from Ussher was “be loyal or government borrowing costs will go through the roof”.
So what has happened in the last few hours? Out of an almost clear blue sky Downing Street officials are warning that the plotters are out to get Starmer and Reeves, and that Starmer will fight them to the death.
Maybe they know something about an imminent Streeting coup that is hidden from the rest of us? That is possible.
What is very probable is that the price of government bonds, gilts, will fall tomorrow morning - which is a dreadful precursor to Reeves’s looming tax-raising budget.
This would be farcical if the potential economic damage wasn’t real.
And in case you are interested, here is Streeting’s “not me gov” statement: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs, and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
Good read, and it illuminates a problem which I don't know how to solve: the ontological problem. She is correct when she says the BBC is at heart a one-to-many disseminator of the metropolitan middle-class worldview - The Voice Of (soppy middle-class) Britain, so to speak - and in the modern day when people align to supranational affinity groups instead of Britain, there is increasingly no place for this. What price The One Truth when there are now many truths and online wars are incessant over My Truth Is The Truth And Yours Isn't?
(I think John Gray mentioned something similar in a recent interview in the Staggers. He definitely mentioned the death of Keynesian economics as unachievable due to the lack of fixed boundaries)
I'm still a big fan of the BBC approach to broadcasting despite not liking their recent woke turn.
@Peston · 3m We are witnessing full-on Downing Street chaos tonight - which has led the official spokesman for the health secretary Wes Streeting to give me a formal statement denying that Streeting is plotting behind the scenes to oust the PM.
So many aspects of this are comic. But my favourite is that Kitty Ussher, who used to be a Labour Treasury minister and is now a senior director at Barclays, gave a presentation to all Labour special advisers, at the invitation of Downing Street officials, in which she said government bond prices were depressed because investors fear that Starmer and Reeves would be ousted.
The message from Ussher was “be loyal or government borrowing costs will go through the roof”.
So what has happened in the last few hours? Out of an almost clear blue sky Downing Street officials are warning that the plotters are out to get Starmer and Reeves, and that Starmer will fight them to the death.
Maybe they know something about an imminent Streeting coup that is hidden from the rest of us? That is possible.
What is very probable is that the price of government bonds, gilts, will fall tomorrow morning - which is a dreadful precursor to Reeves’s looming tax-raising budget.
This would be farcical if the potential economic damage wasn’t real.
And in case you are interested, here is Streeting’s “not me gov” statement: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs, and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
On the subject of building - I wonder which will come first.
A structural collapse or another Grenfell style fire?
For all the regulation, there is no interest in enforcement. The cult of outsourcing means that the big name firms contract out multiple times, to the final company that is created to build a given project, then dissolved.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
The essential tenor of this government is that the courts are the third chamber of Parliament and the one to be deferred to. They have taken the place of the House of Lords, pre 1911.
This is despite the courts (including the Supreme Court) trying to make their position clear - that they are just interpreting the law.
The government seems to not to want to *make* law.
May I recommend Sumption's books and his 2019 Reith lectures?
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
Some answers
1. The BBC needs to distinguish between its obligations as employer to its staff & its obligations as journalists. The former means complying with the relevant legislation. It is not doing that even now. The latter means reporting facts not worrying about being "kind" & "nice" - Davie's words to a Select Committee. It has I think confused the two. This is not surprising because the police have done something similar & lost in court when challenged. As have other government departments. So this can - & must - be changed. It needs proper equality law advice. 2. The style guide should not be using terms provided by a one issue lobby group, moreover one which has - as any good equality lawyer will tell you - been providing misleading advice about the law. This is a conflict of interest because it's allowing its factual reporting to be determined by that group's agenda. This would be wrong no matter who the lobby group was. Would you want its reporting on social/ religious issues to be determined by Opus Dei or the Plymouth Brethren? Of course not. The language used has often been very unclear. 3. Choice of guests & topics covered. There are questions to be asked about why a number of topics relevant to this issue, covered elsewhere in the media, were not mentioned at all by the BBC. Who determines the choice of guests? Are they ensuring there is appropriate balance & that people who have knowledge of the subject are being invited on? 4. Are they accurately reporting what actually happened at certain events? Not always the case. 5. Sport - there has been a real issue with fairness in women's sport. Yet the Head of Sport came in saying that he thought there was no problem so the concerns raised were simply ignored. That might be his view but it implies bias. Sports journalists should be looking at the facts about sport, physical strength, effect on women etc not ignoring the issues because of the boss's view. 6. Big question this: why is it always described as trans rights when it is just as much about women's rights? More so, in fact given the SC judgment. It could be more accurately described as an issue of women & trans rights & the tension/clash between them for instance. But too often women are simply written out of the story not even mentioned as if the only issue is the effect on trans people. 8. How are they approaching this in childrens' programming? 9. Consistency - why were Justin Webb & Martine Croxall disciplined & Evan Davis not when he was as guilty of showing his opinion as she was?
And so on. It's narrow tightrope. But the BBC has been very poor at explaining what this issue has been about. It has often strayed into appearing to advocate for one side. IMO it has allowed a conflict of interest & sentimentality to skew its professionalism & has not realised this. It is doing it even now in its reporting of this.
Though interestingly its report on the Darlington nurses case today was much more factual & neutral.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They should not give any appearance of taking sides. They should keep their reports balanced and accurate.
