How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Indeed. It’s pathetic. As is the fact that they STILL have SD only for the London news. Really. The screen goes blank unless you switch over to the SD channel. Absolutely shit.
Not just London.
Put the BBC on for a football game and forget about it and afterwards there'll be a red screen with text saying to change channels.
This sort of stuff shouldn't have happened since the 20th century ended. Farcical.
BBC Wales is in HD, so I'm sure the rest of England should be by now. (I think Scotland is the same).
The “rest of England” ? Lol.
In any case, it isn’t. BBC London is SD only - as utterly ludicrous as that sounds. In 2021, the news from the state broadcaster in a world city is in SD only. True story.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Assuming the GE and next Mayoral Election are both in 2024, Khan could serve out his term and hand over to the next Labour candidate.
As an aside, my local MP, Stephen Timms, will be 69 in 2024 and Lyn Brown in West Ham will be 64 so I just wonder if there could be two seats for Labour activists to contest. The problem for an outsider is the tendency in this part of the world is for the MP to be chosen from the Newham Council leadership - both Timms and Brown had been senior councillors. That might put the current Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in line for one of the seats.
Seems like reasonable advice. People need to get on with it not expect the government to find a solution to everything.
How often do the same people in fashion work in Paris one time of the year and New York another time of the year? Last I checked New York wasn't in the EU. Being in a different country, customs union or market is not the end of the world.
EU students are being put on a level footing with Rest of the World students and why shouldn't they be?
Presumably unis if they're struggling to get students can drop the Rest of the World price if they want to be but why should they discriminate against Africans or Asians over Europeans?
It’s easier if they get a subsidy from the UK government
It sounds as if this is an MA, so not ordinarily covered by government Student loans, nor the £9250 cap for undergraduate courses. I suspect the EU postgraduate were paying the UK rate rather than the foreign student rate, but universities would make a surplus on both.
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Indeed. It’s pathetic. As is the fact that they STILL have SD only for the London news. Really. The screen goes blank unless you switch over to the SD channel. Absolutely shit.
Not just London.
Put the BBC on for a football game and forget about it and afterwards there'll be a red screen with text saying to change channels.
This sort of stuff shouldn't have happened since the 20th century ended. Farcical.
BBC Wales is in HD, so I'm sure the rest of England should be by now. (I think Scotland is the same).
The “rest of England” ? Lol.
In any case, it isn’t. BBC London is SD only - as utterly ludicrous as that sounds. In 2021, the news from the state broadcaster in a world city is in SD only. True story.
My apologies for the misprint there. I meant the English regions obviously. And when I said they should be, it was something which should happen rather than does happen. I can confirm that Wales and Scotland are in HD for their news programmes.
EU students are being put on a level footing with Rest of the World students and why shouldn't they be?
Presumably unis if they're struggling to get students can drop the Rest of the World price if they want to be but why should they discriminate against Africans or Asians over Europeans?
It’s easier if they get a subsidy from the UK government
It sounds as if this is an MA, so not ordinarily covered by government Student loans, nor the £9250 cap for undergraduate courses. I suspect the EU postgraduate were paying the UK rate rather than the foreign student rate, but universities would make a surplus on both.
For anyone curious, for a prestigious university specialising in Science, Technology and Medicine, the headline figures for Undergraduate applications in 2021 vs 2020 is EEA (-20%), Overseas (+19%) and UK (+20%)
You have to consider that there was probably a jump in EEA students applying last year if they possibly could, to get the home fee rate, which makes the change on last year more profound. But overall the picture in both numbers and cash terms is good.
...may well be a different story for Art-ology or Paris Hilton studies of course.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Assuming the GE and next Mayoral Election are both in 2024, Khan could serve out his term and hand over to the next Labour candidate.
As an aside, my local MP, Stephen Timms, will be 69 in 2024 and Lyn Brown in West Ham will be 64 so I just wonder if there could be two seats for Labour activists to contest. The problem for an outsider is the tendency in this part of the world is for the MP to be chosen from the Newham Council leadership - both Timms and Brown had been senior councillors. That might put the current Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in line for one of the seats.
If Khan isn't Continuity Miliband I don't know who is.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Indeed. It’s pathetic. As is the fact that they STILL have SD only for the London news. Really. The screen goes blank unless you switch over to the SD channel. Absolutely shit.
Not just London.
Put the BBC on for a football game and forget about it and afterwards there'll be a red screen with text saying to change channels.
This sort of stuff shouldn't have happened since the 20th century ended. Farcical.
BBC Wales is in HD, so I'm sure the rest of England should be by now. (I think Scotland is the same).
The “rest of England” ? Lol.
In any case, it isn’t. BBC London is SD only - as utterly ludicrous as that sounds. In 2021, the news from the state broadcaster in a world city is in SD only. True story.
My apologies for the misprint there. I meant the English regions obviously. And when I said they should be, it was something which should happen rather than does happen. I can confirm that Wales and Scotland are in HD for their news programmes.
They are national channels so I would bloody well hope so (I have both on cable - BBC Scotland has different programmes to BBC England and I assume the same is true of BBC Wales?)
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
That's the BBC's idea of Prime Time Saturday night?
Is there any reason so many of us don't bother with the BBC anymore? If the BBC sacked all its celebrities and only hired new unknown people the quality of its output would probably improve dramatically.
I've never watched a "celebrity xyz" show on Netflix. Get actual programming instead. 🙄
This is a generational change that people won't grow out of. Accepting Netflix etc as alternatives to the Beeb is a permanent and irreversible shift like accepting same sex relationships. The idea of the BBC being on a pedestal will be as alien in the future as the idea that only a man and a woman could marry.
The BBC haters really seem to have a bee in their bonnet.
I did find it interesting though that, according to Wikipedia, regarding “It’s A Sin”:
The show's subject matter of HIV and AIDS was difficult to sell to broadcasters. BBC One and ITV declined to develop the series and Channel 4 only took it on after their commissioning editor of drama, Lee Mason fought for it.
Jesus. It’s been some of the best TV I’ve seen in years. Well written, and actually ABOUT something. In its place, the traditionalist BBC and ITV drama commissioners have presumably commissioned yet another detective series each, or possibly something like a whimsical series about a 1950s GP practice.
Yeah I agree, It’s a Sin is superb.
Guys/gals, if you haven’t seen it, watch it. Be prepared to blub like a newborn.
As for Brian Rose, I've read his half-baked manifesto and it has more than a whiff of ill thought-out authoritarianism. It's hardly populist as @HYUFD claims.
The fact is in all polls Rose is getting nothing and part of me wonders whether his candidacy is an attempt to play the exchanges and the betting market.
He is present on various social media platforms but there's no sign of this getting any traction. The polls have consistently had Khan just below 50%, Bailey just below 30% and both Porritt and Berry around 10% with the fragments including 2% for Peter Gammons.
It's possible Khan will take us on the first ballot but even if Bailey pushed him to a second ballot it looks as though Khan would get 63-64%. The polls have been remarkably consistent since last August.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Khan is a dreadful mayor. Truly lamentable. Where has he been during the pandemic? Where is the inspirational leadership? Basically, that is his JOB- to inspire. He doesn't have much power, but he does have a high political profile: mayor of one of the greatest cities on earth. Remember Boris after the English riots: brandishing his broom to sweep up. Cheesy, but effective.
