An executive run place for idiots

In a 6 October 2013 interview with Glamour Magazine , Jennifer Saunders of ‘French and Saunders’ and ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ fame, criticised the BBC thus:

"It's unrecognisable now. It's become top-heavy in such an ugly way. They went corporate instead of being what they should be which is a national resource which trains people and curates the best programmes, encourages talent and provides great news. They just became an executive run place for idiots. 

It's just so weird that they could put people off coming into the building the way they do now… I remember when it was fun to be there. They'd all be geeky and everybody in the building looked like they really knew something or were learning something and were happy to be there, even though they were paid so little. 

Now they have things like massive workshops for executives and heads of departments on decision-making and you think: 'If you're the fucking head of a department at the BBC and you don't know how to make a decision, why are you in that job? Who hired you? That's the only thing that you have to do… 

It got so annoying that you were called into these special lunches with the Director General at The Ivy and you were like, 'Fuck off!' This is the license payers' money…. 

How is Alan Yentob still allowed in the building? There are questions that need to be answered! It's absolutely extraordinary and I just don't get it.”

In a leaked 2010 memo, then Director General, Mark Thompson, said this:

“I intend shortly to close the post of Creative Director.”

On 9 September 2013, Tory MP, Philip Davies told The Mail Online :

“In this memo Mark Thompson is saying he is planning to get rid of him and doing away with that position, yet three years on Alan Yentob is still in post on a huge salary.”

The Mail’s Martin Robinson adds:

“Yentob, 66, one of the BBC’s most powerful executives... is paid one salary of £183,300 as BBC Creative Director. In keeping with BBC rules, he declared this income in the official online register of the BBC’s 100 senior managers as his ‘salary and total remuneration’.

But details obtained under Freedom of Information laws confirmed he is paid a second salary as editor and presenter of arts series ‘Imagine.’ The BBC and Yentob refused to reveal how much this extra income is, but BBC insiders say it is ‘easily’ in the region of £150,000 per year, bringing his actual total BBC pay to around £330,000. 

Critics called this a ‘secret’ salary, saying that Yentob’s failure to even mention in the register that he is paid for his work on Imagine leaves licence payers with the impression his BBC earnings are substantially lower than they are.”

The article also tells us that Yentob has ‘accrued a £6million pension pot in his decades with the BBC'." On 24 August 2013, Yentob was quoted thus by The Guardian:

"I don't want to get into the issues of payoffs because it has been discussed endlessly… We need to move on.”

For good measure, he added:

“The diversity of Britain is what is great, whether it's cultural, racial or other things, that has to be represented at the BBC."

Diversity. Now there's a word liable to curdle the blood of the average patriot.

On 19 November 2013, Richard Bacon's BBC Radio 5 Live radio show featured an interview with David Dimbleby.

In this he said:

"The question has to be addressed about the scale of the BBC… whether it is too powerful for its own good… It’s very, very powerful, big organisation… It’s right that it should be held to book…

The BBC gets things wrong sometimes as with the river pageant… I thought it was terrible… I don’t know what they thought they were doing… I do think the BBC needs to pull back a bit from some of the things it does, maybe cut back a bit on its number of television channels…

Cut out some of the gardening and cookery and all that on BBC2 and turn it back into a quality thing it was meant to be… We’ve just got too big… Is democracy well served by that, or should we have more voices on the air… 

It’s crushing newspapers. I think there’s some truth in that… Should we just pull back a bit… to allow space for local papers and indeed the national press which at the moment are being steamrollered by what we do… 

Go back to democracy… If you have one organisation that controls so much of the airwaves.. is that, in the end, democratic?… There is a resentment about it… about the scale of the BBC... 

One way and another it’s got to present a good sustained case for carrying on… You have to be able to persuade people that it’s just and right and that it improves democracy, doesn’t damage it… if we’re to keep the support of the public.”

On 4 December 2013, head of BBC News, James Harding, responded thus in a speech to BBC staff:

"We have our critics. They say we are too big, too lazy, too wasteful, too left-wing... And then there are people within the BBC who... are proud but... frustrated... But let’s not mistake... the external criticism or those internal issues, for our real challenges. We must be an outward-looking news organisation, not one distracted by ourselves."

He continued thus:

"The strength of our global news footprint is not only a point of pride for the BBC, but one that distinguishes us from all our competitors. It is our unique selling point, and we must showcase it. Our task is to ensure that all our audiences, globally and in the UK, get the benefit of the BBC’s unrivalled global reach. In particular, we will make more of the material on World News available to viewers in the UK. 