Unfortunately, their current coverage does give the appearance of taking sides. Take, for example, a day in the Sandie Peggie case when a forensic expert gave evidence that showed Doctor Upton was lying. The BBC's initial report on their website carried the headline, "IT expert says trans doctor's phone claims 'not possible'" but this was rapidly toned down to "Trans tribunal phone notes were not checked in person". The first half of the report was taken up with a IT manager working for NHS Fife who didn't believe Upton was lying. The expert witness was downgraded to "another IT expert" with no mention of the fact he was a forensic expert witness of 20 years standing, far more qualified to comment on the evidence from Upton's phone than the IT manager. This is not an isolated incident. Much of their reporting on this tribunal has clearly cherry picked evidence and given a false impression of proceedings.
BBC Scotland has been much better than the BBC website - far more balanced. And by that I don't mean that BBC Scotland is supporting Sandie Peggie's side. They are not. They at least give the appearance of trying to present a balanced, accurate report of the tribunal.
@Peston · 3m We are witnessing full-on Downing Street chaos tonight - which has led the official spokesman for the health secretary Wes Streeting to give me a formal statement denying that Streeting is plotting behind the scenes to oust the PM.
So many aspects of this are comic. But my favourite is that Kitty Ussher, who used to be a Labour Treasury minister and is now a senior director at Barclays, gave a presentation to all Labour special advisers, at the invitation of Downing Street officials, in which she said government bond prices were depressed because investors fear that Starmer and Reeves would be ousted.
The message from Ussher was “be loyal or government borrowing costs will go through the roof”.
So what has happened in the last few hours? Out of an almost clear blue sky Downing Street officials are warning that the plotters are out to get Starmer and Reeves, and that Starmer will fight them to the death.
Maybe they know something about an imminent Streeting coup that is hidden from the rest of us? That is possible.
What is very probable is that the price of government bonds, gilts, will fall tomorrow morning - which is a dreadful precursor to Reeves’s looming tax-raising budget.
This would be farcical if the potential economic damage wasn’t real.
And in case you are interested, here is Streeting’s “not me gov” statement: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs, and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
2. The style guide should not be using terms provided by a one issue lobby group, moreover one which has - as any good equality lawyer will tell you - been providing misleading advice about the law. This is a conflict of interest because it's allowing its factual reporting to be determined by that group's agenda. This would be wrong no matter who the lobby group was. Would you want its reporting on social/ religious issues to be determined by Opus Dei or the Plymouth Brethren? Of course not. The language used has often been very unclear.
I always thought it was a weird one when something like Stonewall would provide training/guidance, or 'grade' employers. When even if they indeed made every effort to sincerely report on what they thought the law was, the very fact of being a lobbying organisation would introduce the risk that they would interpret things in a manner that fitted their desired aims.
Reading Prescott's comments in the BBC's US election coverage, it's notable that there isn't a single mention of Justin Webb, whose enthusiastic pro-Trump reporting was much commented on at the time. (Sarah Smith was also pretty positive about Trump, quite regularly.)
His analysis seems to me notably one sided, and doesn't reflect the balance of reporting at all, as I recall it.
@Peston · 3m We are witnessing full-on Downing Street chaos tonight - which has led the official spokesman for the health secretary Wes Streeting to give me a formal statement denying that Streeting is plotting behind the scenes to oust the PM.
So many aspects of this are comic. But my favourite is that Kitty Ussher, who used to be a Labour Treasury minister and is now a senior director at Barclays, gave a presentation to all Labour special advisers, at the invitation of Downing Street officials, in which she said government bond prices were depressed because investors fear that Starmer and Reeves would be ousted.
The message from Ussher was “be loyal or government borrowing costs will go through the roof”.
So what has happened in the last few hours? Out of an almost clear blue sky Downing Street officials are warning that the plotters are out to get Starmer and Reeves, and that Starmer will fight them to the death.
Maybe they know something about an imminent Streeting coup that is hidden from the rest of us? That is possible.
What is very probable is that the price of government bonds, gilts, will fall tomorrow morning - which is a dreadful precursor to Reeves’s looming tax-raising budget.
This would be farcical if the potential economic damage wasn’t real.
And in case you are interested, here is Streeting’s “not me gov” statement: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs, and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
True- though that doesn't mean that the criticisms are wrong, or even silly. (Though some, like the 'where was the balancing documentary on what's bad about Harris?' surely were.)
Yes agreed. The Panorama edit was poor but hardly a 'phone-hacking' level crime. You'd think maybe a retraction and apology would be in order.
I'm reminded of a comment made by a Private Eye hack that many newspaper corrections add to the inaccuracy of the newspaper publishing the correction. (Yes, that seems paradoxical, but consider that the correction will be steered by one participant in the story.)
I suspect that the Prescott report, by highlighting certain imbalances that some people see in BBC coverage, is having much the same effect.
Classic attacking the messenger there. Basically there are far too many people on here who either believe the BBC can do no wrong or, if they do wrong it is only against people you don't like anyway do it doesn’t matter.
You are just another bunch of apologists for your own special interests and it is amusing that you end up using many of the excuses Cyclefree highlights in her excellent article.
Cyclefree lists a bunch of things she's not really going to allow in defence of the BBC. Well that's like charging someone with a crime and then saying we're not allowing any of the usual defences like an alibi, CCTV, DNA evidence, witness statements, lack of motivation or opportunity, etc.
