The Benefits of the BBC

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we cannot debate that which troubles our society and more importantly troubles our government, then we cannot in all honesty, call ourselves a democracy.”

                       Freddie Lyon – The Hour, Season 1.

So the BBC has hit some bumps in the road of late, what with the Saville investigation and now the Newsnight debacle leading to the resignation of its Director General George Entwhistle after just fifty four days in the job. Not that it was ever going to be an easy job. Now the new DG, whoever he or she is, as well as the BBC Trust, are going to have the job of rebuilding the public’s trust in the BBC. Of restoring it to the national symbol that it is.

Whenever something like this happens, a few naysayers always pop up out of the woodwork to attack the BBC and its supposedly biased nature. And maybe it is biased slightly, but only in the way that all forms of media are in some way biased. If there’s anything I’ve learnt over the last year and a bit as a journalism student, it’s that everyone has an angle and everyone is trying to sell it. There’s no such thing as unbiased reporting.

But the most important thing about the BBC is not only that it produces brilliant and at times thought provoking, entertaining and enlightening programmes, but that it allows for the point encapsulated in the quote at the beginning of this blog. It allows us to debate that which troubles our society and gives fair and equal weight to all sides. Whatever it’s supposed bias, it allows everyone, on all sides of an argument, the chance to say their piece. That’s the point of Question Time, or the Andrew Marr Show, or Daily Politics. The BBC may disagree with someone’s view, but it doesn’t stop them from airing it.

In order to see what life would be like without the BBC we need only to look across the Atlantic to the US. They have numerous news networks, but all of them are privately funded and obviously biased. You have MSNBC and CNN on the liberal side of the aisle and Murdoch’s pet Fox News on the conservative side,(though some would argue that Fox is not so much a news program as the propaganda arm of the Republican party, with its blatant disregard for truth and facts).  They report what their viewers want to see, and what their investors tell them to report. It has reached a point where if you want proper unbiased analysis of the news, it would be better for you to turn over to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart’s Daily Show than watch any of the main news stations.

The BBC on the other hand, is publically funded. The only people it is responsible and accountable to are the licence payers. This frees it up to report freely and honestly, taking the time to weigh up and display both sides of a story. It is a vital tool of our democracy and we would be lost without it.

Yes it has hit some bumps in the road of late. But it will get over them. Because without it, Britain just wouldn’t be Britain any more.

Danger Still Lurks in the Corridors of Power

"You wrote a concession?”

“Of course I wrote a concession. What you want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?”

“No.”

“Then go outside turn around three times and spit.”

West Wing: Season 4 – Election Day

So, Election Day 2012 has come and gone and President Obama has been re-elected, cruising to victory with 332 to 206 electoral votes. The pollsters had seen this result coming for a while – this election has been called a triumph for science – but for me I think it was confirmed when I heard that Romney had not bothered to write a concession speech. The above quote from the West Wing immediately sprung to mind.

Always have a concession speech, for the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing is mighty and terrible.

But despite the fact that Romney has lost and will now hopefully fade into obscurity, I am still worried, about the future of America. For it was not Romney’s economic policies or even his foreign policies that worried me, but his social policy. Or, rather, the social policies that would have been forced on him by a Tea Party Congress.

I was recently informed of a book called The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood. In it the US has been replaced with the Republic of Gilead, a patriarchal society where women are considered second class citizens, good for nothing more than reproduction. While I am not saying that is what would have happened, I could see the US under President Romney and a Tea Party Congress going in a similar direction.

I was seeing borders tightened as fear and racism took hold, the defence budget going up while the war hawks’ eyes turned towards Iran, Obamacare overturned, social security and Medicaid gutted to pay for another round of unnecessary tax cuts for the one percent. I saw the Supreme Court packed with enough conservative justices to overturn Roe v Wade and all the other steps that have been made to make America a more open and accepting nation. I was seeing social policy and civil rights in the US set back twenty years or more.

The poster boy for this may have been defeated, the rape denying Akin and Mourdock may have lost their election bids. But while the likes of Michelle Bachmann; Paul Ryan and Doug Lambourn are the still in the House, while Rush Limbaugh still holds sway over millions of Americans, while there is anyone left in a position of authority who supports the opinion than an Obama victory marks the death of liberty and freedom in America, then the job is not done. Not by a long chalk. The Tea Party and its backwards, nineteenth century ways need to be exercised from Congress quickly. The Moderates within the GOP need to take this as an opportunity to take their party back from the fringe right.