London is suffering, profoundly, and Khan cowers away: virtually mute and certainly inert. Labour would be insane to elect him as leader, a man even more boring than Starmer.
Besides, the next Labour leader will SURELY be a woman
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
It is doomed, as it stands. And, what's more poignant, you sense the BBC knows it is doomed, institutionally. The rot is in the rafters. Like a crumbling stately home that's too far gone to rescue.
It is a damn shame. It had enough heft to make itself a British Netflix, but in trying to be all things to all Brits it has become something no one particularly cares about, especially the young.
I still hope they find some way to save it. But looking at that schedule you can feel the fatalistic torpor
The BBC haters really seem to have a bee in their bonnet.
I did find it interesting though that, according to Wikipedia, regarding “It’s A Sin”:
The show's subject matter of HIV and AIDS was difficult to sell to broadcasters. BBC One and ITV declined to develop the series and Channel 4 only took it on after their commissioning editor of drama, Lee Mason fought for it.
Jesus. It’s been some of the best TV I’ve seen in years. Well written, and actually ABOUT something. In its place, the traditionalist BBC and ITV drama commissioners have presumably commissioned yet another detective series each, or possibly something like a whimsical series about a 1950s GP practice.
Yeah I agree, It’s a Sin is superb.
Guys/gals, if you haven’t seen it, watch it. Be prepared to blub like a newborn.
Not been affected by TV so much in years. Episode 3 still hasn't been processed yet. Hit really close to home.
I sense a slide into another "abolish the bbc" debate and although I'd like to stop it I realize I can't. A certain peace comes with that knowledge.
There's a simple way to end these conversations ever happening.
When was the last time you saw an "abolish Netflix" conversation?
I wouldn't abolish it - I'd simply insist it was free for all. It can pay with advertising.
I wouldn't abolish it, I'd just cut all legal ties to people being compelled to pay for it and let the BBC Trust determine how they want to raise money. If they want to do adverts they could, if they want to continue with the licence fee as a subscription they could. Their choice.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Assuming the GE and next Mayoral Election are both in 2024, Khan could serve out his term and hand over to the next Labour candidate.
As an aside, my local MP, Stephen Timms, will be 69 in 2024 and Lyn Brown in West Ham will be 64 so I just wonder if there could be two seats for Labour activists to contest. The problem for an outsider is the tendency in this part of the world is for the MP to be chosen from the Newham Council leadership - both Timms and Brown had been senior councillors. That might put the current Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in line for one of the seats.
If Khan isn't Continuity Miliband I don't know who is.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Assuming the GE and next Mayoral Election are both in 2024, Khan could serve out his term and hand over to the next Labour candidate.
As an aside, my local MP, Stephen Timms, will be 69 in 2024 and Lyn Brown in West Ham will be 64 so I just wonder if there could be two seats for Labour activists to contest. The problem for an outsider is the tendency in this part of the world is for the MP to be chosen from the Newham Council leadership - both Timms and Brown had been senior councillors. That might put the current Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in line for one of the seats.
If Khan isn't Continuity Miliband I don't know who is.
Starmer.....
No, for all his faults Milliband had ideas. Starmer is a policy vacuum as well as a charisma one.
Angela Rayner please! And not just for my books sake.
As for Brian Rose, I've read his half-baked manifesto and it has more than a whiff of ill thought-out authoritarianism. It's hardly populist as @HYUFD claims.
The fact is in all polls Rose is getting nothing and part of me wonders whether his candidacy is an attempt to play the exchanges and the betting market.
He is present on various social media platforms but there's no sign of this getting any traction. The polls have consistently had Khan just below 50%, Bailey just below 30% and both Porritt and Berry around 10% with the fragments including 2% for Peter Gammons.
It's possible Khan will take us on the first ballot but even if Bailey pushed him to a second ballot it looks as though Khan would get 63-64%. The polls have been remarkably consistent since last August.
It’ll be interesting to see if Khan seeks a Westminster seat in the run up to 2024. He must fancy his chances of becoming Labour leader as a two time winner if Starmer falls short. You’d think he’d get a Cabinet job if nothing else, if Labour does take power.
Khan is a dreadful mayor. Truly lamentable. Where has he been during the pandemic? Where is the inspirational leadership? Basically, that is his JOB- to inspire. He doesn't have much power, but he does have a high political profile: mayor of one of the greatest cities on earth. Remember Boris after the English riots: brandishing his broom to sweep up. Cheesy, but effective.
London is suffering, profoundly, and Khan cowers away: virtually mute and certainly inert. Labour would be insane to elect him as leader, a man even more boring than Starmer.
Besides, the next Labour leader will SURELY be a woman
Don’t disagree but he’ll be a two time winner.
He's only been a slightly poor mayor. Boris was perhaps 'quite good' on this measure, as was Ken. The tools of the job seem to propel the incumbents into adequacy.
Many of the favs to be next Labour leader are women - bet on the men.
Maxed out on Rose about a month ago. Conspiracy theory peddling grifter (and not even a convincing one at that) with a shit taste in suits.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
Maxed out on Rose about a month ago. Conspiracy theory peddling grifter (and not even a convincing one at that) with a shit taste in suits.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Indeed. It’s pathetic. As is the fact that they STILL have SD only for the London news. Really. The screen goes blank unless you switch over to the SD channel. Absolutely shit.
Not just London.
Put the BBC on for a football game and forget about it and afterwards there'll be a red screen with text saying to change channels.
This sort of stuff shouldn't have happened since the 20th century ended. Farcical.
BBC Wales is in HD, so I'm sure the rest of England should be by now. (I think Scotland is the same).
The “rest of England” ? Lol.
In any case, it isn’t. BBC London is SD only - as utterly ludicrous as that sounds. In 2021, the news from the state broadcaster in a world city is in SD only. True story.
My apologies for the misprint there. I meant the English regions obviously. And when I said they should be, it was something which should happen rather than does happen. I can confirm that Wales and Scotland are in HD for their news programmes.
They are national channels so I would bloody well hope so (I have both on cable - BBC Scotland has different programmes to BBC England and I assume the same is true of BBC Wales?)
That is true, but I thought we were talking about the local news programmes?
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
Maxed out on Rose about a month ago. Conspiracy theory peddling grifter (and not even a convincing one at that) with a shit taste in suits.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
And he's going to be re-elected. There is that.
I should be sympathetic. He’s a centre-leftist.
But he is a complete and utter non-entity. He’s done nothing but cower in City Hall.
Maxed out on Rose about a month ago. Conspiracy theory peddling grifter (and not even a convincing one at that) with a shit taste in suits.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
And he's going to be re-elected. There is that.
I should be sympathetic. He’s a centre-leftist.
But he is a complete and utter non-entity. He’s done nothing but cower in City Hall.
Yeah, he'll win without breaking a sweat. London deserves better, but what can you do? It's a Labour city first and foremost, needs a Conservative with broad appeal to change that. If BJ actually gave two hoots he'd have got one of the Cameron era heavy hitters, a Hunt or Stewart to have a crack.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
They did but they never made it what it should be.
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
I would be very surprised if iPlayer (like Amazon, Netflix, etc.) used anything other than bog standard HTML5 video streaming.