Just because @Cyclefree has listed them in a pre-emptive strike, it doesn't invalidate genuinely important points. Indeed most of her headlines have some validity in this case.
Most of all this was without doubt: 3. An attack by those with an agenda.
The so-called defences, that @Cyclefree are disallowing, are the generic bullshit reactions of organisations trying to shrug off problems.
Sorry, Timmy, you can't use "The Dog Ate My Homework" as an excuse.
@Benpointer is I am sorry to say talking nonsense because he has done what so many organisations do: formed his opinion (a right wing attack) without any regard to the underlying facts relevant to the criticisms. Also he thinks only an employee can be a whistleblower. Not true.
What I have set out are not in any sense "defences". They are the very common reactions to criticisms. They are hopeless. The best defence is evidence which shows the criticism to be wrong. That is precisely what the BBC is not doing. It is being its own worst enemy by not engaging properly with the criticisms and either accepting them, where valid, and putting matters right or explaining why they are wrong. It is a great pity.
As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others. The conflict of interest determining how women's rights should be discussed is much more serious both because it has been longer lasting but also because such conflicts are always by definition more serious and harder to resolve. It is notable that it is the one area which the BBC and many of its defenders have ignored in their responses. What's the agenda there?
I wrote this as a critical friend. It pains me to see organisations make such a hash of their responses to problems like this. It is not hard to get it right. It is so easy to get it wrong and it shouldn't be because so much should have been learnt from others. And there are lots of people who could help them get it right professionally. But too many organisations are too arrogant, stupid or panicky to realise that they need help. And so we see the shitshow we've been seeing in the last few days.
And those who will do anything to destroy the best of the BBC will get their chance. It is so important to distinguish between the destroyers and critical friends. The BBC needs critical friends right now. The John Simpsons and others are not being critical friends. They are reinforcing the impression of an arrogant aloof organisation which thinks it knows best. It is a great pity.
That makes sense.
But I'm now even more puzzled by the reference to the PO etc, and their respective investigations in the header.
Because I can point to exactly the same responses in those organisations when problems were pointed out to them.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
The essential tenor of this government is that the courts are the third chamber of Parliament and the one to be deferred to. They have taken the place of the House of Lords, pre 1911.
This is despite the courts (including the Supreme Court) trying to make their position clear - that they are just interpreting the law.
The government seems to not to want to *make* law.
It is surprising that governments have often seemed keen to not be seen to be the ones making decisions, and we play into that by seeing some things as not trusted to be decided by politicians, so they can end up being done by unaccountabel quangos instead, which can be appropriate at times, but other times is a cop out - plenty of things it is perfectly ok to have politicians make value judgements about, plenty of policy decisions are not technocratic exercises of pure objective assessment of evidence.
Is the Starmer No 10 even less competent than the Sunak regime? Or even (whisper it) the Truss regime? If bond prices collapse then we’re seeing Trussian levels of fiscal incompetence.
Truss made a single massive fuck-up & paid for it immediately. Starmer has (so far) been a long drawn-out demonstration of ineptitude. I’m not sure which is worse frankly.
Is it true the government is considering flip flopping and 'compensating' the WASPI campaigners after all?
Just undo one of the few good decisions they've made, I guess, to try to please the unpleasable.
Meanwhile the government is reviewing the state pension age, ie planning to increase it, and is continually floating ideas about increasing the taxation on the pension contributions and future pensions of current workers.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They should not give any appearance of taking sides. They should keep their reports balanced and accurate.
Unfortunately, their current coverage does give the appearance of taking sides. Take, for example, a day in the Sandie Peggie case when a forensic expert gave evidence that showed Doctor Upton was lying. The BBC's initial report on their website carried the headline, "IT expert says trans doctor's phone claims 'not possible'" but this was rapidly toned down to "Trans tribunal phone notes were not checked in person". The first half of the report was taken up with a IT manager working for NHS Fife who didn't believe Upton was lying. The expert witness was downgraded to "another IT expert" with no mention of the fact he was a forensic expert witness of 20 years standing, far more qualified to comment on the evidence from Upton's phone than the IT manager. This is not an isolated incident. Much of their reporting on this tribunal has clearly cherry picked evidence and given a false impression of proceedings...
That's something that's difficult to resolve in real time. Expert A says something is true, Expert B says something isn't true. How do you resolve this? Potted bios of both experts at the bottom of the article? The journalist saying "Expert B is really clever and Expert A smells of poo" whilst winking at the audience? The former retains impartiality, the latter abandons it.
Is the Starmer No 10 even less competent than the Sunak regime? Or even (whisper it) the Truss regime? If bond prices collapse then we’re seeing Trussian levels of fiscal incompetence.
Truss made a single massive fuck-up & paid for it immediately. Starmer has (so far) been a long drawn-out demonstration of ineptitude. I’m not sure which is worse frankly.
Oh for crying out loud!! Let's give everyone in the country a billion quid while we're at it so we can get the country's bankruptcy over and done with before Xmas.
As far as I can see, this is just an official reaction to some new legal guidance. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to pay anything (I think?).
So we might not get stung by the waspis?
I hope. It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
You're half wrong.
This government has very great desire for more semi-arbitrary largesse.
