Public revulsion engulfs the BBC

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Ms. Phillips: Whatever the circumstances, the phone calls to Andrew Sachs were in appallingly bad taste. However, it occurred to me that their content was not unexpected by Mr. Sachs. You said in your column that the phone interview was pre-arranged; perhaps the calls were rehearsed. Andrew Sachs is too experienced an entertainer to agree to do a phone interview with no idea what the content would be. Whether he knew what the comments would be or not, the whole routine is in disgustingly bad taste.

Kevyn Bodman

Melanie,
Your Daily Mail article on this was superb; this post is also very good.
British culture is coarsening.
The BBC is part of this, but not all of it.
There is now a genre of 'humiliation television.'
From the gratuitously offensive comments that Ann Robinson has been getting away with for years, the foul-mouthed bullying rantings of Gordon Ramsay and the humiliation of contestants on shows like The Apprentice and the X Factor some entertainment programmes seek to entertain by nastiness.
This Ross/Brand disgrace is the worst I've yet come across.
I would sack them both, and then sack their editor and the Director General.
The D-G should go because he sets the tone of the organisation and that tone needs to change.

Vision Aforethought

Spot on. And I think this reaction by the concerned public will be the start of ths middle class revolution against the moral decay. Because those in power (government and media) lack moral authority (preferring to sway to the wind or for profit), they cannot police themselves. As per other issues, there is a vacuum. Who is going to fill it? Where is the Mrs. Thatcher to standup on the podium, say "Ok, enough is enough", cleanse the 'gene pool' and takes things in a new direction, with democracy in the engine rooms.

Ray

The sad fact is, Melanie, that when those of us who have complained over the years about the road the BBC and its leftie pals have been taking us down stop to take stock of our own lives and actions we suddenly realise just how much of this agenda we ourselves have imbibed and accepted, almost by default.

There is a saying: 'drop by drop the stone is hollowed'. So it is that things that would once have been considered reprehensible or even unthinkable (such as the acts your reader describes) slowly become acceptable, then unremarkable, and eventually even laudable.

May God forgive us for our own lazy moral relativism and ever embolden those like yourself who have consistently braved ridicule, ostracism and censure to state unequivocally that what a man sows he will reap.

And what a whirlwind we are now reaping as both individuals and a society for our failure to appreciate that God will not forever be mocked.

cuffleyburgers

This is further proof that the BBC has so obviously outlived its usefulness.

Time to end the licence fee, limit state fundung to a very small proportion of TV programmes, and those chiefly in the educational side or else historical drama which would probably, if well made with the high quality production values we used to manage, be self financing.

I would preserve the radio services, and expand the world service foreign language programming.

Jonathan Ross could possibly be regarded as a clever broadcaster - certainly I have met some quite intelligent people who rate him. However Russel Brand is simply an arse, neither clever nor funny.

So over to the Cameroons, get the debate on the table NOW.

Daniel Heslop

The Andrew Sachs incident was not too far removed from the "happy-slapping" phenomena.

Verity

The BBC is another reason I left Britain - because it represents the worst of Britain. I cannot add a word to what you have written about the moral degradation of this vile organisation. And the British are forced by law to finance this smart-arse abandonment of every civilised value Britain once stood for.

Verity

Miranda Rose Smith - You propose that Mr Sachs might have been complicit in obscenities about his granddaughter being broadcast?

Unlike humman waste like Jonathan Ross and the other one whose name I can't remember, Mr Sachs is genuinely talented and funny, and people with a light, clever touch for comedy are sensitive people. I think your suggestion is grotesque.

William

The BBC continue to describe this episode as a "prank" !

Bill

The BBc should dispence with the Services of Russel Brand and Jonothan Ross forthwith. Senior management in agreement with these so called comedians should have their contracts terinated.
I suppose it is too much to hope that the BBC will ever return to be an impartial, moral and ethical public service broadcaster.

Miranda Rose Smith

Verity: I don't know a thing about Mr. Sachs. If he has any brains or decency, you're right. My suggestion is grotesque. But the entertainment world contains some grotesque, attention-hungry human beings.

Conservative Cabbie

Vision Aforethought

You are spot on with your comment about this country being in dire need of a leader for those crying out for a return to greater moral values. Might I also add that small c conservative leadership is what is required. Who is that person in our increasingly liberalised society?

I'm sure it's hyperbole but I'm not sure we're quite at the point of cleansing the gene pool yet, perhaps we might employ persuasion and strength of arguement in the first instance.

Stever

it was offensive and misplaced but isnt the media fuss over this a bit like the outrage over the Janet Jackson costume malfunction incident? Its easy to read to much into a bit of childish vulgarity - and translate it into the entire BBC and its massive outputs, the vast majority of which do not involve either smutty phone pranks or, lets be honest, dog sex.

I sense an overreaction. Hardly the end of days.

thomas

Miranda Rose Smith says: 'You said in your column that the phone interview was pre-arranged.'

Not according to this report:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1081094/Did-vicars-son-nod-Ross-Brands-obscene-phone-calls.html

It says the BBC asked Mr Sachs and he said no, but being the BBC they went ahead anyway.

'Perhaps the calls were rehearsed. Andrew Sachs is too experienced an entertainer to agree to do a phone interview with no idea what the content would be.'

But Mr Sachs never did the interview.

It seems that because he refused, they left spiteful messages doing a cruel mock 'interview', putting on voices pretending to be Mr Sachs.

Here is the transcript:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080839/Ofcom-probe-scandal-Ross-Brands-prank-pressure-grows-sacked-despite-apologies.html

Brian Moshe

Bravo Melanie.

I watched Jonathan Ross's late evening show for the first time the other night. His guests included Sarah Silverman, Gordon Ramsey and Ricky Gervais (I regard the latter as a brilliant comic).

By the end of the show I was utterly appalled and thoroughly bored with the needless bad language, unfunny jokes and the curiously absent lack of talent displayed by Ross. I couldn't see why on earth anyone thinks he's worth paying 6 million pounds a year.

The BBC has been in terminal decline for years but to my mind never before on so many fronts at once.

Much as I wish for the courage to risk going to prison for witholding my TV licence fee in protest at the political and anti-Israel bias alone, I dare not do so for fear of not being allowed to return to the USA where I spend part of each year (and increasingly hate having to come back here).