Now, Netflix has (historically) put boxes at local cable distribution points to cache content, but I hear they're largely stopping that, because the cost of bandwidth has fallen so much.
The BBC haters really seem to have a bee in their bonnet.
I did find it interesting though that, according to Wikipedia, regarding “It’s A Sin”:
The show's subject matter of HIV and AIDS was difficult to sell to broadcasters. BBC One and ITV declined to develop the series and Channel 4 only took it on after their commissioning editor of drama, Lee Mason fought for it.
Jesus. It’s been some of the best TV I’ve seen in years. Well written, and actually ABOUT something. In its place, the traditionalist BBC and ITV drama commissioners have presumably commissioned yet another detective series each, or possibly something like a whimsical series about a 1950s GP practice.
Yeah I agree, It’s a Sin is superb.
Guys/gals, if you haven’t seen it, watch it. Be prepared to blub like a newborn.
Yeah, that kills any interest I had in watching it.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
They did but they never made it what it should be.
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
It's a bit more complicated than that: the BBC quite often didn't have rights to stream stuff in the UK that it had bought in. And most BBC content, including (for a long time) thing like Top Gear, was bought from external production companies.
So, it was really only their own generated content that was streamable, except around broadcast windows.
As for Brian Rose, I've read his half-baked manifesto and it has more than a whiff of ill thought-out authoritarianism. It's hardly populist as @HYUFD claims.
The fact is in all polls Rose is getting nothing and part of me wonders whether his candidacy is an attempt to play the exchanges and the betting market.
He is present on various social media platforms but there's no sign of this getting any traction. The polls have consistently had Khan just below 50%, Bailey just below 30% and both Porritt and Berry around 10% with the fragments including 2% for Peter Gammons.
It's possible Khan will take us on the first ballot but even if Bailey pushed him to a second ballot it looks as though Khan would get 63-64%. The polls have been remarkably consistent since last August.
I'm voting for the Lib Dem as my first choice FWIW as I find Shaun Bailey to be a complete moron.
Shaun Bailey is a complete moron, but you don't have to go full retard.
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
It is doomed, as it stands. And, what's more poignant, you sense the BBC knows it is doomed, institutionally. The rot is in the rafters. Like a crumbling stately home that's too far gone to rescue.
It is a damn shame. It had enough heft to make itself a British Netflix, but in trying to be all things to all Brits it has become something no one particularly cares about, especially the young.
I still hope they find some way to save it. But looking at that schedule you can feel the fatalistic torpor
The Beeb is still capable of making good stuff and it does indeed do so - I think that the two big problems it has are that it's sometimes too "safe" (see numerous comments below to the effect of "where is the BBC's answer to 'It's a Sin'?") and, given that its budget isn't infinite, it has a serious issue with (dirt cheap) quantity over (expensive) quality. With a bit of courage these difficulties can be solved, with a clearout and replacement of commissioning editors and cutting back on its total hours broadcast (in crude terms, by merging BBC4 into BBC2, and not even bothering to start broadcasting on BBC1 and BBC2 until 6pm unless there is some compelling reason to do so, e.g. live sport or some of the lockdown schools programming they've been doing recently.)
Almost everything that's on during daytime is essentially replicated on ITV and Channel 4, is simulcast on the News channel, or is a repeat. It's basically white noise for pensioners to fall asleep to after breakfast or lunch. If it disappeared then nobody would miss it at all.
Maxed out on Rose about a month ago. Conspiracy theory peddling grifter (and not even a convincing one at that) with a shit taste in suits.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
Khan has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
I'm a bit less negative on Khan. However, you do make some highly valid points.
On TfL, it's a financial catastrophe - with the commuting income gone, it's effectively run by the Government yet it has to provide a full service even though no one use sit especially during the day. Even when restrictions are lifted, will passenger numbers return to pre-Covid levels if working from home becomes semi-permanent for hundreds of thousands of office workers? The model of the passenger transport service is broken and I'm not sure how it gets fixed any time soon.
You can't blame Khan for Covid or for the impact of Government restrictions. I'm also loath to pin Crossrail wholly on him - the project began under Boris Johnson and we know the costs and timetable were ludicrously unrealistic and ambitious in comparison to the Olympics which Boris inherited from Ken Livingstone and implemented successfully.
On crime, the closure of local Police offices began under Boris but hasn't been reversed by Khan. There seems a vacuum of ideas on responding to knife crime - Bailey seems to think he can conjure thousands of extra Police out of thin air at no cost fully trained.
The Mayor's office is short on practical authority and long on political symbolism. In all fairness, Boris and Ken both milked the symbolism of the office and Khan has been no different.
I do think Khan has made little or no difference which may be the most damning indictment. We are, in my part of town, seeing a blizzard of new construction though how much of that really addresses the housing issues of London and how much is an opportunity for property developers and house builders to turn a huge profit is a question for another day.
I sense a slide into another "abolish the bbc" debate and although I'd like to stop it I realize I can't. A certain peace comes with that knowledge.
There's a simple way to end these conversations ever happening.
When was the last time you saw an "abolish Netflix" conversation?
I wouldn't abolish it - I'd simply insist it was free for all. It can pay with advertising.
I wouldn't abolish it, I'd just cut all legal ties to people being compelled to pay for it and let the BBC Trust determine how they want to raise money. If they want to do adverts they could, if they want to continue with the licence fee as a subscription they could. Their choice.
I would remove the whole "broadcast" thing, and instead use it address market failure: i.e., it would produce content that might otherwise fail to get made, in areas like the arts and education.
Note, the BBC would not produce content, merely commission it, and which could then be distributed (for free) via Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, etc.
As part of this, it might commission (for example) coverage of the Paralympics, or even Wimbledon.
It would require - for this - a budget of notalotatall, which could probably be raised by selling off the entire back catalog of the BBC, and investing the money conservatively, and using the interest income.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
They did but they never made it what it should be.
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
It's a bit more complicated than that: the BBC quite often didn't have rights to stream stuff in the UK that it had bought in. And most BBC content, including (for a long time) thing like Top Gear, was bought from external production companies.
So, it was really only their own generated content that was streamable, except around broadcast windows.
And the reason they switched to buying in stuff from external companies was because they were forced to by the Thatcherite free-marketeeer zealots, was it not? The Tory right have long had it in for the BBC and eventually they will win. Sadly.
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
It is doomed, as it stands. And, what's more poignant, you sense the BBC knows it is doomed, institutionally. The rot is in the rafters. Like a crumbling stately home that's too far gone to rescue.
It is a damn shame. It had enough heft to make itself a British Netflix, but in trying to be all things to all Brits it has become something no one particularly cares about, especially the young.
I still hope they find some way to save it. But looking at that schedule you can feel the fatalistic torpor
The Beeb is still capable of making good stuff and it does indeed do so - I think that the two big problems it has are that it's sometimes too "safe" (see numerous comments below to the effect of "where is the BBC's answer to 'It's a Sin'?") and, given that its budget isn't infinite, it has a serious issue with (dirt cheap) quantity over (expensive) quality. With a bit of courage these difficulties can be solved, with a clearout and replacement of commissioning editors and cutting back on its total hours broadcast (in crude terms, by merging BBC4 into BBC2, and not even bothering to start broadcasting on BBC1 and BBC2 until 6pm unless there is some compelling reason to do so, e.g. live sport or some of the lockdown schools programming they've been doing recently.)