We will build on the growing success of our bilingual reporters, as has been so powerfully demonstrated by people like Anne Soy during the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi. We will harness the expertise of the World Service and BBC Monitoring for domestic audiences... 

We will create a News Impact Fund, run by the Head of Newsgathering, to earmark key stories which cross the boundaries of local, national and international. We will bring together people from every relevant area, whether Global, English Regions or Current Affairs, to work on stories collectively... 

All this comes at an historic moment for Global News... When I sit in our news conference and hear an editor from the Arabic service explain the ructions in Cairo or a Chinese colleague reveal the stories behind the Bo Xilai trial, it is clear to me that domestic audiences benefit immeasurably from our global operation... 

We cannot squander what we have built around the world. The BBC has an ambition to reach a global audience of 500 million people by 2022. How are we going to get there? In part, the answer is by embracing new technologies to reach new audiences, by harnessing new forms of commercial funding and by embracing the 250 million people that already use our services. And, in part, by turning to the people in our global operations, on the ground around the world, to develop that plan. 

I have asked Sir Howard Stringer, the former chairman of Sony, to coordinate that effort and to set out his findings in the Spring of next year... 

When we look out from this building at the world around us, it is clear we are living through an age of realignment, from West to East, from North to South, from the institution to the individual."

I guess a bloke who uses the world global as often as Harding does is liable to be a globalist. Someone who sees more of a global future for the BBC than a national one. At one point, the former editor of The Times summed his global intentions up pretty frankly:

"We want the BBC to look and sound more like its audiences... We are going to have to be very determined to address diversity on air and, equally, off it."

Move aside, Mr England, even more blood-curdling 'diversity' is heading your way. Yours is to be a 'global future', courtesy of James Paul Harding.

On the same day, in a speech at the launch of the BBC's Christmas schedule, Danny Cohen, the BBC's Director of Television, condemned Jennifer Saunders, David Dimbleby and the BBC's critics thus:

“BBC staff often wonder why some of our on-screen talent and some former members of staff choose to attack or undermine the BBC in public rather than express any concerns they have in private conversations within the BBC. In short, this drives BBC staff mad... 

I'm finding a little too often that people who work for the BBC and are well rewarded for it are quick to attack or criticise the organisation in public rather than deal with any issues or concerns internally... 

From now, I'd like to call on everyone who believes in the BBC to get behind it, to speak up for it, to celebrate its successes and help us explain why the BBC really matters and sits proudly at the heart of public service broadcasting and Britain's creative industries, rather than find ways to undermine it... 

When problems do arise, let's deal with them in the most effective way we can and instead use the privileged platform enjoyed by those in public life to highlight the unique attractions of the BBC and help ensure it is as healthy, vibrant, impactful and creative in its 2022 centenary year as it has ever been... 

Those employed by the BBC should drive this change from the inside rather than undermining this wonderful organisation from the outside."

Not a fan of whistleblowers, is he? Not enamoured with honest comment when it's critical of the direction folks like Cohen have been taking it in recent times. Lets Just apply a little creative editing to the above:

“BBC staff often wonder why some of our on-screen talent and some former members of staff choose to attack or undermine me, James Harding and Alan Yentob... This drives us mad... 

I'm finding a little too often that people who work for the BBC and are well rewarded for it are quick to attack or criticise me, James Harding and Alan Yentob... 

From now, I'd like to call on everyone who believes in the BBC to get behind me, James Harding and Alan Yentob, to speak up for us, to celebrate us and help us explain why we really matter and we sit proudly at the heart of public service broadcasting and Britain's creative industries, rather than find ways to undermine us... 

When problems do arise, let me, James Harding and Alan Yentob, deal with them in the most effective way we can and... use the privileged platform enjoyed by us, to highlight the unique attractions of the BBC and help ensure it is as healthy, vibrant, impactful and creative in its 2022 centenary year as it has ever been... 

Those employed by me, James Harding and Alan Yentob should drive this change from the inside rather than undermining this wonderful trio from the outside."

Danny Cohen, James Harding and Alan Yentob are Jewish. As, incidentally, is Sir Howard Stringer, the big businessman Harding deems most suitable 'to coordinate' the 'effort' necessary to implement his global intentions.

Here's a question for you: bearing in mind that Jews comprise just 0.05% of the British population, how do you think Cohen, Harding and Yentob managed to attain such pre-eminent positions within the BBC hierarchy?

Here's another: do you think the 'wonderful trio' are where they are because they are much more talented than the rest of us?

Yeah. That's what I think too.