Even if BBC TV is reformed root and branch it is a tragedy that it has been able to sink to its present nadir without a mass-movement among viewers refusing to finance its increasingly unsatisfactory output.

logdon

Hoist by their own petard. I used to love the BBC. However gradually the penny dropped as it's inherent Britishness was replaced by relativism and a chasm in defending national values. An example. Post 9/11 Radio Four suddenly seemed to devote an inordinate amount of airtime promoting Islamic values compared to the percentage stats of Muslims living here. That was a kind of warning shot across our bows as to where our national broadcaster was heading. Now it's as if the juice of Al Jazeera has been supplanted into the drinking water of Al Beeb. That's just one of many of the self loathing strands we now take for granted when tuning in. The other is the dumbing down and anyone watching BBC Three will witness this phenomena of lazy cheap jokes littered with obscenities which passes for entertainment on that apology for a channel. Two Pints of Lager which occupies much of the evening output, for me is cringingly unwatchable. The only good thing is the very un-PC Family Guy and even then the system of repeats is unfathomable with a seemingly autistically random method of scheduling which defies all logic. Both Ross and Brand who once had a kind of risque charm have fallen for their own schtick and now the witty cleverness which had rude margins is supplanted by crude obscenity which has nothing at it's core except a desire to shock. It's as if we could compare Catch-22 with the Cartoon demo's. One a great and witty polemic against the injustice of war the other a bunch of crazies waving banners and declaring death to all who do not bend the knee to Mohammed. Brand especially falls into the latter category with a bludgeoning style which removes all sublety, creating train wreck humour at the cost of his victims. All of this together with the blatant political bias is the event horizon of the end of the BBC as we knew it. Pro Labour, anti Conservative. Pro Hamas, anti Israel. Pro PC, anti open truth. The list goes on and anyone wishing to explore this travesty can check out the gruesome litany on http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/. Meanwhile Melanie is our hope and seemingy up until this latest idiotic outburst of puerility in action one of the few to stand up to the mighty Beeb. After Labour's beheading you'd think they'd learn but seemingly, like Mandy, past experience is another country, not worth visiting.

zoltix

Bill and Kevyn Bodman are right to highlight the role of management in this.
Ross's producer, Andy Davies, has a special responsibility in overseeing the programme.
His role appears to be as a sidekick and chooser of music.
This is all well and good, but his primary function is to control the content, the performance and the programme in general with authority. Ross needs a strong producer with the ability to deal with these excesses not a 'mate'.
An additional side effect of the disappearing audience is likely to be that the number of guests willing to appear with him may also shrink.

disgusted

Stever

It's a paradigm shift / tipping point / last straw.

These things are no longer being seen as exceptions to the BBC's "mission to inform, educate and entertain" but as typical of its new mission "to degrade, coarsen and brutalise."

disgusted

Brian Moshe

Just stop watching telly! It's legal, and you don't need a licence.

38P Per Day- Worth Every Penny

I'm with Catlin Moran in the Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article4741778.ece

logdon

From biasedbbc blog spot. And even the Guardian joining the fray. What next? Objectivity? Heaven forbid.

"Ross and Brand to be investigated by Ofcom
Sky has the full story. The BBC also has it, but again in its coverage of this forgets to mention that it received over 1,500 complaints - interesting context, I thought.

UPDATE: Definitely not a good day for the Beeb, with both Melanie Phillips and the Guardian's John Harris having a go at it."

logdon

Public revulsion engulfs the Grauniad also.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/jonathan-ross-russell-brand-radio

It must be bad. Very bad.

Cynical Voter

I thought Mark Thompson was Editor-in-Chief so why has Lyons not removed him or suspended him ?

Time for the head monkey to be fired to instill discipline at State Broadcasting Corporation

EyeSee

Do I remember correctly that there were some fairly high profile resignations at the BBC, when a certain Alistair Campbell felt affronted by a single, passing remark, live in the early morning, that was factually correct anyway? You can offend Britain, the British people or British culture but you don't offend New Labour.

David Lindsay

What public service does Russell Brand fulfil, that he should be paid out of license-payers' money?

Let the license fee be made voluntary, with those who chose to pay it enrolled as members of the BBC Trust. The Trustees would then be elected by and from among the members in each of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the nine English regions (with their boundaries adjusted to reflect those of the historic counties).

Members would vote for one candidate by means of an X, and the top two would be declared elected at the end. A Chairman would be appointed by the relevant Secretary of State with the approval of the relevant Select Committee.

All would hold office for a fixed term of four years, and would have to be sufficiently independent that they could, in principle, serve on local authority remuneration committees.

The National Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution not only survive, but thrive. So would the BBC.

Without Russell Brand.

For no BBC accountable to license-payers, themselves by no means just everyone who wanted to watch the telly, would tolerate this person for one moment.

Geoff M

Ofcom? Defender of the public ?

About 3 years ago I alighted upon the digital Islam Channel (813 on Sky) whilst exporing the "further reaches" of Sky broadcasts.

I was confronted by a preacher who was informing the "faithfull" that Jews were all monkeys and Christians, also referred to as kaffirs, were pigs.

We were inferior creatures and destined to Hellfire. Muslims were their "superiors" (where have we heard that kind of talk before....).

Many other derogatory things were said.

I sent a complaint via Ofcom's website and received a reply that said "he was only preaching from the pulpit, so to speak, and therefore I should not be offended."

They also said that Islam Channel polices its output so as to ensure nothing offensive is broadcast. They respected "people of the book" and were only insulting to multiple deists (like Hindu's I presume)and Ofcom felt I should not be offended by that.

I assumed that therefore neither Islam Channel or Ofcom thought that referring to Jews as monkeys and Christians as pigs is anything to be offended about and that Hindus have no protection against religious hatred.

The whole Establishment in the UK stinks to high heaven.

RODEST

Melanie, there are many occasions when programmes over step the standards of decency but few people complain. I think the reason for that is people expect the type of response your reader recieved, therefore not many people are willing to spend their time and energy complaining.

Personally, I do not watch or listen to these type of programmes and exercise a choice of changing channels or turning off.