Almost everything that's on during daytime is essentially replicated on ITV and Channel 4, is simulcast on the News channel, or is a repeat. It's basically white noise for pensioners to fall asleep to after breakfast or lunch. If it disappeared then nobody would miss it at all.
Yeah, I think there's something in that. I'm just about old enough to have a sentimental attachment to the beeb (Andi Peters in the broom cupboard, Blue Peter Tracey Island, Blackadder, etc etc) but don't expect future generations raised on Youtube and Netflix to feel the same way. And even I bristle when the licence fee bill comes through, not really sure how I feel about funding woke propaganda on bbc.co.uk and lightweight political programming that reduces politics to a punch and judy show.
Maybe your idea of merging BBC 2 and 4, simulcasting News 24 until 1800, and spending some cash on a mixture of quality entertainment (take some risks with commissioning stuff the commercial channels wouldn't touch), and some interesting documentaries and highbrow politics shows. Maybe I've just designed a network only I'd watch, but as you say ITV and the multiple satellite channels would pick up the slack for the daytime TV demographic. At least a strategy like the above might keep the middle class away from Netflix. Something has to change, anyway.
At this rate our best chance of qualifying for Europe would be as defending winners in Europe rather than Top 4.
Never mind Liverpool join Blackburn and Leicester in winning the premiership only once
Oh and Manchester United 13 times
Ah yes I'm just old enough to remember the days when Manchester United used to win the Premier League. I think colour TV had just been invented?
As it was 2012-13 are you saying you have just become a teenager
Exactly. I think everyone was on Myspace at that point and Facebook was just a glimmer in Zuk's father's eye?
Must suck that modern times the only team worth talking about from Manchester is Manchester City!
Manchester United are basically the Sunderland of Manchester aren't they?
There's a difference between Sunderland and Newcastle? 🤔
Sunderland is a small suburb of Newcastle, sure
Indeed. I know you are sort of joking but it’s true that in geographical terms Sunderland is essentially a suburb of Newcastle. They have the same phone code, the same tube system, and are pretty much contiguous.
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
I disagree - London voted strongly Labour in December 2019 when the rest of England was swinging to the Conservatives. The only seat Labour took off the Tories was in London (Putney).
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Completely off topic, there have been some astonishingly good TV series in recent years. Chernobyl, GoT (Let's forget about the last two seasons), Last Kingdom, likely loads I haven't watched. It's all generally very good. Music in general OTOH...
At this rate our best chance of qualifying for Europe would be as defending winners in Europe rather than Top 4.
Never mind Liverpool join Blackburn and Leicester in winning the premiership only once
Oh and Manchester United 13 times
Ah yes I'm just old enough to remember the days when Manchester United used to win the Premier League. I think colour TV had just been invented?
As it was 2012-13 are you saying you have just become a teenager
Exactly. I think everyone was on Myspace at that point and Facebook was just a glimmer in Zuk's father's eye?
Must suck that modern times the only team worth talking about from Manchester is Manchester City!
Manchester United are basically the Sunderland of Manchester aren't they?
There's a difference between Sunderland and Newcastle? 🤔
Sunderland is a small suburb of Newcastle, sure
Indeed. I know you are sort of joking but it’s true that in geographical terms Sunderland is essentially a suburb of Newcastle. They have the same phone code, the same tube system, and are pretty much contiguous.
Of course it is.
Sadly, current local government reorganisation seeks to perpetuate a north / south in what is effectively greater Newcastle (the bizarrely named “North of Tyne Combined Authority”).
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
It is doomed, as it stands. And, what's more poignant, you sense the BBC knows it is doomed, institutionally. The rot is in the rafters. Like a crumbling stately home that's too far gone to rescue.
It is a damn shame. It had enough heft to make itself a British Netflix, but in trying to be all things to all Brits it has become something no one particularly cares about, especially the young.
I still hope they find some way to save it. But looking at that schedule you can feel the fatalistic torpor
The Beeb is still capable of making good stuff and it does indeed do so - I think that the two big problems it has are that it's sometimes too "safe" (see numerous comments below to the effect of "where is the BBC's answer to 'It's a Sin'?") and, given that its budget isn't infinite, it has a serious issue with (dirt cheap) quantity over (expensive) quality. With a bit of courage these difficulties can be solved, with a clearout and replacement of commissioning editors and cutting back on its total hours broadcast (in crude terms, by merging BBC4 into BBC2, and not even bothering to start broadcasting on BBC1 and BBC2 until 6pm unless there is some compelling reason to do so, e.g. live sport or some of the lockdown schools programming they've been doing recently.)
Almost everything that's on during daytime is essentially replicated on ITV and Channel 4, is simulcast on the News channel, or is a repeat. It's basically white noise for pensioners to fall asleep to after breakfast or lunch. If it disappeared then nobody would miss it at all.
Yeah, I think there's something in that. I'm just about old enough to have a sentimental attachment to the beeb (Andi Peters in the broom cupboard, Blue Peter Tracey Island, Blackadder, etc etc) but don't expect future generations raised on Youtube and Netflix to feel the same way. And even I bristle when the licence fee bill comes through, not really sure how I feel about funding woke propaganda on bbc.co.uk and lightweight political programming that reduces politics to a punch and judy show.
Maybe your idea of merging BBC 2 and 4, simulcasting News 24 until 1800, and spending some cash on a mixture of quality entertainment (take some risks with commissioning stuff the commercial channels wouldn't touch), and some interesting documentaries and highbrow politics shows. Maybe I've just designed a network only I'd watch, but as you say ITV and the multiple satellite channels would pick up the slack for the daytime TV demographic. At least a strategy like the above might keep the middle class away from Netflix. Something has to change, anyway.
Why the BBC4 thing hasn't happened before now genuinely puzzles me. It's obvious that it's more-or-less what BBC2 was originally intended to be in the first place. I'd merge them into one, broadcast all the lifestyle stuff (quizzes, cookery, gardening, housey programmes, plus the untouchable Saturday evening repeat of Dad's Army) in the 6-8pm window, and then the rest of the night would be BBC4. Newsnight could be put out of its misery or shunted off to the News channel. That, presumably, would save a decent chunk of money to spend on programming and cut down on the dreaded repeats.
As a relatively new Netflix subscriber I have to say its offering is hardly overwhelming. The Crown, Queens Gambit, we enjoyed The Dig too, but beyond that... it's all a bit meh really. Certainly not enough to fill a schedule.
The BBC has an enormous back-catalogue (quite a few of Netflix's offerings are ex-BBC). I am not sure of the licensing issues in offering that back-catalogue but I hope it is not hampered by 'unfair competition' issues foisted on it by private media interests.
The BBC has been a truly massive cultural influence around the world on behalf of the UK; it would be senseless for us now to allow it to be trashed on ideological grounds.
EU students are being put on a level footing with Rest of the World students and why shouldn't they be?
Presumably unis if they're struggling to get students can drop the Rest of the World price if they want to be but why should they discriminate against Africans or Asians over Europeans?