The Jabberwock of Fear that Mitt Romney represented may have been defeated, but the people that put him there in the first place still exist. And until they have been removed, America will never properly heal.

Oh Those Fickle Weather Lords

I don’t think I’m living inside a disaster movie – the type where all of that climate change stuff that members of the US House of Representatives Science Sub-committee say is a load of liberal propaganda comes back to bite us – but I can’t be certain. After all, in all those type of films, New York is always one of the first places to go and, judging by the pictures on the news, it might be time for me to stock up on tinned goods.

Yes, Hurricane Sandy has been and gone and left the city that never sleeps looking a little hung-over and that’s before we get into what she did to New Jersey. But now as the clean-up begins all eyes turn to next Tuesday and possible the most divisive and partisan presidential election of the last twenty years.

 But here again, Sandy has had an effect. Up until the first debate, there was no doubt that Obama would win. Romney was partisan, flip flopping, uncharismatic and, as covered in this blog, had managed to insult everyone from Israel to the UK. The only real question was how few electoral votes could he conceivably get? Then the first debate happened and despite strong performances by the President in the second and third ones, Romney managed to close the gap.

Which is where Sandy kicks in.

The storm puts Romney at a real political disadvantage. He can’t campaign without looking like he cares more about politics than people, yet without access to any actual power – he’s not a sitting Governor anymore after all – there is little he can do other than kick his heels and give the press the occasional soundbite.

Obama meanwhile has had a chance not only to look Presidential and professional, but also to actually get something done. He does after all control the federal government, which in this case means FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency – and his swift action has earned him praise not only from the Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who up until this point was one of Romney’s most vocal supporters.

And, of course, not only is Romney not in a position to exercise any power, but the comments about FEMA that he made during the Primaries – that it should be dismantled and its duties handed over to private companies – will come back to haunt him. If he doubled down on them he would come off as heartless, instead he praised it and once again looked weak and indecisive.

I am in no way saying that a super storm is a good idea, and no politician would wish for something like this to happen so close to an election where it might hinder people from getting out to vote. Nevertheless, if Obama does win re-election next Tuesday by even a small margin, then I think he will be thanking his lucky stars that Hurricane Sandy hit land precisely when it did.

Rise and Rise Again.

“Rise and Rise again, until Lambs become Lions”.

This is a quote from Ridley Scott’s 2010 film, Robin Hood, a line said by Robin’s father, which was supposedly the impetus for the Magna Carta. It means trying and trying again, never giving up on the ideas of liberty and freedom.

I was reminded of this line when I read a quote from the father of Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen year old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating education for everyone. He said that

“The person who attacked her wanted to kill her. She fell temporarily but she will rise again”

Nothing terrifies a fundamentalist group or a totalitarian regime more than an educated population. That’s why the Taliban targeted Malala, because she called for education for everyone. An uneducated population can be cowed and convinced that whatever the regime is doing is right, because they don’t know any better. But an educated population do know better. They know right from wrong and how things should be. That’s why the first thing many totalitarian governments do is ban and burn books.

Education, to quote the West Wing, is “the Silver Bullet”. It is the key to stopping pretty much anything, disease, war, you name it. Hence the old maxim, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Education allows for self-improvement. Education not only affects one person, it affects an entire population, benefiting one and all.

And if one thing is more important than education, it is education for everyone. There are whole countries where education is the preserve of either the upper classes, the elites or of men. There are countries where women can’t even write their own names. All of this, in the 21^st Century. We are supposed to be better than this by now.

 That was what Malala was fighting for, and why she was shot. She wanted everyone, regardless of gender to have the chance of a full time education, something we should all support, and something we should all be in favour of.

That is why I encourage everyone who reads this blog – yes all six of you – to get involved in Gordon Brown’s “Day for Malala” on November 10^th – one month since she was shot – and send a message to governments and groups, that education is one thing we will not give up on. By 2015 we will have every child in Primary School.

We need to send a message across the world, a message that will be heard loud and clear by governments, regimes and the Taliban alike. You can shoot one fifteen year old girl; you can silence whole groups of journalists and activists. But you cannot shoot; you cannot silence the whole world. No matter what you do, no matter how many of us you try and kill, more will rise up to take our place and our voice and our message will ring out all the louder, until the world takes notice. We will not be silenced.

RISE AND RISE AGAIN. UNTIL LAMBS BECOME LIONS.