Public humiliation, I seem to be one among many who think this was, demands public apology. I did see a report that claimed Brand had attempted to make an apology saying it was rude to swear on peoples answer phone. For me this adds to the toilet culture refered to in your article. Brand's attempted apology was without sincerity; this is a vein that seems to run through apologies made by public figures be they in government, politicians, entertainmet or the media.

The BBC lack of instant action in this affair clearly indicates that it has little regard for the opinions of ordinary decent people. It is this lack of respect that has blown the lid off. Hopefully the revolt culture won't end here, in the past few months the public have had enough of this government, banks and financial institutions and big business like the energy and oil companies.

Brand and Ross are the perpertators, the BBC are their accomplice and should all be held accountable. Brand, Ross and programme makers/managers should have their contacts terminated and banned from working for the BBC.

Gene Fox

If your deluded readers imagine that broadcasting standards would be higher if the BBC were to go, they are sorely mistaken. This was a disgraceful episode, but nothing like the sort of bilge a free for all of private broadcasters would unleash - the likes of Sky and Rupert Murdoch as moral guardians of the national - pleeeeeezzzzze.

Helen Taylor

Brand and Ross are not meant to appeal to Daily Mail readers, but the audience that does like them are licence payers too you know and would probably find your tastes pretty offensive.

Mary Jones

Love Soup was brilliant including the episode you refer to. I thought it hilarious and of course it was grand guignol and not to be taken as real. And in case you think I am some young yob, I am a 60 year old grandmother and secretary to a Tory politician.

Edward

The above picture looks to me, an American, like one of the depictions of the Tower of Babel.

Was it designed that way intentionally?

EC

Mary Jones: "I am a 60 year old grandmother and secretary to a Tory politician."

No relation I hope! We've had enough pecuniary peccadilloes without Grannygate!

Lance Grundy

If the coming recession is half as bad as forecast then the public broadcaster’s days are numbered. Slowly but surely, it must be dawning on the BBC that to expect people to pay a £145 per year tax to watch TV is, even during the best of times, absurd. During the worst of times, it is simply wicked. It is a gross injustice [of the kind usually championed by the left-leaning broadcaster] being perpetrated against hard-working families who are struggling to make ends meet by an obnoxious, crude and repellent champagne-swilling elite typified by the BBC’s overpaid presenter Jonathon Ross.

As the belt-tightening starts in earnest next year and unemployment heads up towards 3 million there will be a massive, popular backlash against the Licence Fee and the BBC. It is a doomed institution - destined only for the knacker’s yard, where it will be broken up prior to its privatisation.

Jon

Along the same lines, following the success of our Olympic sailors and rowers, Radio 5 spent nearly two days on air, trying to prove that all these athletes went to public schools and, accordingly, these sports were for the privileged few.
The BBC's point was not proved, in view of the numerous calls received and the subsequent investigation as to who went to which school; total bias and a complete waste of airtime, but utterly predictable.

john doe

Ross and Brand should be removed from the land...exiled to...South Georgia? No that wouldn't be fair on the walruses and penguins, creatures with dignity and self respect, unlike these two worthless guttersnipes. The culture that produced these troglodytes needs to shake itself out of this appalling and hellish self abuse and self loathing before it is too late, as there are other, truly evil, forces just itching to take over. The price of 'freedom' is what freedom brings, but this has gone too far and the cost is proving prohibitive.

David

"I think the reason for that is people expect the type of response your reader recieved, therefore not many people are willing to spend their time and energy complaining."

Nah - it's that most people know where the off switch is.

Spike

Ray: You are so right. We all need to clean out the stables. Trouble is, I fear, that only an authoritarian getting into power will force Britain to pick up the shovel and broom.

Adam B.

Mary Jones and Gene Fox, you think the BBC is great? Fine. You can pay for it. I think the BBC stinks. Why am I forced to be a customer of an organization I despise?

Herbert Thornton

The Weimar Republic was a time not just of fiscal disaster and madness, but of cultural degeneration and depravity.

The current financial crisis is a time of alarmingly similar fiscal disaster and madness.

I had not thought that Britain was also sinking into Weimar-like cultural degeneration and depravity, but that too is becoming evident. The BBC has made the parallel between present day Britain and Weimar Germany even more frighteningly clear.

Michaelb55

Jolly good Melanie. The trouble is that the BBC will treat this as a 'controversy' although so far I have seen no one prepared to defend Ross or the other sleazy moron. Both this episode, as well as the systemic bias in every news broadcast, needs to be tackled at a political level. What's the betting that after immigration (Woolas), the prison liberals (Straw) and now Smith/Blears expelling mad mullahs (promise of) Brown will get to the BBC before Cameron and Osborne?

Ron Todd

Jon

When a Tory who went to a public school is on the news the BBC will always tell us that he is an ex-public school boy.

If a public school educated labour politician is on the school is never mentioned.

Hereford

At the risk of seeming to repeat myself: Don't pay the licence fee. You don't have to. I have got rid of my telivision. I now watch tv programmes using BBC's iPlayer, ITV's Catchup service and Channel 4's 4oD. Essentially you can watch almost the entire terrestrial output on your computer. Because you are not using a TV receiver, you do not have to pay the licence.

Stop subsidising the BBC. Don't pay the licence fee (legally).

Louise

Melanie, I thoroughly agree with everything you have written on this distasteful subject. A BBC news anchor this afternoon, in an interview with a former deputy-general of the BBC (who condemned the actions of the obscenely overpaid and overrated Ross and Brand and of whichever editor passed their comments), suggested that the BBC needs programme content such as that in order to attract a young audience!!!
Several years ago, I could not believe my ears when a "witty" broadcaster on BBC radio referred to women as "hos". I protested to the BBC against the use of this derogatory term for women. Their reply? They had decided not to uphold my complaint, since "ho" is a word common in black youth culture.
And so the rot proceeds, apace.
I despise the BBC just as I despise this once-great nation full of Trojan Horses. Let the BBC pay for its own despicable propaganda and filth.

RobHK

I don't think you can blame a liberal culture for these two apologies for what comes out of a dog's rear end. Folk can be decent or offensive regardless of political slant. People on the Guardian blog are as disgusted as people here.