It’s easier if they get a subsidy from the UK government
It sounds as if this is an MA, so not ordinarily covered by government Student loans, nor the £9250 cap for undergraduate courses. I suspect the EU postgraduate were paying the UK rate rather than the foreign student rate, but universities would make a surplus on both.
For anyone curious, for a prestigious university specialising in Science, Technology and Medicine, the headline figures for Undergraduate applications in 2021 vs 2020 is EEA (-20%), Overseas (+19%) and UK (+20%)
You have to consider that there was probably a jump in EEA students applying last year if they possibly could, to get the home fee rate, which makes the change on last year more profound. But overall the picture in both numbers and cash terms is good.
...may well be a different story for Art-ology or Paris Hilton studies of course.
Completely off topic, there have been some astonishingly good TV series in recent years. Chernobyl, GoT (Let's forget about the last two seasons), Last Kingdom, likely loads I haven't watched. It's all generally very good. Music in general OTOH...
I'm really sad that Maribou State gigs got cancelled in 2020.
Completely off topic, there have been some astonishingly good TV series in recent years. Chernobyl, GoT (Let's forget about the last two seasons), Last Kingdom, likely loads I haven't watched. It's all generally very good. Music in general OTOH...
I take it you are not familiar with the superb “Juice” by morbidly obese hip hop star Lizzo?
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
They did but they never made it what it should be.
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
It's a bit more complicated than that: the BBC quite often didn't have rights to stream stuff in the UK that it had bought in. And most BBC content, including (for a long time) thing like Top Gear, was bought from external production companies.
So, it was really only their own generated content that was streamable, except around broadcast windows.
And the reason they switched to buying in stuff from external companies was because they were forced to by the Thatcherite free-marketeeer zealots, was it not? The Tory right have long had it in for the BBC and eventually they will win. Sadly.
Is there a single vertically integrated broadcaster left in the entire world? Someone who actually creates the bulk of their content internally?
I don't think it's "zealots", it's the fact that the skills required to make content are different to the skills required to run a channel.
What's the core competence of the BBC? What's its mission? How can it achieve that mission as cost efficiently as possible?
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
I disagree - London voted strongly Labour in December 2019 when the rest of England was swinging to the Conservatives. The only seat Labour took off the Tories was in London (Putney).
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Yes, maybe you are right. As a Londoner I am perhaps expressing my despair, and hopecasting. This great world city is crying out for upbeat leadership, and Khan is the opposite: depressing, boring, inept and/or invisible. Weak weak weak.
Ironically Boris would have been great as mayor right now. But we have this effete and tedious twerp instead: Sadiq Khan.
Who are the people loyally voting for Khan? I presume lots of BAME Londoners maybe, but every Londoner I know (even on the Left) is either deeply apathetic towards him, or actively hostile and contemptuous. I don't know anyone that *likes* him. He is winning the mayoralty because he is a Remainer and not a Tory, and that's it.
Khan has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.
I'm a bit less negative on Khan. However, you do make some highly valid points.
On TfL, it's a financial catastrophe - with the commuting income gone, it's effectively run by the Government yet it has to provide a full service even though no one use sit especially during the day. Even when restrictions are lifted, will passenger numbers return to pre-Covid levels if working from home becomes semi-permanent for hundreds of thousands of office workers? The model of the passenger transport service is broken and I'm not sure how it gets fixed any time soon.
You can't blame Khan for Covid or for the impact of Government restrictions. I'm also loath to pin Crossrail wholly on him - the project began under Boris Johnson and we know the costs and timetable were ludicrously unrealistic and ambitious in comparison to the Olympics which Boris inherited from Ken Livingstone and implemented successfully.
On crime, the closure of local Police offices began under Boris but hasn't been reversed by Khan. There seems a vacuum of ideas on responding to knife crime - Bailey seems to think he can conjure thousands of extra Police out of thin air at no cost fully trained.
The Mayor's office is short on practical authority and long on political symbolism. In all fairness, Boris and Ken both milked the symbolism of the office and Khan has been no different.
I do think Khan has made little or no difference which may be the most damning indictment. We are, in my part of town, seeing a blizzard of new construction though how much of that really addresses the housing issues of London and how much is an opportunity for property developers and house builders to turn a huge profit is a question for another day.
I see where you're coming from.
However TfL was a financial basket case while Covid was still unknown outside of a cave in China. Not a lot Kahn could have done different with the pandemic to be fair, but TfL was not well placed to weather the shitstorm. And maybe if the Mayor's office had better relationships with central government, the bailout would have been less cripalling.
With Crossrail, it's unfortunate it happened on his watch I admit, but as top dog he has to carry the can to a certain extent. Maybe it's just bad luck, but I can't help but feel he was asleep at the wheel, or maybe focussing too much on sticking up "London is Open" posters on every spare bit of real estate.
Boris pulled off successful Olympics on his watch, when many were predicting disaster. Ok, a lot of credit goes to Ken, Jowell, and an army of people in LOCOG that actually made it happen... But the contrast is striking.
I lived in East London too until a few years ago... no shortage of "luxury" new build apartments going up, granted. I guess the power of the Mayoralty is limited as far as housing goes, but given the urgency of the housing situation I do wonder if Kahn couldn't have used the position of the office to bang a few heads together and try something different.
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
I disagree - London voted strongly Labour in December 2019 when the rest of England was swinging to the Conservatives. The only seat Labour took off the Tories was in London (Putney).
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Yes, maybe you are right. As a Londoner I am perhaps expressing my despair, and hopecasting. This great world city is crying out for upbeat leadership, and Khan is the opposite: depressing, boring, inept and/or invisible. Weak weak weak.
Ironically Boris would have been great as mayor right now. But we have this effete and tedious twerp instead: Sadiq Khan.
Who are the people loyally voting for Khan? I presume lots of BAME Londoners maybe, but every Londoner I know (even on the Left) is either deeply apathetic towards him, or actively hostile and contemptuous. I don't know anyone that *likes* him. He is winning the mayoralty because he is a Remainer and not a Tory, and that's it.
Yup, the job of the mayor is to be relentlessly upbeat whatever the weather. He's there to advertise London and make people want to come. His negative manner has been a real let down after the boosterism we got used to under Boris.
Does anyone know when Crossrail will open, and you will be able to get a train direct from Heathrow to Tottenham Court Road?
Yes, all the way to Liverpool Street in fact. It's probably one of the major issues facing LCY as there is a fast service planned for Liverpool Street to Heathrow.
How does BBC still not have 4k beyond I think 2-3 "trial" shows. They started their trials 5 years ago! A 4k HDR telly costs £300 these days, it not some niche product.
Because the BBC has completely lost its way.
It really needs privatising to sink or swim because it's just becoming embarrassingly poor now.
I suspect the reason is iPlayer tech is so crap it can't handle it. Remember for far too long it was built on using Abode Flash.
Indeed. Because they've not built it as a selling point but rather as a boxing ticking exercise.
If they were wanting to ensure they kept subscribers it would be much better than it is.
From what I remember, they actually got iPlayer going fairly early on, but at some point along the way the effort stalled, and they never managed to establish it internationally to compete with Netflix & Co.
They did but they never made it what it should be.