 

Somethings are scandals, somethings aren't

There are two big “scandals” featured heavily in the newspapers today, both supposedly showing that the government is full of high class toffs with no respect for hard working every day sort of folk. But while one is clearly a scandal, to my mind the other isn’t.

On the one hand we have Plebgate – badly named by the way. We almost had a scandal called Gategate. That would have been epic -  and the swift resignation of Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell over comments he may or may not have made to a Downing Street police officer.  On the other we have Ticketgate concerning the Chancellor and whether or not he tried to sit in a First Class coach with a standard ticket.

Now I don’t know about you, but the former strikes me as much more of a scandal than the latter. From the reports I’ve seen about the Chancellor’s little ticket issue, he was booked onto a train from his constituency with a standard ticket, but when he was able to get a different train he moved to first class, sought out the train manager and paid the difference. He did just what everyone who gets onto a train without the correct ticket does. But the media – unfortunately – are painting this as yet another example of how the Government are out of touch with the population.

“He WHAT!! He sat in the first class carriage with a standard ticket. HOW DARE HE!! There are Grannies freezing in Northumbria.”

Seriously everyone, back up. From what we know, he didn’t argue, he didn’t pull rank, he didn’t threaten to have the manager sacked and his children sent down the mines. He just paid the balance of his new ticket. No harm. No foul.

As for Plebgate, that is an actual scandal. Whether or not the former Chief Whip referred to the officer as an  ‘F***ing pleb’ or not –he says he didn’t, the Police Federation said he did – it clearly had an adverse effect on the Government. Mr Cameron has worked very hard to “detoxify” the image of the Conservative party (though some would argue he hasn’t done the best job. See making Chris Grayling Justice Secretary) and the Chief Whip using a word like ‘pleb’ only exemplifies the public’s opinion that Conservative Ministers think they are better than everyone else.

While Mr Mitchell tried to hold on it was obvious from the start that he had to go. And while some will say that he went in order to cover for Mr Osborne, I personally think it had more to do with Wednesday’s meeting of the 1922 Committee. If they reported that Mr Mitchell no longer had the support of the backbenchers than his fate was sealed. Even though they are the senior members of the Coalition, the Tories still need every vote they can get to push their policies thorough, and if the Chief Whip has no control over party MPs then he is useless. Enter Sir George Young, back from the shortest backbench retirement ever.

But my point is this. Sometimes the media like to see scandal where there isn’t one – as in the case of Ticketgate – and sometimes they like to focus all of their attention on certain scandals, as in the case of Plebgate – but both have the unfortunate side effect of distracting their attention from bigger and more important issues such as the Government’s attempts to slash several billion from the welfare budget, or the rise in fuel prices which will harm thousands of people come the winter. These are the real scandals, and they should receive the real attention.

 

Ain't No Party Like a Party Conference

Now the Party Conference season is over and MPs and delegates are flooding back from Brighton (Lib Dems), Manchester (Labour) and Birmingham (Conservatives, by the way, Birmingham? Because that’s not a transparent attempt to connect with the average voter. I guess the Conservatives couldn’t find room in Bath), I thought I should take a look at some of the points that came out of the annual love fests.

Liberal Democrats.

What most people will remember about this conference is not the actual conference itself, but the video that was released immediately before it, the one with Nick Clegg apologising for the Lib Dems actions over tuition fees. I’ve already covered that video in this blog, but really it set the tone for the whole conference.

The Lib Dems have been having a difficult time of it recently. They were badly hurt at the local elections back in May, and their prospects don’t seem too good for the next general election either. Despite all the good that they have done in this Parliament, in the media, and in the eyes of the general public, they are seen as traitors to their cause and subservient to the Tories.

So the point of this conference was to try and revitalise a despondent base and party.              It was a chance to point out all the good that they had done in this parliament – especially with regards to environmental legislation – and a chance for Nick Clegg – whose chances of retaining the leadership are looking very shaky indeed – to not only shore up his own position, but that of the Lib Dems as a whole.

Most of the new policy positions were related to trying to set themselves apart from the Tories, especially one concerning a mansion tax. Whether that will actually go anywhere remains to be seen.

Conservatives.

Again. Birmingham? Really? I mean the Tories went to Birmingham. I’m surprised they made it out alive.  The Conservative Conference was an interesting study in contrast, and showed the definite split between the left and right wings of the Party. One the one hand you had  David Cameron in his keynote address attempting to reclaim the One Nation, Compassionate Conservative, label, talking about working with all people to improve everyone’s lives and declaring that the Conservatives are, “a party for everyone. Black, white, straight or gay, northern or southern.”