David

"I now watch tv programmes using BBC's iPlayer, ITV's Catchup service and Channel 4's 4oD. Essentially you can watch almost the entire terrestrial output on your computer. Because you are not using a TV receiver, you do not have to pay the licence."

That's wrong actually, you do need a licence.

However, it is perfectly accurate that you don't need a licence. Just don't watch any TV programmes via any method of broadcast. Just purchase or rent DVDs of programmes you wish to watch.

phil

I did not hear the offending broadcast but one good thing has come out of it, that is that I find out I am not the dinosaur I thought I was ,there are others just like me who are offended by the obscene behaviour we now see every day on the TV-even those with whom I never seem to agree have come here to protest.I grew up in a pretty normal home where I never heard the eff word and did not see sex every two minutes on the BBC-I am not a prude by any means but sometimes I wonder what next we will be forced to see on a channel that we have no option but to pay for .Even adverts with people sitting on the toilet !!. I used to joke with friends that this would be the next thing we would see and lo and behold ,we have lift off -thank you everyone I do not feel half as bad now -sorry for Andrew and his granddaughter though .

Trinxie

Ray hit the nail on the head. May the God that created this great nation help us through this hard time and continue to show us his grace and mercy.

logdon

"Helen Taylor
October 28th, 2008 4:31pm
Brand and Ross are not meant to appeal to Daily Mail readers, but the audience that does like them are licence payers too you know and would probably find your tastes pretty offensive."

OK Helen, try this. You obviously missed it and it's certainly not the Daily Mail. These people are licence payers too and are not amused.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/jonathan-ross-russell-brand-radio

Dave

Playing to the Gutter!!

Ross & Brand are two of the most dispicable individuals I have ever had to listen to. Their programmes are the first to be switched off in our house and whenever they appear as guests on other shows their abysmal sense of humour, that always seems to play to the lowest mortals in society, is not given the time of day. They should not be respected as their salary befits and their services despensed with forthwith. This would be one way for the BBC to show that it seriously intends to clean up it's act!!

hadrian

As I've said elsewhere, what infuriates me about this latest piece of unutterably vile behaviour and the foulest of foul language is that it sets the standard for so many of our young people to follow.
Of course since the days of 'alternative comedy' and puerile 'punk-rock' any idea of common decency, politeness, mutual respect has gone way down the plughole in our nation. No wonder classroom indiscipline is as bad as it is nowadays. Whatever happened to any warmth or fond ribbing in our comedy, such as we used to get in the classics?
The BBC deserve the severest reprimand for this material, I don't give a tinker's curse whether it was 'set up' as some seem to be suggesting, though I find that very hard to believe.
BBC- Bad Behaviour Corp as well as Biased Bigtime Corp, if you ask me.

Dixon

What is lacking in discussions of the BBC is any sense of the scale of the organisation.

To put this in perspective, the annual turnover of the BBC is 10 billion dollars US. Of which 6.8 billion is the licence fee.

By comparison, the annual budget of NASA is only 16.8 billion dollars or less than twice as much.Per capita it is vastly cheaper than the BBC. Whilst space exploration is the second most expensive undertaking in Human history ( after war ) the BBC is just a broadcaster. Whilst NASA sends robots to almost every part of the Solar System, conducts vital Earth observations of climate, weather, resources, etc, builds and runs the International Space Station, runs the space shuttle fleet, the Hubble space telescope, numerous other space based observatories, numerous ground based observation and telemetry facilities, conducts long term power, fuel and propulsion research, R&D in aerospace for civilian transport as well as future communications, etc, etc, etc ...the BBC makes East Enders!

Is not this comparison indicative of the crazy oversized, over-priced Byzantine empire that the BBC has become. A mere television station that costs more than half the money as that vast litany of scientific research, industry and exploration?

Dave

Outrageous behaviour by the BBC. The poor girl in question has had to pull out of the European Tour she is currently taking part in. Hopefully her burlesque troupe, "The Satanic Sluts" will cope.
And how fortunate The Sun is to publish a topless photo of her which will clearly be of great use in unerstanding the depths the BBC has sunk to.
And finally thank goodness The Mail was able to get in touch with Mr Sachs because otherwise he was apparently totally unware of the answerphone messages in question.
If only the BBC was more like our great British Tabloid newspapers.

Jeanie

Helen Taylor, if you don't like Melanie Phillips and the Daily Mail, you are not forced to pay for them on pain of going to prison if you don't.

And since when has Melanie Phillips picked up a telephone to start using four-letter words while doing a broadcast?

As it happens I've watched a lot of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand but I don't see why I should be forced on pain of going to prison to pay for either of them.

Brand in particular has a track record of being offensive in the extreme (dressing up as Osama Bin Laden on 12/11/2001) but what took this event beyond the pale even for many of us who believe smutty humour has its place was the invasion of privacy - it was left on someone's phone for heaven's sake - and the sheer spite of what they were saying.

First you get the swearing but then you get the spite on top, saying to this man how Brand had ****** his grandaughter.

Who would wish that on their grandparents?

They have no place on the payroll of a poll tax funded organisation.

People should be entitled to pull the plug on anyone who would act as despicably as to phone someone up and deliver that spite.

Fearless Frank

Spot on, Ms Phillip, here and in the DM yesterday.

What depresses me about the few defenders of this appalling episode is the idea that it's just a matter of taste - "you don't have to watch it."

If they find it amusing - "edgey", even - it doesn't matter that a completely innocent third party and his family have been publicly insulted.
As another poster said here, it's the mentality of "happy slapping".

SAM ARMSTRONG

Why does it seem to me that everyone who I have spoken to is mortally offended by this incident? I have not met a single person who has said that this is funny. Indeed, I had been under the impression that Brand himself is done and dusted and on his way out....

Could it be that the British public has become so meek and retarded that it just stands by and accepts what broadcasters toss it?

If this IS the case then we have ourselves to blame. As individuals we have become so weak that broadcasters seem to have no reason to believe that they need worry about our opinions anymore and can at their own will produce sadistic, low rent programmes without a second's thought to the consequences.

For God's sake Britain, get over yourselves and let's protest against left wing dross! Before we lose our nation altogether.