I would suggest that a not inconsiderable number of Labour politicians think the answer to everything is more, and more again, semi-arbitrary largesse.
Welfarism update:
One million more people are claiming Britain’s main out-of-work benefit without the requirement to look for a job than a year ago, figures show, as the number of claimants reached a record high.
The number of people on universal credit without the need to search for work has exceeded four million for the first time, in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer’s drive to get Britain back to work.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Why are so many overseas people being employed by prisons? (If that is what is happening).
There are fewer better paid jobs for people with no formal qualifications and only brief training.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
And easy pre 2021 under FoM. Unless one doesn't consider Polish prison officers to be foreign (which I suppose, for supporters of a federal Europe, is a perfectly legitimate view).
On the subject of building - I wonder which will come first.
A structural collapse or another Grenfell style fire?
For all the regulation, there is no interest in enforcement. The cult of outsourcing means that the big name firms contract out multiple times, to the final company that is created to build a given project, then dissolved.
On one hand, you're obviously right. (See also, the BBC fiascos we are talking about, the recent Have I Got News For You fiasco, subcontracted degree providers et cetera et cetera.) If outsourcing means that nobody can tell who is responsible, there is no reason for anyone to try to be responsible.
But given that outsourcing is clearly so convenient for businesses and their managers, what's the way to corral them back into sufficiently integrated organisations that it's clear who actually has to get things right?
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
My answer would be - "Your company has exactly the reputation they have worked hard for. Invested billions in."
I know of no large company that is building quality.
I’d never consider buying new build. The more I read and watch the videos the less enamoured I am with them. I have cycled round a few new build,sites by me. Hmmmm.
The late lamented @JosiasJessop had the odd horror story, too.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
2. The style guide should not be using terms provided by a one issue lobby group, moreover one which has - as any good equality lawyer will tell you - been providing misleading advice about the law. This is a conflict of interest because it's allowing its factual reporting to be determined by that group's agenda. This would be wrong no matter who the lobby group was. Would you want its reporting on social/ religious issues to be determined by Opus Dei or the Plymouth Brethren? Of course not. The language used has often been very unclear.
I always thought it was a weird one when something like Stonewall would provide training/guidance, or 'grade' employers. When even if they indeed made every effort to sincerely report on what they thought the law was, the very fact of being a lobbying organisation would introduce the risk that they would interpret things in a manner that fitted their desired aims.
It's a glaring conflict of interest and a breach of the Nolan Principles.
Stonewall are not lawyers and should never ever have been listened to on the law.
The Court of Appeal is considering in the Allison Bailey case whether Stonewall can be held liable for encouraging her set of chambers to unlawfully discriminate against her. If it does rule this way it will have quite an effect on such lobby groups. It is quite a technical argument and I would not like to speculate as to the outcome.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Why are so many overseas people being employed by prisons? (If that is what is happening).
There are fewer better paid jobs for people with no formal qualifications and only brief training.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
And easy pre 2021 under FoM. Unless one doesn't consider Polish prison officers to be foreign (which I suppose, for supporters of a federal Europe, is a perfectly legitimate view).
I think those would have residence as part of the Brexit deal. Its the Nigerians and Ghanaians under risk of deportation, quite a high percentage of Prison Officers.
I'm for once slightly less than fully convinced by a Cyclfree header.
In particular, this: What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised. What would that mean ?
The BBC spat seems to me (FWIW) significantly different to "the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City", in that what is being argued about isn't so much matters of fact, or even criminal malfeasance, as matters of contested political opinion on how a public news operation should be conducted.
I'd be interested in Cyclefree expanding on this.
I have a copy only through a gift article in the Telegraph. I have made a copy so if you really want to read it DM me.
As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider.
I don't think it at all hard to breakdown his accusations into factual matters which can be investigated and simple matters of opinion.
Then in the report you lay all that in detail and set out your conclusions and the reasons for them. It needs to be robust and evidenced. But a good investigative team can do that. And it would be a much better response to the accusations.
@Benpointer has made the point that it is all a right wing attack etc. I think he ignores the concern that left wing women have long had and expressed about the BBC's approach to women's rights. But I have 2 answers to his point.
1. The best answer to this is to be able to show that the factual basis for these attacks is unfounded. If indeed that is the case. Respond with evidenced facts. Let others draw the obvious conclusion that it's a malicious attack etc. Instead, the BBC is responding by saying the conclusion it would like to believe and leaving itself open to the obvious retort that how can it know unless it investigates and until it does it has no business saying otherwise.
And
2. It comes across as naive to complain about political attacks. These have been happening the entire time the BBC has been in existence. It should have developed by now a better way of responding than this.
I have done quite few highly sensitive investigations involving people right at the top of organisations brought by people with obvious - occasionally malicious - agendas. You can still do a bloody good investigation and get it accepted by all parties including, in the cases I'm thinking of, regulators and Swiss politicians. The BBC needs something like this. Because they are panicking now I guarantee you and at a time like this they need people like me who don't panic and can guide them through a time and process which is scary and uncertain and difficult. But it needs them to stop adopting this alternately machismo "we're brilliant" and defensive "poor us" approach.
Hope that helps.
What would the unbiased approach that the BBC could take on Women's/Trans rights? I'm not asking to be sparky but because I think that on highly polarised issues (as most seem to be these days) there's precious little neutral ground that the BBC can take that wouldn't annoy one side or the other.