On the other hand you had George Osborne talking about cutting ten billion pounds from the welfare budget, at the expense of housing and child benefit, and the new Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, announcing that they are looking into making it legal to stab burglars.

 As mentioned above, this demonstrates even more starkly the divide between the two wings of the Conservative party.  Mr Cameron’s job – especially if he wants to secure a Conservative Majority in 2015 – will be to bring together these two wings into a cohesive whole. A harder job than it sounds.

The other notable thing about this conference was the appearance of Boris Johnson . Everyone’s favourite Tory – and he has to be to win the Mayoralty in a city which is traditionally Labour dominated – his popularity both inside and outside the Party, will be making the PM very nervous. He knows Boris well enough to know that despite his promise to fulfil his term as Mayor, if the Party wants to make him leader, than he will find a way to do it. Boris may not make a great PM, but a lot of people, think he’d make a better one than Cameron.

Labour

This Conference was typical Labour fare in most aspects. A mix between moderate centrists, and the unions and left wingers who wish to blame the Tories for everything. Now I may not agree with everything the Tories are doing – see their ten billion welfare slash above – but the demonization coming out of Manchester from certain quarters of the Party is exactly why people don’t like politics and politicians. You can disagree with someone, without painting them as Satan’s school chum.

But the highlight of the conference was Ed Milliband’s tour de force speech. Not only did he speak without notes for an hour and a half – having apparently spent the previous few days memorising the whole thing – and reach levels of oratorical skill that many thought he was not careful of, but he stole one nationism – the centrepiece of compassionate Conservatism – right out from under the Tories nose, and explained how it was a much better fit for Labour.

The brainchild of Benjamin Disraeli, Britain’s first and only Jewish PM – which may be why Milliband likes him and his ideas – one nationism states that societies grow and evolve organically, and that everyone has a part to play in creating and maintaining them It also states that those at the top of the social hierarchy – the upper classes – have a duty and obligation to help those at the bottom. While Disraeli was a Conservative, it is easy to see how the idea that everyone has an obligation to look out for one another coheres with the socialist aims of the Labour Party.

What was also impressive was how for the first time Milliband showed Prime Ministerial qualities. A lot of the criticism he has received has revolved around how he is too aloof and intellectual to appeal to people, that he doesn’t have the charisma necessary to be Prime Minister. This speech showed that he does.

Not a lot of policy came out of any of these conferences but it rarely does. They are about rallying the faithful and urging them to remain true to the party cause. But now as the MPs return to Westminster, the idealistic dreams have to be packed away and the work of Government has to begin again.

What Am I Doing?

So I’ve been back at University for two weeks now and I’m feeling a bit down. I knew there would be bits of my course that I didn’t like – I mean hello Media Law and your boring and complex exam – but this week I was left with a profound sense of uncertainty about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

I had two lectures this week that just left me feeling downhearted. Celebrity and Spin where we were basically told that sometimes the world cares more about celebrities and who has been sleeping with whom, than about real news – or what I consider real news. In Journalism and Society our lecturer  told us that while the role of journalism and journalists used to be to act as a watchdog on the social elite, with the passage of time we have become part of the social elite, so instead of exposing their mistakes, we protect them, in order to protect ourselves.

This makes me a little sad, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who knows me.

I haven’t got into journalism to do fluff pieces about Paris Hilton or Cheryl Cole. I haven’t got into journalism to protect those who think they are better or more important than others. I’ve got into journalism in order to – in some small way – change the world.

There’s a huge world out there. America is edging closer and closer to electing a robot President, there’s famine in Africa, war in Syria and monks setting themselves on fire in Tibet in protest against China’s continued occupation. There are countries waking up to their first democratic governments in over half a century. The world is a huge place and people – at least in my opinion – need to know exactly how huge it is.

The social elite do need a watchdog. They need someone to call them out when they are making a mistake, or when they’ve done something wrong. There are already too many procedures in place to protect them from the consequences of their actions. They don’t need journalists to help them out as well. I don’t want to help them out. I want to hold them to account.

I know that this is just a part of my course that I have to put up with, so I can get a set of qualifications and do good. So I can do the type of journalism that I actually want to do. So I can call out those in authority when they do something stupid or criminal. So I can open people’s eyes to the world around them that they don’t want to see.

I know that this is just a phase and that in a little while I’ll bounce back and remember exactly why I wanted to go into this career in the first place.

But right now I do find myself asking. What exactly am I doing?