We are a dying civilisation and once we're smashed we're smashed forever.

logdon

No not the Daily Mail but the Guardian. So much for the stereotyping. Meanwhile over at the 'uber hip' Times it's a mixed bag with much fake sneering obviously in the eyes of the posters turning them into the saviours of all that's 'cutting edge' in our sad and deluded little island. Prats!

'Do you think Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross should be fired for their 'offensive' phone calls?
69.9% Yes
30.1% No
Poll closes in 2 days'

MonsterMunch

complaints made after Brand's radio show was broadcast: 2.

Complaints after Mail group have gone on the warpath, 8 days later: 10,000 +.

What a load of sheep you lot are. It is embarrassing. No-one listened to the show, but I bet you all read the entire transcript, just to get fully offended.

One peurile joke on 1 saturday night radio show, that no-one here actually listens to. Talk about storm in a tea-cup.

Me thinks a few people on here may have a set agenda...

Roger Henderson

The true obscenity is that Jonathon Ross gets paid six million pounds a year. The man is a complete hack and totally unfunny. That would put Rowan Atkinsons true value at about sixty billion pounds if they were paid by the laugh. Once again the BBC bows to the Shrine of Mediocrity.

Sarah L. Nield

Dear Madam,
I must agree with what you say on this matter. The BBC has bowed so hard to the 'let it all hang out' liberal left ideology it has lost all sense of it's original reason for being. I used to love BBC Radio Two till the clowns and overgrown schoolboys took over. The biggest joke of all; this example of street yobb-ish bullying of an elderly gentleman looks as if it's going to be passed off as 'pushing the boundaries of comedy'. (I wonder if those elderly people afraid to go out at night because of street yobs think this kind of thing is 'funny'? What happened is an example of this). Yet, wasn't a certain Mr Kilroy Silk sacked without recourse by the BBC because of his unfriendly words concerning the behaviour of some Muslims? I wonder if those two monstrosities would have kept their jobs if they had abused a black person, or a Muslim? (I am not saying attacking anyone in such a cruel, cowardly way is fine, I'm just wondering why the BBC goes into full damage limitation mode and doesn't sack the ignorant, rude, Brand especially in this case).

John Montgomery

I think it's time the BBC was pared right back. We don't need 4 TV channels, 6 national radio stations and all. Just Radio 3 and 4, plus BBC2 and the World Service on radio.

I was brought up on the BBC - Blue Peter, Morecombe and Wise, Armchair Theatre, THe Ascent of Man and so on. But since the mid 1980s it has moved firmly to the left and is no longer unbiased. Time to go.

Ronni Redmond

Good Grief. This is what we Americans have to look forward to when Barack Hussein takes over and immediately passes his "freedom" acts which he has promised to do. And just like the Brits we'll get exactly what we deserve for letting it happen.......peace be with you all.

Verity

Monster Munch "One peurile joke on 1 saturday night radio show ...".

Calling up a 78 year old well-known and respected figure and leaving a string of obscenities on his answerphone and then broadcasting them on national TV is a joke?

You seem to be tragically easy to amuse.

Roland

This is a bit of a side issue - but Herbert Thornton is surely wrong in describing Weimar Germany as culturally degenerate? I would have thought that the vibrancy of the Arts in that period, and the intensity of their protest against the violence of the Great War, and the chaos into which Germany was sliding (not to mention the innovations in Design and in Art education which poured out of the Bauhaus)were a whole lot less 'degenerate' than the fraudulent kitsch propaganda churned out by the Nazis?

Who, interestingly enough, uncannily like Mr. Thornton, labelled the art of Weimar Republic 'degenerate'.

Art which reflects or comments on bad things doesn't itself neccesarily have those bad things within its own make-up.

Mosquito

This is emblematic of the rotten state of our public broadcating system. High time for the BBC to go - it has long outlasted its usefulness.

Dave

Verity
It wasn't TV, love. It was radio. It's easy to spot the difference... radio has better pictures.
How long before The Mail publishes a picture of Georgina in her full "Satanic Sluts" gear? Purely to enhance our understanding of how depraved the BBC is?
Oh they've already done it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1081087/Meet-Voluptua-burlesque-dancer-goth-centre-BBC-radio-prank.html

cliff

Where the casual observer may find no connection of Sharia law with Senator Obama, history would show otherwise that even the Pharisees and Sadducees, found a common ground in efforts to destroy the truth.

With little effort anyone with a scintilla of intelligence can easily discern the agenda , intent and purpose of contemporary Pharisees and Sadducees, aligning to redefine freedom, with a call for “Change You Can Believe In.”

Perhaps Obama is part of unique plan articulated by a passionate individual or a mentored production. In either case Charles Kauthanammer exposes the myth of Obama in his article “The Audacity of Vanity” ‘Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself.’

Skilled in the art of debate and rhetoric, empowered with a deep and almost unlimited source of financial backing, Senator Obama, once an unknown, appears to be on course to reshape America in a manner same or similar to the classic chilling story from James Clavell,"The Children's Story."

Obama’s mantra “Change You Can Believe In” is a catharsis that perhaps, for many, symbolizes a new journey to redefine freedom. But will the redefinition of freedom, if not defended, be closer to what former president Reagan warned? “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”

The foreshadowing of President Reagan’s words came full circle on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Whatever thoughts one may have on Senator Obama there is one thought that must be kept in mind – 9/11 came without warning. And if Barack Hussein Obama is elected , as the next Commander in Chief; Americans will have no excuse in saying they were “Without Warning.”

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Thomas: Thanks.

Caroline Fan

We have a choice - walk away from the BBC as I have done. I no longer have a live TV, instead I buy video and DVDs from charity shops and on amazon. For news I use a variety of channels on the net - including Melanie What I think troubles so many of us is that there is an audience for the obscene humour and cruelty purveyed by the BBC. It is not a public service broadcaster, but an attempt by the establishment to appear trendy and youthful, quel horreur. For rock and roll I still listen to radio caroline (on line) the ship is apparently still in dry dock.

Jay Thomas

The BBC presumably exists to address 'market failure' in the realm of commercial Television. After all why else have Television funded in this manner? Presumably the BBC felt that the free market was simply not producing enough bestiality in the case of Love Soup and humiliation of the elderly in the case of Ross and Brand and sought to correct this. Where would we be without the BBC to save us from the savage wild west excesses of free market television and the crass demands of the commercial marketplace?

