The BBC White Season only shows how little Auntie has really changed

Roy

Isn't this BBC thing a suitable topic for David Cameron to hang his hat on? Perhaps a wee promise to get the BBC to purchase a new set of English dictionaries, before circulating them to its staff put a ring in red ink around the word truth. Perhaps a memo to go with the new books stating categorically that no other language will do for their enlightenment.

Thomas

The BBC is much loved by people and considered to be a source of pride. The fact that it is increasingly difficult to see why to those living in this country shouldn't hide from us the fact that those sentiments remain. A future Tory government could cut the BBC's budget - through the license fee, and set up new guidelines on what kind of programming it can produce - a new charter. This would start to chip away at its privileges. Alternatively, the government could start to subsidise news programming with no conditions on editorial content for any group who can raise some money and get the news to air. Alternatively, or additionally, we could fund some kind of public access television like they have in the states. That would instantly allow the disenfranchised majority to make their own views known. This last oe seems to me the best option.

Roy

The Richard Klein remark along with that added to by the author is a bitter piece of descriptive writing. Whether in essence it is true today, it certainly wasn't true during my childhood in the North. Certainly wouldn't have shouted darkie, since there were no darkies to be seen in the country. Choose how the working class are described in the upper echelons of the BBC or elsewhere it doesn't alter the fact they are a part of this country, have as much right and should have more rights than the late comers. It must surely show (if the comments are true) what depths the powers that be have allowed the countries morals with all the anti-social behavior and lawlessness to degenerate to. The BBC would certainly not be helping in this regard. The depths of depravity that some programming has descended to is a disgrace. The educational capacity of schools to do justice for the indigenous kids is remote.

Ray

Rod, once again you have hit the nail squarely on the head. If the BBC cannot bring themselves to say the word 'right' - then at least Enoch Powell was just a teeny-weeny bit sort of, how shall we say, er... um....

Austin Barry

I don't think it's unreasonable for the Beeb to prepare the white, oblivion-drinking, smoke-sucking, welfare-cadging Morlocks for the coming Caliphate. Surely the screams of the infibulated are preferable to obscene football chants, and the skyline improved by strange fruits dangling from the cranes of urban renewal. El Beeb may be less arrogant and rather more prescient than we give it credit for.

Lance Grundy

Thomas, March 13 2008, 8.04am: Unfortunately for “some kind of public access television like they have in the states” to work here we would have to have something else they have in the United States – the right to free speech. We don’t have that right. A programme that seriously challenged the current Leftist, politically-correct orthodoxy would not be allowed to be broadcast here on any media platform. Dissent is not tolerated here. The rot really has gone that far.

Stephen Fox

Excellent article, Rod. Please write one sometime about your stint on the Today programme. I'd be interested to hear how your views evolved. Were you on board with the Beeb mentality at one time? I write as a recovering liberal elite idiot myself... Thomas I think you're quite right about people valuing the BBC. I think the problem is far more with the cultural and metropolitan class the Beeb is embedded in, and I don't know how we deal with them. Interestingly, John Buchan was writing about the 'BBC culture' ('terribly knowing', plausible, cynical, and radical) already in the thirties. Sadly, we are still stuck between them, and the trashy, 'big brother' pop culture featuring footballers' girlfriends and cheeky builders dancing with their shovels etc. Which is why I have thrown my telly away, and listen to much less radio than I used.

Sadie Clifford

'0.003 per cent of its airtime to issues which bother 92 per cent of its licence payers' Where on earth did these figures come from? I'm pretty sure Britain is not 92% white working class. But thanks for making it clear we don't need to take you seriously so early in your article.

rod liddle

Hello Sadie - it's called "white season" and, by the last count, white people constituted about 92 per cent of the legally domiciled population. The 0.003 per cent figure I did indeed make up; five hours of programming out of how ever much the BBC does across 18 different networks every year; a "very very small fraction" would have been more accurate, I suppose....... Stephen, many thanks; the answer is it was a perpetual struggle - not to put MY view across, but to get people thinking outside of that liberal box.