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
It's a bit more complicated than that: the BBC quite often didn't have rights to stream stuff in the UK that it had bought in. And most BBC content, including (for a long time) thing like Top Gear, was bought from external production companies.
So, it was really only their own generated content that was streamable, except around broadcast windows.
And the reason they switched to buying in stuff from external companies was because they were forced to by the Thatcherite free-marketeeer zealots, was it not? The Tory right have long had it in for the BBC and eventually they will win. Sadly.
Is there a single vertically integrated broadcaster left in the entire world? Someone who actually creates the bulk of their content internally?
I don't think it's "zealots", it's the fact that the skills required to make content are different to the skills required to run a channel.
What's the core competence of the BBC? What's its mission? How can it achieve that mission as cost efficiently as possible?
The BBC was the only channel until 1955 when ITV was founded, even Channel 4 was not established until the 1980s.
Now we have Channel 5, multiple freeview channels and Netflix and Amazon Prime on the web too.
The BBC still does some watchable dramas, Line of Duty, The Night Manager, Bloodlands starting tomorrow with James Nesbitt, documentaries by Simon Reeve and David Attenborough and current affairs like Panorama and also still some sports and plenty of news.
However the license fee should still fund programmes of cultural and educational value but be spread around more channels not just the BBC and the BBC should be allowed to advertise and raise more of its own revenue
EU students are being put on a level footing with Rest of the World students and why shouldn't they be?
Presumably unis if they're struggling to get students can drop the Rest of the World price if they want to be but why should they discriminate against Africans or Asians over Europeans?
It’s easier if they get a subsidy from the UK government
It sounds as if this is an MA, so not ordinarily covered by government Student loans, nor the £9250 cap for undergraduate courses. I suspect the EU postgraduate were paying the UK rate rather than the foreign student rate, but universities would make a surplus on both.
For anyone curious, for a prestigious university specialising in Science, Technology and Medicine, the headline figures for Undergraduate applications in 2021 vs 2020 is EEA (-20%), Overseas (+19%) and UK (+20%)
You have to consider that there was probably a jump in EEA students applying last year if they possibly could, to get the home fee rate, which makes the change on last year more profound. But overall the picture in both numbers and cash terms is good.
...may well be a different story for Art-ology or Paris Hilton studies of course.
Yep, it's the same at my institution (a prestigious university in *all* disciplines ). Undergrad and taught grad, and research grad applications up overall, and no huge EU slump. Student fee cash looks very buoyant this year (even as everything else financial looks terrible).
We have yet to hear whether significant numbers of successful EU candidates will decline their offers for next year, though. Not so far, but it's early in the cycle.
Completely off topic, there have been some astonishingly good TV series in recent years. Chernobyl, GoT (Let's forget about the last two seasons), Last Kingdom, likely loads I haven't watched. It's all generally very good. Music in general OTOH...
Good new music in the last few years is indeed a tough call.
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
I disagree - London voted strongly Labour in December 2019 when the rest of England was swinging to the Conservatives. The only seat Labour took off the Tories was in London (Putney).
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Labour got 48% in London in 2019, its highest voteshare in any region of the UK and the Tories got just 32%, even when the Tories got 44% nationally and Labour just 32%.
A good summary. The one admirable thing Khan has done is stand up squarely for gay rights. which must have been a little tricky given his Muslim background.
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
I disagree - London voted strongly Labour in December 2019 when the rest of England was swinging to the Conservatives. The only seat Labour took off the Tories was in London (Putney).
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Yes, maybe you are right. As a Londoner I am perhaps expressing my despair, and hopecasting. This great world city is crying out for upbeat leadership, and Khan is the opposite: depressing, boring, inept and/or invisible. Weak weak weak.
Ironically Boris would have been great as mayor right now. But we have this effete and tedious twerp instead: Sadiq Khan.
Who are the people loyally voting for Khan? I presume lots of BAME Londoners maybe, but every Londoner I know (even on the Left) is either deeply apathetic towards him, or actively hostile and contemptuous. I don't know anyone that *likes* him. He is winning the mayoralty because he is a Remainer and not a Tory, and that's it.
Yup, the job of the mayor is to be relentlessly upbeat whatever the weather. He's there to advertise London and make people want to come. His negative manner has been a real let down after the boosterism we got used to under Boris.
It's a trivial point (or maybe not) but even Khan's voice grates. It is set to Permanent Monotonal Whine mode. He always sounds like he is pathetically complaining, and whingeing, even when he isn't. He seems incapable of that Go For It positivity which is what a great city mayor needs to have.
Boosterist Boris used his mayoral success to leap to the highest office. I refuse to believe Khan can execute the same jump, unless Labour lose their senses (again).
A third of the adult population have been vaccinated in 10 weeks. Very impressive. A stunning success for the NHS.
I don't agree entirely.
Back to some figures, there are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 and 16.1 million over the age of 60.
If around 17 million have been vaccinated, that should mean everyone over 60 has been vaccinated.
This over 60 year old has heard nothing about a vaccination at this time.
Clearly, there are areas where over 50s have largely been vaccinated and it may even be younger people are starting to be vaccinated but in other areas such as mine, there are people over 60 who haven't yet been contacted let alone vaccinated.
As I've repeatedly claimed, the rollout programme is uneven - some areas have done really well, others haven't. Priority should now be given to the latter in terms of vaccine supplies and resources.
As a relatively new Netflix subscriber I have to say its offering is hardly overwhelming. The Crown, Queens Gambit, we enjoyed The Dig too, but beyond that... it's all a bit meh really. Certainly not enough to fill a schedule.
The BBC has an enormous back-catalogue (quite a few of Netflix's offerings are ex-BBC). I am not sure of the licensing issues in offering that back-catalogue but I hope it is not hampered by 'unfair competition' issues foisted on it by private media interests.
The BBC has been a truly massive cultural influence around the world on behalf of the UK; it would be senseless for us now to allow it to be trashed on ideological grounds.
The problem with the BBC is they seem unable / unwilling to adapt and seem lost about what they should be doing.
We have done the whole bit about how theu haven't adapted to modern tv series structures, still no 4k, and they insist on putting all their audio stuff on the inferior BBC Sounds app to other audio platforms....
But they also seem lost about how to use YouTube. The seem to think uploading the odd clip will do, but their upload get very few views compared to loads of total randoms who do news and current affairs round ups.
Victoria Derbyshire used to make a huge thing about despite hardly anybody watching her show live, some of her clips got lots of retweets...but that doesn't generate any revenue and it is the same niche group of twatterati. As we saw with all the nonsense about how many people viewed a Boris clip it means nothing.
The youth don't watch them as their offerings aren't seen as cool.
And we are seeing it already, all the noises from the BBC are defensive don't toucb the licence fee, no reform we are better than Netflix.
Netflix isn't who they should be worried about, the likes of Disney could easily eat everbodies lunch.
A third of the adult population have been vaccinated in 10 weeks. Very impressive. A stunning success for the NHS.
I don't agree entirely.
Back to some figures, there are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 and 16.1 million over the age of 60.
If around 17 million have been vaccinated, that should mean everyone over 60 has been vaccinated.
This over 60 year old has heard nothing about a vaccination at this time.