MonsterMunch

2 complaints though Verity -are you seeing my central point? I think not, which reinforces my point about people seizing upon this as if the world has ended in order to attack public broadcasting. Because we'd all be a lot better of with Ibiza Uncovered pt 6, or whatever else Murdoch has in store for us next. PS. Much respected? A bit part in a 2 part series in the early seventies? Funny but one-trick pony in my opinion.

Chris

>a certain Alistair Campbell felt affronted by a single, passing remark, live in the early morning, that was factually correct anyway?

No it wasn't. Andrew 'Fat Boy Dim' Gilligan was so chuffed with his silly little exclusive that he didn't bother to source it properly.

Gabriella

It just gets worse.

I turned on Newsnight last night and there was Gavin Esler who said, at least twice, words to the effect of 'if you turn on Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, you know what to expect'.

But Mr Andrew Sachs never 'turned them on' at all.

Completely uninvited, these two creeps invaded his home via his telephone to taunt and humiliate him.

And this, via Gavin Esler, was the BBC's brazen defence.

Who else is allowed to go around breaking the law like this?

Who else is allowed to go around flouting broadcasting codes like this?

The BBC demands the full weight of the law come crashing down on those who don't pay the poll tax licence fee, but the BBC and its 'star' presenters are apparently above the law.

Newsnight and Sky News even had 'comedians' (none you've ever heard of) moaning that Andrew Sachs was a public figure and so was open to ridicule. Not in his own damn private home he isn't.

I hate Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand and Gavin Esler but both would call the police if I stood shouting four-letter abuse through their letterbox.

Since when did Mr Sachs make any of this public, either? Never. That's when.

He's perfectly entitled to be left behind his own door.

Just because someone somewhere once acted in a role, how does that make them game for this sort of personal abuse in their own home?

BenM

Get a grip Melanie.

I'll be very glad if the very unfunny Mr Brand's career goes down the plughole as it deserves to thanks to this incident, however the funniest aspect to this hoo-hah is the sheer hysteria of anti-BBC agitators like yourself.

Adam B.

BenM, people are anti-BBC, for a whole host of good reasons. This disgusting episode is just one of them. If you want to pay for the BBC, fine. I don't want to pay Mr Ross' obscene salary, yet if I own a TV I am forced to be a customer of the BBC. I recently bought a new DVD player - nothing to do with the BBC. Because the TV licence was in my wife's name, I received a letter demanding why I didn't have a licence, as the licensing authorities (the BBC) had received notification (though Argos!) that I had recently bought a DVD player! I had to explain myself to them. Talk about Big Brother!

Alison

So how about giving Chubby Brown his own show?

No? Thought not - he may offend the wrong sort of people.

EC

EyeSee: "a certain Alistair Campbell felt affronted by a single, passing remark, live in the early morning, that was factually correct anyway?"

Chris: "No it wasn't. Andrew 'Fat Boy Dim' Gilligan was so chuffed with his silly little exclusive that he didn't bother to source it properly."

You mean like Campbell cutting and pasting a 10 year old PhD thesis into the dodgy dossier without attribution? If anything Gilligan was guilty of under reporting. The dodgy dossier wasn't just "sexed up" it was a complete fabrication that would have had Goebbels "filling up" with pride. Greatly enjoyed Campbell's recent "Poor me, pour me ..." appearance on the BBC. He felt compelled once again to slip in that he and Bliar were not all complicit in hanging Dr. David Kelly out to dry or the tragic events that followed. If he keeps saying it often enough we're bound to believe him. This was second only to his appearance on ITV's WWTBAM when, not allowed to make the answers up, he showed himself up to be a monumental ignoramus. The poisonous turd should be put behind bars - the kind that don't serve alcohol - and left to rot.

AND ... I'm not over fond of Ross or Brand either.

Nicholas

I think that the BBC is in total denial given the manner they are reporting this issue. They seem to believe that maintaining an impartial, balanced approach - showing two sides of the public opinion is wise.
Showing a bunch of shocked old ladies, and then a mix of young liberals in support of Brand and Ross on last nights News at Ten strikes me as an attempt at coercion in what is a potentially criminal matter.
Get with it! Remaining impartial surely means treading a little more carefully on this.

Verity

Dave writes, "Verity
It wasn't TV, love. It was radio."

What a frightfully provincial correction! Like many posting here, I don't live in Britain and don't know all your little broadcasting stars and "celebrities" and all your little radio programmes. My life isn't under the control of garbage like Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson and their coven of sleazes. I think I have access to BBC but I have honestly never tried. I mean, why would one, love?

Consider my post changed to "broadcast them nationally". See, that would BOTH encompass radio and TV, which you people allow this cancer, the BBC, to operate by extortion.

Caroline: "It is not a public service broadcaster, but an attempt by the establishment to appear trendy and youthful, quel horreur."

No. This is not the case. Their purpose is to destroy British civil society - the customs and norms that keep everyone in line in any society in the world. Its intention is malign. Neither are the people engaged in it, as many naively write, "self-loathing". Far from it. They are the chosen, the elect and impose their wishes and fancies with a curled lip and an iron boot on the people who pay their salaries.

Verity

Monster Munch - "2 complaints though Verity -are you seeing my central point?"

No. I didn't linger thoughtfully over your post. In any event, "public broadcasting" is a communist construct and has absolutely no point or purpose other than thought manipulation and keeping the population subjugated and fearful. (Prison if you fail to pay your tribute.)

I have said many times that this organisation needs to be obliterated. Not "parts of it sold off to private industry". It's diseased, it's crawling with ravenous tiny insects feeding off its bloated soon-to-be corpse. Why would anyone want to preserve such a horror?

Save DVDs of the programmes that would have been commercially viable, and sell them on the internet. The rest of it has to go. The BBC gives me the creeps and I have said so for year. I want Broadcasting House blown up in a controlled explosion. Atomised. Preferably while still infested with perfectly useless oxygen thieves like Jonathan Ross, the Director General, people laughably in charge of "standards" and the like.

Frank P

At last, the DG has been forced out of his hidey hole to suspend the two louche, layabout ponces on the public purse and suspend them (though I suspect a slap on the wrist will eventually ensue). He too should go for failing to run a tight ship after all the other exposed failures of the past few years on his watch.