C Powell

One step the BBC could do is to stop putting its ads for jobs only in the Guardian. But the real problem is that liberals like the idea of people expressing their points of view, in theory, but are then shocked and appalled when other people do express their opinion and they find that they are different. All this does is prove is that they are not really liberal or in favour of free speech at all. For all their smugness about their in-depth analysis, there is no real analysis or thought applied, too many lazy assumptions, too great a fear of giving offence or of being challenging. It's a form of intellectual cowardice, largely caused because they do not actually - despite being journalists - use their eyes and ears and because a lot of analysis amounts to little more than wishful thinking, especially about immigration, multiculturalism and other difficult topics and preconceived opinions e.g with regard to anything about the US.

TRH

IDEA!

Anyone can make a TV or Radio programme using equipment costing less than £1000. Let's make the BBC open access - no licence fee, no adverts and no payments to contributors.

The responsibility for sifting through the contributions can be given to a team of curators. These will be a team of volunteers, elected annually by internet vote.

Ray

If we have to have a state broadcaster I'd prefer it to do the job properly, "Beloved leader Brown congratulates community liaison outreach officers on exceeding their quotas for the tenth year in succession." And leave the entertaining to the private sector.

Fergus Pickering

I thought that the Enoch Powell programme was quite good. I expected a diatribe against him but it wasn't like that. The men who came off worst among the political class were Heath and Jenkins and quite right too. Frank Field came within a fag paper of endorsing Powell's views.

rod liddle

Yep, agree re the Powell programme - I should probably have mentioned it. Frank Field's views strike me as identical to Powell's.

Dave Burns

To add to Rod's point about the very small fraction of time devoted to this, it is about the same as the Beeb devote to promoting Millionaire Lloyd Webbers latest revival! (Prime time of course!)

TDK

It's interesting that the pathologies that affect our poor white girl are precisely the behaviours that the white middle class elite have celebrated for the past 40 years. Uninhibited drug taking, promiscuity, single motherhood. And the virtues that the girl finally endorses seem to be somewhat, dare I say it, reactionary. The white working class are not the only invisible people. I used to live in a community where black evangelists were quite common. These were decent people holding their families and community together, who were shocked by my atheism but more shocked by rastifarian and latterly rap culture. I don't recall any positive coverage outside the Sunday slots.

George

Great feature, Rodders, keep it up.

Says Stephen Fox: “I write as a recovering liberal elite idiot myself…” Join the club. Be glad you’ve got in now, too, because it looks as if the waiting list is growing.

I’ve felt the change coming slowly across people my age in the capital but I’ve wondered whether something similar is going on in Labour’s heartlands and so I was interested to hear the old fella in the ‘Last Orders’ programme who spoke about how betrayed he felt by Labour. It seemed to imply he’d done more than vote for them.

Every addict has that moment when they realise they’re in a mess and with me it was 12 September 2001 sat on the tube with my daily copy of The Guardian in my hand and registering the undertone of glee at what had happened.

That was the moment I realised I had a problem.

D Short

Hey, if the BBC is shaken by the fact that people in east London vote...er...with their vote and elect people who represent them, perhaps mutatis mutandis, they might start making programmes for people who pay their wages thru the licence fee, ie. those that appeal to white middle class people who don't particularly want to watch potty-mouthed, narcissitstic, overpaid homosexuals (G Norton) or potty-mouthed, grossly overpaid, narcissistic heterosexuals (J Ross). Or is that too much to hope for? Mind you, since you're writing in a magazine with a front page story by a silly girl glamorizing the blacks gun culture (I fear that neither the editor or his boss is one of those journalists who've seen at first hand the distinctly unglamorous effects of guns), the Spectator looks like it's moving in the direction of the Beeb, so you might be for the chop yourself.

Christopher King

Wise words indeed.

Talia

Rod, THANK YOU SO MUCH for this article. I’ve been getting so angry about this all week. The SMUGNESS is the worst part. And did you see the preview in Monday’s Times? “An illiterate, alcoholic, white mother (Anna Maxwell Martin) flees her abusive partner and moves to an exclusively Muslim community in Bradford with her children. After the initial shock of the unfamiliar, her 11-year-old daughter Leah (Holly Kenny, above) develops a fascination with Islam. She befriends her neighbours, wears a hijab and goes to the mosque. "When I pray," she says, "it's like everything's not all bad and f***ed up. Like somewhere there's a place that I feel safe." Beautifully acted and never less than utterly absorbing, this optimistic fable is a paean to racial harmony, in which the compassion and discipline of Islam are contrasted with an indigenous low-life culture that is entirely destructive. Not one for the BNP. “ UNBELIEVABLE.