They should not give any appearance of taking sides. They should keep their reports balanced and accurate.
Unfortunately, their current coverage does give the appearance of taking sides. Take, for example, a day in the Sandie Peggie case when a forensic expert gave evidence that showed Doctor Upton was lying. The BBC's initial report on their website carried the headline, "IT expert says trans doctor's phone claims 'not possible'" but this was rapidly toned down to "Trans tribunal phone notes were not checked in person". The first half of the report was taken up with a IT manager working for NHS Fife who didn't believe Upton was lying. The expert witness was downgraded to "another IT expert" with no mention of the fact he was a forensic expert witness of 20 years standing, far more qualified to comment on the evidence from Upton's phone than the IT manager. This is not an isolated incident. Much of their reporting on this tribunal has clearly cherry picked evidence and given a false impression of proceedings...
That's something that's difficult to resolve in real time. Expert A says something is true, Expert B says something isn't true. How do you resolve this? Potted bios of both experts at the bottom of the article? The journalist saying "Expert B is really clever and Expert A smells of poo" whilst winking at the audience. The former retains impartiality, the latter abandons it.
The IT manager called by NHS Fife was not an expert in mobile phone forensics, nor was he an expert witness. He did not give evidence that Upton's phone notes were contemporaneous as claimed. He simply said that he didn't believe Upton was lying and explained how he had observed some of the process by which Upton put together a set of screenshots of metadata from his phone. The forensic expert gave evidence that the metadata had clearly been tampered with and the phone notes could not possibly have been contemporaneous. This was not a case of two experts disagreeing.
As I say, BBC Scotland's report of this day was balanced and accurate. They got it right in real time, as did the local Scottish newspapers. The BBC website produced a report that was not balanced. And this is not an isolated incident for this tribunal. If you observed the hearings with an open mind then read the reports on the BBC website, you would think they must have been watching a different tribunal.
Edited to add, the IT manager called by Fife did not offer any evidence to support his belief that Upton was not lying. This was simply an unsupported expression of belief, similar to another Fife witness who claimed that she and Upton should both be believed because they are doctors, and doctors never lie.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Why are so many overseas people being employed by prisons? (If that is what is happening).
There are fewer better paid jobs for people with no formal qualifications and only brief training.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
And easy pre 2021 under FoM. Unless one doesn't consider Polish prison officers to be foreign (which I suppose, for supporters of a federal Europe, is a perfectly legitimate view).
I think those would have residence as part of the Brexit deal. Its the Nigerians and Ghanaians under risk of deportation, quite a high percentage of Prison Officers.
Oh yes, I didn't mean with regard to deportation. Just with regard to Andy's surprise that foreigners should have that particular job.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
True- though that doesn't mean that the criticisms are wrong, or even silly. (Though some, like the 'where was the balancing documentary on what's bad about Harris?' surely were.)
Yes agreed. The Panorama edit was poor but hardly a 'phone-hacking' level crime. You'd think maybe a retraction and apology would be in order.
I'm reminded of a comment made by a Private Eye hack that many newspaper corrections add to the inaccuracy of the newspaper publishing the correction. (Yes, that seems paradoxical, but consider that the correction will be steered by one participant in the story.)
I suspect that the Prescott report, by highlighting certain imbalances that some people see in BBC coverage, is having much the same effect.
Classic attacking the messenger there. Basically there are far too many people on here who either believe the BBC can do no wrong or, if they do wrong it is only against people you don't like anyway do it doesn’t matter.
You are just another bunch of apologists for your own special interests and it is amusing that you end up using many of the excuses Cyclefree highlights in her excellent article.
Cyclefree lists a bunch of things she's not really going to allow in defence of the BBC. Well that's like charging someone with a crime and then saying we're not allowing any of the usual defences like an alibi, CCTV, DNA evidence, witness statements, lack of motivation or opportunity, etc.
Just because @Cyclefree has listed them in a pre-emptive strike, it doesn't invalidate genuinely important points. Indeed most of her headlines have some validity in this case.
Most of all this was without doubt: 3. An attack by those with an agenda.
The so-called defences, that @Cyclefree are disallowing, are the generic bullshit reactions of organisations trying to shrug off problems.
Sorry, Timmy, you can't use "The Dog Ate My Homework" as an excuse.
@Benpointer is I am sorry to say talking nonsense because he has done what so many organisations do: formed his opinion (a right wing attack) without any regard to the underlying facts relevant to the criticisms. Also he thinks only an employee can be a whistleblower. Not true.
What I have set out are not in any sense "defences". They are the very common reactions to criticisms. They are hopeless. The best defence is evidence which shows the criticism to be wrong. That is precisely what the BBC is not doing. It is being its own worst enemy by not engaging properly with the criticisms and either accepting them, where valid, and putting matters right or explaining why they are wrong. It is a great pity.
As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others. The conflict of interest determining how women's rights should be discussed is much more serious both because it has been longer lasting but also because such conflicts are always by definition more serious and harder to resolve. It is notable that it is the one area which the BBC and many of its defenders have ignored in their responses. What's the agenda there?
I wrote this as a critical friend. It pains me to see organisations make such a hash of their responses to problems like this. It is not hard to get it right. It is so easy to get it wrong and it shouldn't be because so much should have been learnt from others. And there are lots of people who could help them get it right professionally. But too many organisations are too arrogant, stupid or panicky to realise that they need help. And so we see the shitshow we've been seeing in the last few days.