Clearly, there are areas where over 50s have largely been vaccinated and it may even be younger people are starting to be vaccinated but in other areas such as mine, there are people over 60 who haven't yet been contacted let alone vaccinated.
As I've repeatedly claimed, the rollout programme is uneven - some areas have done really well, others haven't. Priority should now be given to the latter in terms of vaccine supplies and resources.
Have you tried going on the NHS website and putting your NHS number and date of birth in? You may find you can book that way.
Does anyone know when Crossrail will open, and you will be able to get a train direct from Heathrow to Tottenham Court Road?
Yes, all the way to Liverpool Street in fact. It's probably one of the major issues facing LCY as there is a fast service planned for Liverpool Street to Heathrow.
I don't really care about the bit beyond Tottenham Court Road, I just want to be able to cut my "commute" from the airport to the flat down to 30 minutes
The North of Tyne CA is an abomination that should never have been allowed to happen. The idea that Gateshead riverside, a few yards from Newcastle Quayside and in the CBD, is a different city is for the birds.
Comments
In any case, it isn’t. BBC London is SD only - as utterly ludicrous as that sounds. In 2021, the news from the state broadcaster in a world city is in SD only. True story.
As an aside, my local MP, Stephen Timms, will be 69 in 2024 and Lyn Brown in West Ham will be 64 so I just wonder if there could be two seats for Labour activists to contest. The problem for an outsider is the tendency in this part of the world is for the MP to be chosen from the Newham Council leadership - both Timms and Brown had been senior councillors. That might put the current Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz in line for one of the seats.
https://twitter.com/CameronYardeJnr/status/1362544807747473408?s=20
Seems like reasonable advice. People need to get on with it not expect the government to find a solution to everything.
How often do the same people in fashion work in Paris one time of the year and New York another time of the year? Last I checked New York wasn't in the EU. Being in a different country, customs union or market is not the end of the world.
When was the last time you saw an "abolish Netflix" conversation?
Sorry, I know endless gameshows are easy and cheap to make, especially in the context of the unending, dystopian, mask-filled Hell of enforced isolation that we now find ourselves in. But you have to pay an actual, legally enforceable tax to own a television set in this country, and a slice of the money then goes toward shitting out a two-and-three-quarter hours long drossfest like this. Part of which, at least, must be paid in appearance fees to the rota of parasitic, famous for being famous "celebrities" that we're expected to be interested in.
They'd have been better off shelling out for the right to show a half-decent film to plug the void instead. It's not very good.
You have to consider that there was probably a jump in EEA students applying last year if they possibly could, to get the home fee rate, which makes the change on last year more profound. But overall the picture in both numbers and cash terms is good.
...may well be a different story for Art-ology or Paris Hilton studies of course.
Is there any reason so many of us don't bother with the BBC anymore? If the BBC sacked all its celebrities and only hired new unknown people the quality of its output would probably improve dramatically.
I've never watched a "celebrity xyz" show on Netflix. Get actual programming instead. 🙄
This is a generational change that people won't grow out of. Accepting Netflix etc as alternatives to the Beeb is a permanent and irreversible shift like accepting same sex relationships. The idea of the BBC being on a pedestal will be as alien in the future as the idea that only a man and a woman could marry.
Guys/gals, if you haven’t seen it, watch it. Be prepared to blub like a newborn.
It is a damn shame. It had enough heft to make itself a British Netflix, but in trying to be all things to all Brits it has become something no one particularly cares about, especially the young.
I still hope they find some way to save it. But looking at that schedule you can feel the fatalistic torpor
Hit really close to home.
Anyways it was. 2-0. Still can't believe it.
That's a standard penalty every time isn't it?
Wait...
🤔 very possible.
Angela Rayner please! And not just for my books sake.
Many of the favs to be next Labour leader are women - bet on the men.
I suppose, being charitable, there was a chance he could have used his (obscure) podcast fanbase to launch himself as some sort of niche, anti-lockdown candidate but most people in the real world a) have never heard of him and b) are shit scared of covid anyway. Peter Gammon has the UKIP brand behind him, and in general is a far more credible flagbearer for that niche demographic.
Kahn has been a major letdown though. Ok, he's had a tough job, coming in after the highs of the Olympics and with a hostile government. But, where to start:
- TfL is basically the biggest lever the mayor had. Boris knew that. Kahn hollowed out the organisation with fare cuts and reorgs. Crossrail delayed on his watch. Tube upgrades cancelled. Pandering to unions.
- The met hasn't fared a lot better. Local cop shops shut, knife crime epidemic, not to mention the rise in delinquency and begging (while not wholly in his control) hasn't been brilliant for London's image.
- Picking culture war-y fights with the government over brexit, and childish beefs with Trump
- And to top it all, making the office of Mayor even more of an irrelevance by moving out of the iconic City hall to a warehouse in the Docklands.
Literally, the only things he's got going for him is he's Muslim (which feels nice and progressive), and not Zak Goldsmith or Sean Bailey.Oh and Manchester United 13 times
First win at Anfield since the month I came back to the UK.
I had no kids, far more hair, and was fluent in Chinese. Aged 32. Crikey!!
He’s a centre-leftist.
But he is a complete and utter non-entity.
He’s done nothing but cower in City Hall.
Must suck that modern times the only team worth talking about from Manchester is Manchester City!
Manchester United are basically the Sunderland of Manchester aren't they?
Netflix and co offered a whole library of shows. The Beeb digitised its archive but never connected it to the iPlayer, never offered a library of programs like Netflix did.
People make out like the iPlayer was groundbreaking but it wasn't really, Netflix did it first. And the Beeb never made the most of what the iPlayer could have been instead loving to think how great they were.
That's the Beeb's biggest problem I think. They're arrogant and convinced that they and their "celebrities" are much more beloved than they really are.
Now, Netflix has (historically) put boxes at local cable distribution points to cache content, but I hear they're largely stopping that, because the cost of bandwidth has fallen so much.
Actually my Father supported both, as he said that either being successful is good for Manchester
So, it was really only their own generated content that was streamable, except around broadcast windows.
We've suffered enough.
Almost everything that's on during daytime is essentially replicated on ITV and Channel 4, is simulcast on the News channel, or is a repeat. It's basically white noise for pensioners to fall asleep to after breakfast or lunch. If it disappeared then nobody would miss it at all.
(Just kidding, I've only ever encountered them by train)
But that's it. I cannot think of anything else on the positive list, and the negatives are multiple.
It is amazing he is cruising to victory. The Tories should examine themselves: a good candidate would have beaten Khan. The candidate has to be a confident, high profile loudmouth. That's what Londoners like, because that's what fits the mayoral role.
On TfL, it's a financial catastrophe - with the commuting income gone, it's effectively run by the Government yet it has to provide a full service even though no one use sit especially during the day. Even when restrictions are lifted, will passenger numbers return to pre-Covid levels if working from home becomes semi-permanent for hundreds of thousands of office workers? The model of the passenger transport service is broken and I'm not sure how it gets fixed any time soon.
You can't blame Khan for Covid or for the impact of Government restrictions. I'm also loath to pin Crossrail wholly on him - the project began under Boris Johnson and we know the costs and timetable were ludicrously unrealistic and ambitious in comparison to the Olympics which Boris inherited from Ken Livingstone and implemented successfully.