Geoff

On 30.12.2007 at 13:30 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a program with the following description: "Nica Pritchard introduces the art of fly fishing to a group of Muslim women, who in turn share their views and experiences of Islamic culture" I tuned in by chance to hear '...make sure the hook doesn't get caught in your hijab...' Fly fishing for Muslim women? You couldn't make it up, but it's true.

Andrew

I wonder, will the BBC at any point in this 'White season' be broadcasting programmes about predominantly white communities who are happy, without the context of multiculturalism as the backdrop? There are programmes like this shown on the BBC - 'An Island Parish' is the main one I'm thinking of. In other reality programmes (and dramas and so forth), whites' everyday problems have been explored without the necessity of their woes being sourced in racial tensions. Hence, this 'white season', which on the surface I optimistically assumed would be a headline exploration and expression of traditional British values and culture that might inform everyone who hasn't been here long enough of what we do and what we're like, can only serve to undermine further any remaining respect felt for the white working-class and its distrust of progress. And please let's not pretend that racism is only ever felt by white people towards black people.

Andrew

Are the white working classes really neglected, or is the media just failing and misrepresenting them?

Su Catlin

Rod Liddle is an odious little man with contemptible views. The BBC got it wrong, agreed. The working classes are presented as racist and ignorant and Muslims and Black people(are they immigrants if they are born here?)are blamed for all their ills and insecurities about their culture. Isn't that analysis a bit simplistic. Rod Liddle would have us believe that the BBC is full of high minded liberals so he must have been the lone voice in the wind speaking up for the masses and decrying multiculturalism. It must have been jolly hard for him to keep his mouth shut and keep his illiberal views to himself. At least at the Spectator he finds like-minded people.

Geoff Ellis

I cannot speak for the BBC output within the UK, but as a white Brit living in the Far East for decades, the BBC World TV News Service is a sort of "spot the White Brit presenter" game. Nice competent people they undoubtedly all are, but consistently we have ethnic Brits anchoring News,Finance, Sport, Current Affairs, all from their London home base, but thankfully they cross to the excellent reporters in far flung areas who all seem to be white Brits...generally in pretty awful areas to work, in some cases, without all the bling of the big Multi-thingy London. I can assure you, there are NO "white" people appearing in key roles on the national broadcasters of any Asian or Middle Eastern countries so with the quoted 92% figure, why the UK?

Roy

Perhaps I could be forgiven browsing through, that rather than hiding under stones there are some who hide in their ivory towers, see only what they wish to see, read only what they wish to read, and dream only what they wish to dream.

Asmodeus

Thank you Rod. More power to your elbow !

Graham Weeks

"Can you imagine them commissioning a film about a Muslim girl who converts to Christianity, converts her mum — and by the denouement is proven right to have done so? It will never happen." - Which is a pity as it could give us a whole series on their subsequent lives persecuted by their former co-religionists.

Rick Worth

In an otherwise interesting article, Liddle stoops to unforgiveable dishonesty: "Jack Straw can tell you he insists that women who arrive at his office for surgery must remove their hijab". That is complete bollocks....and he knows it. JS asks if they would mind doing so/want to do so. And he does so for two reasons. He finds communication better and easier face to face and he believes that some of the women wear the veil because of pressure from others. Five years ago that a journalist would have checked his facts before writing such nonsense. Now he's giving a 'very real and valuable critique'!

Martin Morrow

I found the whole shebang desperately patronising in its arrogance and ignorance.

David Short

Last night's White programme on Barking backfired on the BBC because none of the white people interviewed, even the BNP people, came across as ranting racists, but rather nice, family-minded reasonable people, despite the goading and the attempts by the BBC interviewer, fancying himself as Nick Broomfield, to fit them up. I fear this man has no future at the Beeb. As a former UN officer, I've been subject to the Beeb's attempts at putting words into my mouth and trying to trip me up. Believe me, the culture of the BBC is contemptible.

David Short

Why is there no Abuse button here? I would have reported Su Catlin's gratuitous insult, had there been. Webmaster, please redesign.