And those who will do anything to destroy the best of the BBC will get their chance. It is so important to distinguish between the destroyers and critical friends. The BBC needs critical friends right now. The John Simpsons and others are not being critical friends. They are reinforcing the impression of an arrogant aloof organisation which thinks it knows best. It is a great pity.
That makes sense.
But I'm now even more puzzled by the reference to the PO etc, and their respective investigations in the header.
Because I can point to exactly the same responses in those organisations when problems were pointed out to them.
There is a very large difference between (for example) ignoring claims of fraud, which are subsequently proved, and deflecting a claim of political bias in reporting, though.
My point is that the latter is far less amenable to being resolved by the kind of investigation you favour.
I wouldn't argue that the BBC is immune to the kind of vices you diagnose (indeed I submitted a complaint of my own regarding their US election coverage, which got a similar, in my view inadequate response).
It's more that getting any kind of consensus on where they are going wrong - or objectively investigating that - is going to be far more difficult.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
My answer would be - "Your company has exactly the reputation they have worked hard for. Invested billions in."
I know of no large company that is building quality.
I’d never consider buying new build. The more I read and watch the videos the less enamoured I am with them. I have cycled round a few new build,sites by me. Hmmmm.
The late lamented @JosiasJessop had the odd horror story, too.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Why are so many overseas people being employed by prisons? (If that is what is happening).
There are fewer better paid jobs for people with no formal qualifications and only brief training.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
And easy pre 2021 under FoM. Unless one doesn't consider Polish prison officers to be foreign (which I suppose, for supporters of a federal Europe, is a perfectly legitimate view).
I think those would have residence as part of the Brexit deal. Its the Nigerians and Ghanaians under risk of deportation, quite a high percentage of Prison Officers.
Oh yes, I didn't mean with regard to deportation. Just with regard to Andy's surprise that foreigners should have that particular job.
Most Prison Officers in Leicester seem to be White British, or maybe its just the ones who get put on hospital escort duty, which seems a popular duty. The convicts behave well too, it being a nice day out for them too.
Sadly it is, without doubt, “an attack by those with an agenda.”
This is not some staff member within the organisation whistleblowing.
Those who can't see that it's part of a concerted cultural attack by the right just don't want to see.
They kinda see it, except they’ve inserted ’forces of’ between ‘the’ and ‘right’. Gives them a warm, virtuous feeling while cackling manically over an institution they loathe getting a kicking.
If the BBc crashes and burns whose fault will it be? It won't be the critics.....
It won’t crash and burn.
A little while ago, a senior manager at Barratt Homes asked a group why the reputation of his company was so low.
I was a guest of a friend, so I couldn’t tell him the truth.
Some of the new build snag videos on YouTube are absolutely horrendous.
Not just Barratt
My answer would be - "Your company has exactly the reputation they have worked hard for. Invested billions in."
I know of no large company that is building quality.
I’d never consider buying new build. The more I read and watch the videos the less enamoured I am with them. I have cycled round a few new build,sites by me. Hmmmm.
The late lamented @JosiasJessop had the odd horror story, too.
I didn't realise he'd left.
He mostly used to appear early morning, but seems to be on a break at the moment.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
Why are so many overseas people being employed by prisons? (If that is what is happening).
There are fewer better paid jobs for people with no formal qualifications and only brief training.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
And easy pre 2021 under FoM. Unless one doesn't consider Polish prison officers to be foreign (which I suppose, for supporters of a federal Europe, is a perfectly legitimate view).
I think those would have residence as part of the Brexit deal. Its the Nigerians and Ghanaians under risk of deportation, quite a high percentage of Prison Officers.
Oh yes, I didn't mean with regard to deportation. Just with regard to Andy's surprise that foreigners should have that particular job.
Most Prison Officers in Leicester seem to be White British, or maybe its just the ones who get put on hospital escort duty, which seems a popular duty. The convicts behave well too, it being a nice day out for them too.
I can't find nationality data online, but prison officers are ethnically 85% white. Which compares to 75% of prisoners...
Edit: when I lived in Leicester I did enjoy the fairytale looking prison. Only from the outside though.
Comments
Meanwhile, a certain other leader we could mention delivered Labour's worst result since the abolition of plural voting...
Support 60%, Oppose 24% (presumably Don't Know 16%)
This is the first time I have ever heard anybody on any TV or radio station state this.
In every report I've ever heard on the subject reporters have just assumed everyone will favour more generous handouts.
This is Badenoch's big chance. Immediately after the Budget she and every Conservative spokesman has to repeat over and over again in every single interview:
"Your income tax is going up to pay increased benefits to people with more than two children."
It will cut through - because it's something everyone can very easily understand.
Not Barratt, but some proper mock Tudor.
Confidential government data reveals 1 in 25 prison service staff could face deportation because of the government's new visa rules.
Sources in the prison unions tell me the system, which is already under fire, “could collapse" because of this.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25596066.bbc-scotland-admits-error-copying-tories-anti-snp-ferry-claims/
and this
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25530698.bbc-issues-correction-exaggerating-scotland-drug-death-figures/
The second is just stupid bollocks by some careless junior, not worth losing much sleep over, still less suing BBC Shortbread for 500kpounds, but the first does require some fairly deliberate absence of critical thinking.