I'm in favour of Verity's extreme measures, including the demolition of the doughnut.

On a personal note Ross and Brand should be sentenced to having their heads shaved after which, they should be put in the stocks. Problem with that, such debaucher/debauchees would probably enjoy the S & M humiliation of the stocks.

In the case of Ross, the Oscar Wilde locks have too long disguised his pinhead. I'd never heard of Brand until this event, I'm pleased to say. He looks like a vagrant of some sort that the BBC took pity on after they found him begging in Regeent Street. It's time the punters had their say. Pity though that the Daily Mail hasn't paid more attention to the many iniquities of the BBC over the years, rather than waiting for a salacious event to lead the condemnation. I don't blame Melanie, she has let 'em have it through the auspices of her blogs over the years regardless of supposed editorial restraints of the DM. But Dacre has been remarkably reticent in allowing the exposure of the BBC shortcoming’s through his paper.

This latest example of gross indecency amounts to nothing when measured beside the general atrocious waste of licence fee-payers’ cash in chasing viewing statistics - and even more disgusting the blatant political and cultural bias of the leftist and homosexual power brokers at the BBC. They have long been the Agitprop arm of the counter-culture war and this latest example is just another step along the Long March.

I've just been listening to Naughtie nerd slavering over the inestimable qualities and charm of one Barack Hussein Obama. As Chairman of the UK Obamamessiah fan club (BBC Chapter) surely Obama should pay his wages and not us? He should certainly be disqualified from political reporting on a Public Service channel, along with the whole of the Newsnight crew of Obamites.

Dixon

"Newsnight" featured a particularly disingenuous piece on the episode. In common with all the media comment Ive seen, it avoided the real issue.

Not even do many of us who, as indicated here, abhorr the incident manage to specify exactly why it was so abhorrent.

The specific source of the abhorrence was that a private individual ( Sachs ) was held up to ridicule exactly like someone put in a pillory in a mediaeval town square for the ragamuffins to hurl rotten vegetables at. What had he done to invite this? Nothing. What did the BBC do when he refused permission to use the material. They used it anyway!

Questions of taste, who pays, etc, are all beside the point. Sachs was RAPED! This incident represents the most egregious "Happy Slapping" , perpetrated by a gigantic bully on a defenceless individual.

Robert Catchpool

For every offensive comment made by Jonathan Ross/Russell Beand, Andrew Sachs has made fifty about the Spanish.

john doe

Andrew Sachs should take the BBC to the cleaners for harassment and make it very public.

Barry

Verity - you write, "[The BBC's] purpose is to destroy British civil society" and go on to rule out lefty self-loathing as the sole explanation. Why do you think they do it?

Herbert Thornton

Dave's comment - "Playing to the Gutter!!" fits very well. The BBC plays in and from the gutter too.

Verity's observation that the BBC is essentially malign is spot on. I'm religious only in being inclined towards Buddhism, but Evelyn Waugh, who was devout Catholic, had a very strong sense of Evil as an entity whose presence in the world can be sensed. I would explain the BBC's malign character as a manifestation of that sort of presence.

Stever

hahaha

http://heady.co.uk/rm/jonathan_ross_russell_brand_large.jpg

Tom

"Andrew Sachs has made fifty about the Spanish" - pathetic.

He played a character who was silly.

How does that equate to making offensive comments about the Spanish?

It's like saying Basil Fawlty is an attack on all hotel owners everywhere.

This is the warped topsy-turvy worldview of today's politically correct comedy.

They're happy to kick other people, but when it comes back to haunt them, try to erect some politically correct bogus way out of it.

It's over. Your whole stinking cabal of politically correct hypocrites - people have seen through them.

BenM

Oh boo-hoo, Adam B. The law of the country says that if you have television receiving eequipment you have to pay an annual licence fee for it.

Seeing as the BBC remains the most trusted media outlet in the country, as well as the pre-eminent broadcaster on the planet, that money is very well spent.

Most people shudder at the thought of how far broadcasting standards would tumble without the BBC as a check.

Rightwingers hate the BBC because impartial reporting casts a very harsh light on rightwing policies (if only such scrutiny had been given to the rightwing economics that is dragging us into a slump right now). Rightwingers desperately yearn for a British Fox News, which the vast majority of British people simply do not reciprocate.

Moreover, if you don't want to pay the licence fee, don't buy a TV. No one forces you to watch television.

Verity

Barry asks: Verity - you write, "[The BBC's] purpose is to destroy British civil society" and go on to rule out lefty self-loathing as the sole explanation. Why do you think they do it?

I didn't rule out lefty self-loathing as "the sole explanation". I rule it out 100 per cent as an explanation. These people are anything but self-loathing. They loathe everyone else, but certainly not themselves.

They think they belong to a higher cosmic echelon. The think the British, who were so successful for so long, deserve to be punished for being too uppity.

I don't think for one minute that they are faux mahatamas. I think they're malign, and I think they know that they are malign and find their own malignity rather entertaining.

Verity

Barry - PS - I think people like Jonathan Ross and that other one I've never heard of before this are knowingly employed as weapons. The people running the BBC don't think they're funny. But they're useful as battering rams against the British sense of what's right and just, which they seek to destroy.

Verity

Ben M - the BBC is "... the pre-eminent broadcaster on the planet...".

Whoaaaahh! You don't get out much, do you? What a hoot!

I think I have access to it, but I've never bothered to find out how to tune in. It makes my skin crawl.

Dave

@Verity: Oh I'm provincial am I, love? Bless. Are you one of these meteropolitan elites I hear so much about? Well I think I speak for the silent majority when I say we just don't need to be told what to think by you and them!

hadrian

Verity,
I'm just disappointed you live abroad! Come back and help sort this pathetic lot out!
I must point out there are still pockets of decency left in this country- though admittedly over the last few decades it has been all but worn away. WE still have the Polite Society and authors such as that utter gentleman, Alexander McCall Smith or crime writer, Catherine Aird. Even they I've seen criticised for being 'too smugly terrible British'. Sadly such Britishness is long gone- today being a 'Brit' seems synonomous with lager lout, swearing and swaggering and nilistic 'humour'. The spirit of our nation is degenerate.

