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| Martin Bashir and Lord 'Tony' Hall |
Vacating his post as BBC Director General in 2020 Lord Hall said there had been "big, big changes" at the corporation since he took over in 2013. His tenure as director general began at a time the corporation was "in crisis".
He referred to "tense" negotiations with the government around dropping free TV licences for the over 75s, the 'n-word' controversy and gender pay equality.
Diversity of thought was needed within the BBC in addition to racial diversity, said Lord Hall.
What of integrity?
The BBC has betrayed our trust.
The crisis referred to by Lord Hall pales in the light of the Dyson inquiry which found that the BBC fell short of "high standards of integrity and transparency" over Martin Bashir's 1995 interview with Princess Diana. Bashir was found guilty of deceit and breaching BBC editorial conduct to obtain the interview.
An internal investigation by Tony Hall before he became the BBC's director general was said to have been "woefully ineffective". There was a "covering up".
Bashir joined ITV in 1999 but in 2016 he returned to the BBC as religious affairs correspondent, despite his apparent dishonesty and deceitful behaviour, qualities not unknown in the Church of England.
Described in the Mail as the 'pointless' Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby has been criticised for turning his back on a school chaplain who was reported to a terror unit after questioning his school's new LGBT policies
The Rev'd Dr Bernard Randall was sacked because he had delivered a sermon in which he told pupils they were allowed to disagree with the school's new LGBT policies, particularly if they felt they ran contrary to the Church's values.
The Christian Legal Centre, which has taken up Dr Randall's case, appealed for Archbishop Justin Welby, along with the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, to publicly support Dr Randall. All three senior figures declined to give Dr Randall their backing
So Dr Randall becomes yet another victim of a Church that has betrayed its traditional Christian beliefs for inclusivity and diversity.
Another betrayal of trust.
The BBC, Church of England and the Church in Wales have been unacquainted with words like honesty, integrity, objectivity, transparency and high standards for decades.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone with an ounce of intelligence or common sense really believe that the senior management of these organisations didn't know what was going on?
The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by the report.
I can't help wondering if some of the reasons for the Bashir cover-up by Tony Hall in 1996 have anything to do with Bashir being of Pakistani muslim heritage?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, findings against Bashir might well have attracted further allegations of institutionalised racism, xenophobia or muslim bashing and we all know how sensitive, virtue signalling, minorities obsessed and woke dear old "Auntie" is.
I can't comment about other possible 'allegations', but I don't see that 'Muslim-bashing' could be one of them, since Bashir's reported to have converted to Christianity when he was a teenager. Presumably that's when he adopted his unIslamic Christian names.
DeleteMerely the latest of many reasons for everyone to stop paying for a TV licence, subsidising the grotesquely over-inflated salaries of all the luvvies.
ReplyDeleteHaving heard what Cummings had to say for himself today I seriously doubt we can expect Boris to hold the BBC to account for its failures and wrongdoings.
ReplyDeleteYou have a point.
DeleteDear President Loukachenko,
ReplyDeleteMr Martin Bashir will be on Ryanair flight RY1268 from Paris to Moscow and will be flying over Belarus at about 8pm.
I definitely overheard him criticise your regime during Sunday lunch last week down the local and discussing lining you up for his next interview.
You are most welcome.
Hilarious.
DeleteIf only.....
I've criticized him several times in the last day or two. If I boarded a flight which overflew Belarus - though I rather suspect there won't be any such from western Europe for a while now! - could I qualify too?
DeleteBashir, Muslim, Taqiyya.
ReplyDeleteSimples.