Q: “Can you clarify where you said the Presidential Medal of Freedom is better than the Congressional Medal of Honor? Many veterans are upset about that”
TRUMP: “People who get the Congressional Medal of Honor are often horribly wounded or dead...”
#VeteransDay
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3m5eykxrkzk2d
But I'm now even more puzzled by the reference to the PO etc, and their respective investigations in the header.
If you want a reputation for balance and integrity, you have to welcome questioning of your balance and integrity. It has to be part of your day-to-day way of life. You have to work at it, all the time.
Not a Lesson That Will Be Learnt.
You have to love the struggle. Perfect Impartiality is impossible - but the journey is a useful one.
Worth every penny.
Pretty insulting if he has any kind of ego.
Starting salary at Wormwood Scrubs is £44,474 for 41 hours a week.
What do you think it should be?
What exactly were you doing during the remembrance parade? https://bsky.app/profile/benskipper.bsky.social/post/3m5eu2r7qf22p
Ref lead of 7pts
Westminster voting intention
REF: 26% (-1)
LAB: 19% (-1)
CON: 18% (+2)
GRN: 15% (-1)
LDEM: 14% (-1)
via
@YouGov
, 09 - 10 Nov
Chgs. w/ 03 Nov
http://britainelects.com
https://x.com/BritainElects/status/1988198093171396875?s=20
His leadership skills must be awesome.
Your two examples sum up BBC Scotland; institutional bias, a reflexive need to report everything in Scotland being shite and generally poor quality reporting. Viewers in Scotland have their own programmes indeed.
In his case, he turned out to have such an aptitude for his work that he ended up a station master, while waiting. And earns more than a tube driver would.
Lots of prisons pay about $22 an hour. That's fast food wages.
Not just Barratt
I know of no large company that is building quality.
But limiting investigational findings to facts that all parties can agree on is going to gloss over about 90% of the arguments about BBC News reporting.
That would probably be a good thing, but it wouldn't satisfy many people.
(I think John Gray mentioned something similar in a recent interview in the Staggers. He definitely mentioned the death of Keynesian economics as unachievable due to the lack of fixed boundaries)
Very profitable I imagine.
It's not as though government has any great desire (or ability) to distribute much more semi-arbitrary largesse.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/world/europe/kash-patel-fbi-mi5.html
This government has very great desire for more semi-arbitrary largesse.
I would suggest that a not inconsiderable number of Labour politicians think the answer to everything is more, and more again, semi-arbitrary largesse.
This is despite the courts (including the Supreme Court) trying to make their position clear - that they are just interpreting the law.
The government seems to not to want to *make* law.
·
3m
We are witnessing full-on Downing Street chaos tonight - which has led the official spokesman for the health secretary Wes Streeting to give me a formal statement denying that Streeting is plotting behind the scenes to oust the PM.
So many aspects of this are comic. But my favourite is that Kitty Ussher, who used to be a Labour Treasury minister and is now a senior director at Barclays, gave a presentation to all Labour special advisers, at the invitation of Downing Street officials, in which she said government bond prices were depressed because investors fear that Starmer and Reeves would be ousted.
The message from Ussher was “be loyal or government borrowing costs will go through the roof”.
So what has happened in the last few hours? Out of an almost clear blue sky Downing Street officials are warning that the plotters are out to get Starmer and Reeves, and that Starmer will fight them to the death.
Maybe they know something about an imminent Streeting coup that is hidden from the rest of us? That is possible.
What is very probable is that the price of government bonds, gilts, will fall tomorrow morning - which is a dreadful precursor to Reeves’s looming tax-raising budget.
This would be farcical if the potential economic damage wasn’t real.
And in case you are interested, here is Streeting’s “not me gov” statement: “These claims are categorically untrue. Wes’s focus has entirely been on cutting waiting lists for the first time in 15 years, recruiting 2,500 more GPs, and rebuilding the NHS that saved his life.”
https://x.com/Peston/status/1988359341791994289
A structural collapse or another Grenfell style fire?
For all the regulation, there is no interest in enforcement. The cult of outsourcing means that the big name firms contract out multiple times, to the final company that is created to build a given project, then dissolved.
1. The BBC needs to distinguish between its obligations as employer to its staff & its obligations as journalists. The former means complying with the relevant legislation. It is not doing that even now. The latter means reporting facts not worrying about being "kind" & "nice" - Davie's words to a Select Committee. It has I think confused the two. This is not surprising because the police have done something similar & lost in court when challenged. As have other government departments. So this can - & must - be changed. It needs proper equality law advice.
2. The style guide should not be using terms provided by a one issue lobby group, moreover one which has - as any good equality lawyer will tell you - been providing misleading advice about the law. This is a conflict of interest because it's allowing its factual reporting to be determined by that group's agenda. This would be wrong no matter who the lobby group was. Would you want its reporting on social/ religious issues to be determined by Opus Dei or the Plymouth Brethren? Of course not. The language used has often been very unclear.
3. Choice of guests & topics covered. There are questions to be asked about why a number of topics relevant to this issue, covered elsewhere in the media, were not mentioned at all by the BBC. Who determines the choice of guests? Are they ensuring there is appropriate balance & that people who have knowledge of the subject are being invited on?