Reimer

My dear 72 year old Mum, a politically-inactive Mail/Express-reading mainly Tory-voting (but Bevan-admiring) retired factory worker on the Barking documentary: "Government propaganda...the BBC is the mouthpiece of the Labour Party...the main parties are not worth a damn". The BBC would appear to be doing a good job of helping in the radicalisation of such conventional people, although not perhaps in the direction they'd like.

Kiffa

George and other recovering liberals, could I guide you to two sources: the current MSN message board discussing whether Gordon Brown should get a waxwork at Taussauds: the rage and hatred of him and his government burns the screen. But brilliant humour still! Britain is not yet as stupid as liberals imagine. Secondly, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell. This examines what makes the liberal elite tick (a belief that Good Intentions impart a special state of grace) and why they are so blind to discordant feedback of their vision, as well as empirical examination of the consequences of their social policies ('war on poverty', rehabilitative criminal justice system, welfare etc.) He says this over represented minority (politics, media, academics) is sleepwalking our culture to disaster. And it was written before the concept of multiculturalism! It is a profoundly depressing book and confirms why we so loathe lefties and their Unintended Consequences.

Martin Morrow

Oh dear David Short, do not fall into that trap. The Spectator allows free speech on their pages, very much like the Daily Telegraph. Since no other media allow this, especially the left wing and liberal, who monitor and cull any comments contrary to their point of view we should realise that this will be a magnet for lefties to spout their bile. So let Su Catlin spew forth. And let her be judged by her peers. Now that is free speech.

Max Kaye

Thanks Rod.

Austin Barry - great phrase: "strange fruits dangling from the cranes of urban renewal".

George (March 14th, 2008 11:28am) - well written.

David Short

Martin Morrow. I have been a reader of The Spectator for mroe than 25 years, but I gave up reading the print version when they brought in Andropause Neil, except for one time when I needed to buy something to read on the train to Cornwall. It is a changed magazine, and not for the better, but also they are very predictable, boring old-style lifestyle 1980s changes. I heard Andropause had appointed himself editor-in-chief. Figures.

Lisa

The Barking programme was unbelievable. Normally these documentary makers leave the leading questions to try to hide their bias but in this they were peppered all over the place.

rod liddle

Rick, with the greatest respect, Jack Straw told the press - the press, remember - that when Muslim women came to his surgery dressed in a facial veil, he asked them to remove it. I'm sorry but it is simply inconceivable that a politician could have got away with that in the 1990s or even some way beyond. Let alone a Labour politician. Let alone a senior Labour politician. Talia - yep, I saw it. It was the inspiration for the piece. Unbelievable.

Verity

Mistaken reporting here: Jack Straw, a weak man, doesn't "insist" that women in his office don't wear fright bin liners. Aging cabana-boy Jack doesn't "insist" on anything. He just says it makes him feel "uneasy". (Jack, I loathe aggressive islamic women, but I have a feeling they may feel the same way about your feral little rat face.) I remember an interview in which you said you and your family were the only "middle class" family on your council estate. Your parents were teachers.

John Thomas

Look, let's just get one thing straight, all of you, Rod as well: it's "liberal", so-called, in inverted commas, liberal as a label (cleverly chosen, as it has the effect of instantly promoting its user to the moral high ground. But ... really really liberal? Liberating Freeing? Don't make me laugh!

Ceref

"issues which bother 92 per cent of its licence payers.`'

Will someone please explain to me why many of these issues might not also concern the remaining 8 per cent? The cost of living, job insecurity, unaffordable house prices and poor schools, men lewdly staring at and catcalling women in a way that if a say a gay man did to a builder there'd sure be violence, doctors who keep consular hours, 'Healf & Sayfety' gone mad come to mind.

And exactly what kind of programmes should the BBC be making to redress the disadvantage? Anyone please point out programmes on the commercial channels, for example, that the BBC should emulate?

L Gresham

I do not normally see any humour in the sad state of our country and, in particular, the marxist-liberal bigotry and contemptuous attitude towards everything 'native British' regularly displayed by the BBC and other parts of the media. I must admit, however, to being drawn into a smile by Mr Liddle's portrayal of their smug obtuseness which I suspect is more of an accurate description than a caricature. Being aware of exactly how out-of-touch the BBC is with public opinion, I also suspect that these programmes may actually have been - quite incredibly - an attempt to 'head off' the BNP by pretending that a mainstream organisation like the BBC is capable of balanced reporting, and that 'extremists' are not needed in this country. Instead, they have confirmed for yet more voters how little the Establishment has in common with ordinary folk.