Verity

Dave - I wouldn't know, sweetie darling. I believe, sweetie darling, that the habitats of the metropolitan elite are specific post codes in London, which frankly, sweets, cuts me right out as I don't live in London. And I'm not a liberal, soi-disant, meaning a communist in mufti.

So the description is inapt.

John

BenM, if you like the BBC so much, why don't you take it as a subscription channel? The rest of us can decide not to. Have you not heard of BBC snoopers harassing people for the licence fee when they don't own TV sets? I say get rid of the BBC.

Of course, I have a wider reason for saying this. The BBC is not impartial but is part of a Gramscian elitist cabal, along with the Universities. The BBC should be priavatised, and the UNiversities should be independent trust and allowed to fail if need be. If no-one goes to a Uni becauase it is full of Marxists and people like Bill Ayers, then they should close. Its called choice.

George Steiner

What is the point of ringing the alarm bells, when the slothfull populace can't rise to go out and fight the fire.

Adam B.

BenM, how utterly absurd is your argument. If I want to watch DVD's, I have to pay a tax for it, and I shouldn't dare complain, just shut up and take it. It's about something called choice Ben - if you want the BBC, you pay for it. I don't want it. It's like saying if you want to have a mobile phone, you have to pay Vodaphone, even if you don't use them. You then go into a rant about "rightwingers". I see that the BBC's so-called "impartiality" suits your personal politics i.e. it's left wing. How obnoxious that you moan about people not just putting up and shutting up, but I guess that would be your lefty utopia - we'll tell you what's good for you! You don't happen to be a BBC employee do you?

Adam B.

BenM, since when is it up to you how other people spend their money? Such arrogance!

Verity

Hadrian notes, correctly, that "The spirit of our nation is degenerate."

And it happened in such a blink of an eye, did it not?

Every programme that Blair instigated, every word he said, every theatrical gesture he made, every Estuary glottal on a TV couch, was aimed at the destruction of our country. He destroyed the court system, our second chamber, our ancient right of free speech - indeed, he went the whole hog and handed the EHRA to his wife on a platter as a nice little earner - and took a wrecking ball to our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

And deliberately surrendered control of our borders in order to sluice immigrants from an inferior culture onto our British society.

Then he elevated these individuals over the indigenous people and our history of achievement and invention and the familial feel of the country.

The slithy toves in the local lefty councils took up the new cause with glee, upbraiding British people for not being "sensitive" to immigrants who didn't want to see renderings of piggy banks in bank windows. (Actually, Muslims questioned by the press shrugged and said they couldn't care less; but the feelings of the immigrants were never the issue. The subjugation of the British was the issue.)

Similarly, Birmingham Council had a disastrous pratfall when it presumed to take Christ out of Christmas and renamed Christmas "Winterval". Again, many immigrants were rather puzzled at this determination to surrender our culture before a non-onslaught of complaints.

How is it the socialists never wanted to abase themselves before the Hindus and the Sikhs, who came over from Uganda and made - and are making - such a welcome contribution to our society? Or, earlier, the Jews? No one suggested trying to delete Christmas because the Jews, long term contributors, might be offended. Or the Hindus and Sikhs might find it shocking.

Just this weird, patronising attitude to the Muslims who they clearly judged wanting in the brain cell count and could use as a battering ram.

There was always a malignity about Tony Blair, but he's a weak man with a mighty ego - an actor, like Obama - who needs scripts and stage directions. He and Alastair Campbell found one another and the rest is history.

Barak and Michelle Obama, and William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, found one another.

Verity

George Steiner - Ha ha! Well said!

Hereford

David, you are wrong. You only need a license if you have a piece of equipment which is capable of receiving broadcast tv signals i.e. a tv. I have checked.

Byron in Wahroonga

***seeing as the BBC remains the most trusted media outlet in the country, as well as the pre-eminent broadcaster on the planet***

Ha! Lay off the Chinese confectionery, Ben.

Byron in Wahroonga

***May God forgive us for our own lazy moral relativism and ever embolden those like yourself who have consistently braved ridicule, ostracism and censure to state unequivocally that what a man sows he will reap.***

Ray, just when despair about the future of your country overwhelms me along you come with a post at once inspirational, and comforting. Thank you.

Byron in Wahroonga

***Andrew Sachs is too experienced an entertainer to agree to do a phone interview with no idea what the content would be***

Huh?

Frank P

Verity

'Non-onslaught' of complaints?

Do you mind if I conflate that to 'nonslaught' in future scribbling, it can envisage it being a very useful word, thank you. Great post btw; a very neat round up, do you think Blair would authorise you to write a new biography? You should find an agent and do it regardless, you have one (at least) prior promise to buy a copy. But then, authorised or not it would feed the Blair ego; as I'm sure Russell Brand is saying today, there's no such thing as bad publicity for those who seek celebrity.

EyeSee

Chris I think EC covered things nicely. Though I suppose you believe Campbells assertion that Saddam had WMD ready to strike British interests within 45 minutes? When do you think we might find them?

Kent

"Post 9/11 Radio Four suddenly seemed to devote an inordinate amount of airtime promoting Islamic values compared to the percentage stats of Muslims living here. That was a kind of warning shot across our bows as to where our national broadcaster was heading."

Absolutely, especially when it comes to using our national media to elevate minority opinion to the front pages.

Current total of complaints to the BBC: 30,000

Number of viewers and listeners that routinely enjoy Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on the TV and radio: several million

It could therefore be argued that the British media seems, in the same way, to be devoting an inordinate amount of airtime promoting Melanie Phillips's values compared to the percentage stats of BBC viewers that really couldn't care less about the phone call to Andrew Sachs.

Does democracy apply only when one's views are aligned with the majority?

DaveP

The BBC has always used the excuse that its license fee allowed it to be a broadcaster that wouild not sink to the gutter as a commercial channel would. We now know different. The reality is that no commercial broadcaster would sink to the depths that the BBC has sunk to, and it is the guaranteed license fee that allows the BBC to continue in its downhill plunge.

vin

this moron stands in front of hindu images to spew out his nonsense on channel 4, WHY DOESNT CHANNEL 4 let him try doing this outside a mosque and see what applause he gets.