4. Are they accurately reporting what actually happened at certain events? Not always the case.
5. Sport - there has been a real issue with fairness in women's sport. Yet the Head of Sport came in saying that he thought there was no problem so the concerns raised were simply ignored. That might be his view but it implies bias. Sports journalists should be looking at the facts about sport, physical strength, effect on women etc not ignoring the issues because of the boss's view.
6. Big question this: why is it always described as trans rights when it is just as much about women's rights? More so, in fact given the SC judgment. It could be more accurately described as an issue of women & trans rights & the tension/clash between them for instance. But too often women are simply written out of the story not even mentioned as if the only issue is the effect on trans people.
8. How are they approaching this in childrens' programming?
9. Consistency - why were Justin Webb & Martine Croxall disciplined & Evan Davis not when he was as guilty of showing his opinion as she was?
And so on. It's narrow tightrope. But the BBC has been very poor at explaining what this issue has been about. It has often strayed into appearing to advocate for one side. IMO it has allowed a conflict of interest & sentimentality to skew its professionalism & has not realised this. It is doing it even now in its reporting of this.
Though interestingly its report on the Darlington nurses case today was much more factual & neutral.
Just undo one of the few good decisions they've made, I guess, to try to please the unpleasable.
Unfortunately, their current coverage does give the appearance of taking sides. Take, for example, a day in the Sandie Peggie case when a forensic expert gave evidence that showed Doctor Upton was lying. The BBC's initial report on their website carried the headline, "IT expert says trans doctor's phone claims 'not possible'" but this was rapidly toned down to "Trans tribunal phone notes were not checked in person". The first half of the report was taken up with a IT manager working for NHS Fife who didn't believe Upton was lying. The expert witness was downgraded to "another IT expert" with no mention of the fact he was a forensic expert witness of 20 years standing, far more qualified to comment on the evidence from Upton's phone than the IT manager. This is not an isolated incident. Much of their reporting on this tribunal has clearly cherry picked evidence and given a false impression of proceedings.
BBC Scotland has been much better than the BBC website - far more balanced. And by that I don't mean that BBC Scotland is supporting Sandie Peggie's side. They are not. They at least give the appearance of trying to present a balanced, accurate report of the tribunal.
Nothing spooks the markets so much as an organisation demanding that "everyone toe the line and behave, otherwise we will get downgraded."
(Sarah Smith was also pretty positive about Trump, quite regularly.)
His analysis seems to me notably one sided, and doesn't reflect the balance of reporting at all, as I recall it.
Reform 32%, Con 19%, Labour 17%, Green 13%, Lib Dem 13%.
Drift, pointlessness, micro decisions that no one cares about, shit comms and now a leadership election.
Nigel must be laughing himself stupid into his pint of beer this evening.
Because of staff shortages visas were quite easy in the Boriswave.
Truss made a single massive fuck-up & paid for it immediately. Starmer has (so far) been a long drawn-out demonstration of ineptitude. I’m not sure which is worse frankly.
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1988285629462180221?s=19
One million more people are claiming Britain’s main out-of-work benefit without the requirement to look for a job than a year ago, figures show, as the number of claimants reached a record high.
The number of people on universal credit without the need to search for work has exceeded four million for the first time, in a blow to Sir Keir Starmer’s drive to get Britain back to work.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/one-million-more-people-claim-benefits-unemployed-universal-credit-ndr8z5zgq
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-11-11/peston-downing-street-warns-off-plotters-from-trying-to-oust-starmer
But given that outsourcing is clearly so convenient for businesses and their managers, what's the way to corral them back into sufficiently integrated organisations that it's clear who actually has to get things right?
Stonewall are not lawyers and should never ever have been listened to on the law.
The Court of Appeal is considering in the Allison Bailey case whether Stonewall can be held liable for encouraging her set of chambers to unlawfully discriminate against her. If it does rule this way it will have quite an effect on such lobby groups. It is quite a technical argument and I would not like to speculate as to the outcome.
As I say, BBC Scotland's report of this day was balanced and accurate. They got it right in real time, as did the local Scottish newspapers. The BBC website produced a report that was not balanced. And this is not an isolated incident for this tribunal. If you observed the hearings with an open mind then read the reports on the BBC website, you would think they must have been watching a different tribunal.
Edited to add, the IT manager called by Fife did not offer any evidence to support his belief that Upton was not lying. This was simply an unsupported expression of belief, similar to another Fife witness who claimed that she and Upton should both be believed because they are doctors, and doctors never lie.
https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.com/post/3m5ckbq74fc2p
It looks less well equipped than the average Somali warlord.
A drive on Berlin doesnt seem plausible.
My point is that the latter is far less amenable to being resolved by the kind of investigation you favour.
I wouldn't argue that the BBC is immune to the kind of vices you diagnose (indeed I submitted a complaint of my own regarding their US election coverage, which got a similar, in my view inadequate response).
It's more that getting any kind of consensus on where they are going wrong - or objectively investigating that - is going to be far more difficult.
MAR-A-LAGO FACE:
DC plastic surgeons are accustomed to clients who don't want it to be obvious they've had work done.
But people who swept into town under Trump 2.0 are asking for "a more done look, like that Mar-a-Lago face," said one plastic surgeon.
https://x.com/kenvogel/status/1987922958594261427
Edit: when I lived in Leicester I did enjoy the fairytale looking prison. Only from the outside though.