Steve Edwards

Frank Field is a very principled politician, unsurprisingly a Christian, and perhaps less susceptible to the nouvelle religion of our political and cultural classes. The Powell programme was good, though the BBC couldn't resist an imposition; that Powell was wrong about race, and that the matter was now between believers in democracy and believers in theocracy. That's just a lie. The Storyville about Barking is just a piece of social engineering come propaganda, which oddly conflicts with their assertion about race in the Powell programme.

john jones

Well what you're seeing is a backlash. The same happened to the "Political Correctness" revolution during the 90's. Once people have got over it, then the backlash begins. Certain jokes about women or minorities that were frowned upon are now ok it seems and its widely endorsed by stand up comedians. The same can be said of multi-culturalism. If we're all equal now, then everybody is fair game for questioning and ridicule ...women, minorities, whites, men, old people etc

Peter Saunders

The BBC isn't the only institution getting into 'whiteness.' I live in Australia and recently came across an invitation to an academic conference being organised at Monash University in Melbourne on "Re-orienting Whiteness". There will be sessions on 'Whiteness in the colonial/settler colonial encounter'; 'Whiteness in non-colonial contexts'; 'The gendered privileges of whiteness'; and 'How important were global imperial processes to the operation of white power?' You think I'm making this up? You can find more at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-ANZAU&month=0803&week=a&msg=i%2bwX7fPTamOure42ne9d4g&user=&pw=

Charles Smith

Our votes now are worthless, we have to choose between Gordon and a slick Etonian chancer none of whom wants to connect with those that vote. So we blog and blog and blog some more....but thanks Rod for speaking the truth. I am sure you are aware of the anger of the disenfranchised sorry to be white. The BBC, Channel 4 and the whole lot of them think they can place their privileged fat arses on top of this volcano until its extinct. I used to march in Anti Nazi demonstrations, I am not a rascist but I hate the rascism directed at us. All commers please correct any spelling or grammer but don't touch the truth.

Tim Chapman

Rod Liddle, you're a prince. The sorts of comments you make about multiculturalism are now welcomed by all but a minority of unsophisticated utopians here down under. Even our new Mr Rudd, even though a churchgoing Anglican and a great admirer of Bonhoeffer, seems to to be sensible on the subject; and as an autocrat he's unlikely to let any of the ideological ratbags in his government have much of a say in policy.

Gareth

Good article. I fear you have only scratched the surface. This self righteous liberalism has been around forever in the UK, but has only become powerful in the last 10 or so years. They don't know when to keep their mouths shut and can't believe everyone does not agree with them. A major irony is that they helped their loathed nemesis George Bush win the last US by randomly sending pompous letters to Ohio residents telling them why they shouldn't vote for him! PS To Su Catlin and Austin Barry. You are the smug,pompous,misguided traitors that are unwittingly radicalising a growing proportion of the British indiginous population. Your kind have forgotten what happens when the slumbering masses stir.

Frank

I was furious while watching WHITE GIRL unfold and began taking notes. I've spent many years in Hollywood developing film projects and was astounded at the banal script and direction which showed anything 'white' or 'Christian' as abusive, damaging or simply pathetic. Did the programme confront honour killings? Arranged marriages? No. It was an arrogant script that would have been laughed out of most US production companies. And what of most critics? They praised the production. This made me even more furious. Thanks, Rod, for someone showing the Emperor does wear a hijab.

Bobbsterr

Great article Rod and, as usual, spot on.

Exactly why do we still cling on to the BBC in it's present form?

It is idealogically biased, undemocratic and should be privatised as a matter of urgency.

I, for one, would rather poke up with the adverts!

jon livesey

Sometimes a Spectator story is remarkable less for what it says than for the number of comments it attracts.

From the number here, I suppose I must conclude that the British are terribly interested in the BBC. Right?

Christopher Davison

The BBC "White" series was a string of nasty ridicule of working British people many of whom had family members who died for this country. Just take a look at the BBC WHITE WebPages. See the peasant Brit ridiculed by having his face covered with marker pen scribble complete with a blank unintelligent expression. No Sir. the BBC hates working class people and there is not a single BBC staff member who has any clue about this great section of Britain.