On crime, the closure of local Police offices began under Boris but hasn't been reversed by Khan. There seems a vacuum of ideas on responding to knife crime - Bailey seems to think he can conjure thousands of extra Police out of thin air at no cost fully trained.
The Mayor's office is short on practical authority and long on political symbolism. In all fairness, Boris and Ken both milked the symbolism of the office and Khan has been no different.
I do think Khan has made little or no difference which may be the most damning indictment. We are, in my part of town, seeing a blizzard of new construction though how much of that really addresses the housing issues of London and how much is an opportunity for property developers and house builders to turn a huge profit is a question for another day.
Note, the BBC would not produce content, merely commission it, and which could then be distributed (for free) via Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, etc.
As part of this, it might commission (for example) coverage of the Paralympics, or even Wimbledon.
It would require - for this - a budget of notalotatall, which could probably be raised by selling off the entire back catalog of the BBC, and investing the money conservatively, and using the interest income.
An eyesight coach may be the solution for Klopp...
Maybe your idea of merging BBC 2 and 4, simulcasting News 24 until 1800, and spending some cash on a mixture of quality entertainment (take some risks with commissioning stuff the commercial channels wouldn't touch), and some interesting documentaries and highbrow politics shows. Maybe I've just designed a network only I'd watch, but as you say ITV and the multiple satellite channels would pick up the slack for the daytime TV demographic. At least a strategy like the above might keep the middle class away from Netflix. Something has to change, anyway.
Boris was the ideal candidate for the zeitgeist in 2008 - with the dark clouds of the global financial crash brewing over the City ad suburbs, Boris was relentlessly positive, optimistic and cheerful. Eleven years into a Labour Government that counted for a lot against Ken Livingstone who looked stale and out of touch and relentlessly cheerless. London is above all a young, upbeat, confident place.
That, in brief, was why Boris won in 2008 and he had the great fortune to face Livingstone again in 2012 - had he faced Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman I think he'd have lost.
Sadiq was the ideal Labour candidate in 2016 Zac Goldsmith was David Cameron for London and of course Cameron had won in 2015 but he wasn't going to appeal in the same way Boris did despite the support of the Standard which counts for much less than you might think.
Who would you have put up against Sadiq from the Conservative side? Fighting an incumbent Mayor is as tough as fighting an incumbent President in the US - the incumbent has name recognition and all the benefits of the office.
2024 will be a very different race but that will be overshadowed by the GE. If Boris looks like being re-elected, the Conservative candidate might have a chance on his coat tails but if it's a closer contest, Labour will win again.
Music in general OTOH...
Sadly, current local government reorganisation seeks to perpetuate a north / south in what is effectively greater Newcastle (the bizarrely named “North of Tyne Combined Authority”).
The BBC has an enormous back-catalogue (quite a few of Netflix's offerings are ex-BBC). I am not sure of the licensing issues in offering that back-catalogue but I hope it is not hampered by 'unfair competition' issues foisted on it by private media interests.
The BBC has been a truly massive cultural influence around the world on behalf of the UK; it would be senseless for us now to allow it to be trashed on ideological grounds.
Catchy as all hell.
I don't think it's "zealots", it's the fact that the skills required to make content are different to the skills required to run a channel.
What's the core competence of the BBC? What's its mission? How can it achieve that mission as cost efficiently as possible?
Ironically Boris would have been great as mayor right now. But we have this effete and tedious twerp instead: Sadiq Khan.
Who are the people loyally voting for Khan? I presume lots of BAME Londoners maybe, but every Londoner I know (even on the Left) is either deeply apathetic towards him, or actively hostile and contemptuous. I don't know anyone that *likes* him. He is winning the mayoralty because he is a Remainer and not a Tory, and that's it.
However TfL was a financial basket case while Covid was still unknown outside of a cave in China. Not a lot Kahn could have done different with the pandemic to be fair, but TfL was not well placed to weather the shitstorm. And maybe if the Mayor's office had better relationships with central government, the bailout would have been less cripalling.
With Crossrail, it's unfortunate it happened on his watch I admit, but as top dog he has to carry the can to a certain extent. Maybe it's just bad luck, but I can't help but feel he was asleep at the wheel, or maybe focussing too much on sticking up "London is Open" posters on every spare bit of real estate.
Boris pulled off successful Olympics on his watch, when many were predicting disaster. Ok, a lot of credit goes to Ken, Jowell, and an army of people in LOCOG that actually made it happen... But the contrast is striking.
I lived in East London too until a few years ago... no shortage of "luxury" new build apartments going up, granted. I guess the power of the Mayoralty is limited as far as housing goes, but given the urgency of the housing situation I do wonder if Kahn couldn't have used the position of the office to bang a few heads together and try something different.
Now we have Channel 5, multiple freeview channels and Netflix and Amazon Prime on the web too.
The BBC still does some watchable dramas, Line of Duty, The Night Manager, Bloodlands starting tomorrow with James Nesbitt, documentaries by Simon Reeve and David Attenborough and current affairs like Panorama and also still some sports and plenty of news.
However the license fee should still fund programmes of cultural and educational value but be spread around more channels not just the BBC and the BBC should be allowed to advertise and raise more of its own revenue
We have yet to hear whether significant numbers of successful EU candidates will decline their offers for next year, though. Not so far, but it's early in the cycle.
--AS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p093wp6h/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56071189
London is now solid Labour
Boosterist Boris used his mayoral success to leap to the highest office. I refuse to believe Khan can execute the same jump, unless Labour lose their senses (again).
Back to some figures, there are 25.2 million people over the age of 50 and 16.1 million over the age of 60.
If around 17 million have been vaccinated, that should mean everyone over 60 has been vaccinated.
This over 60 year old has heard nothing about a vaccination at this time.
Clearly, there are areas where over 50s have largely been vaccinated and it may even be younger people are starting to be vaccinated but in other areas such as mine, there are people over 60 who haven't yet been contacted let alone vaccinated.
As I've repeatedly claimed, the rollout programme is uneven - some areas have done really well, others haven't. Priority should now be given to the latter in terms of vaccine supplies and resources.
We have done the whole bit about how theu haven't adapted to modern tv series structures, still no 4k, and they insist on putting all their audio stuff on the inferior BBC Sounds app to other audio platforms....
But they also seem lost about how to use YouTube. The seem to think uploading the odd clip will do, but their upload get very few views compared to loads of total randoms who do news and current affairs round ups.
Victoria Derbyshire used to make a huge thing about despite hardly anybody watching her show live, some of her clips got lots of retweets...but that doesn't generate any revenue and it is the same niche group of twatterati. As we saw with all the nonsense about how many people viewed a Boris clip it means nothing.
The youth don't watch them as their offerings aren't seen as cool.
And we are seeing it already, all the noises from the BBC are defensive don't toucb the licence fee, no reform we are better than Netflix.
Netflix isn't who they should be worried about, the likes of Disney could easily eat everbodies lunch.
Extraordinarily windy and wet the last few days but the temperature is a bit more spring-like, at least.
Daughter ill, alas, so have been preoccupied.
Bye.
The North of Tyne CA is an abomination that should never have been allowed to happen. The idea that Gateshead riverside, a few yards from Newcastle Quayside and in the CBD, is a different city is for the birds.