BBC Gravy Train

The BBC has come under fire after it published accounts showing that staff pay had soared 3.5 per cent to £1.5billion this year - while the Corporation pushes ahead with its plans to strip a million over-75s of their free TV licences. (Mail Online)

The BBC's highest paid 'stars'.  Source: Mail Online

plus executive pay:

There are 91 BBC executives who are paid MORE than the Prime Minister and 11 bosses get more
than DOUBLE his salary.  Source: Mail online

The BBC's mission is "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".

It is a job they do well at their best but 'Auntie' is not what she used to be. Pay and 'bias' have again been dominating the headlines. 

Their salary bill is similar to the cost of running their main TV channels: BBC One- £1.2bn, BBC Two- £481.2 million and BBC Four- £52.3 million according to the BBC's Annual Report and Accounts for 2017/18.

In 2015, the government announced that the BBC would take over the cost of providing free licences for over-75s by 2020 as part of the BBC fee settlement. 

In a staggering breach of faith the BBC later claimed that "BBC Two, BBC Four, the BBC News Channel, the BBC Scotland channel, Radio 5live, and a number of local radio stations would all have been at risk" if they honoured the commitment that guaranteed their fee settlement.

Delayed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, demands for licence fees are being received by pensioners over 75 year old at the same time as the BBC published accounts showing that staff pay had "soared 3.5 per cent to £1.5billion this year".

There is no recognition in the BBC that part of the problem in honouring their obligation to elderly pensioners is the unjustifiable amount of money paid out in salaries when they cannot afford to do so.

I suspect that I am not alone looking at the photographs of the highest paid 'stars' only to find that just two of the ten have any impact on my life and then only because they are BBC newsreaders.

Personally I prefer Reeta Chakrabarti and Ben Brown at less than half the cost.

Programme content has become dire with endless repeats. New series are built around murder and violence while frequent soccer programmes pervade the airwaves, something that could well be left to other providers given the cost to the licence payer.

New content is bogged down in the BBC's 'diversity' drive. Knee deep in political correctness and wokism BBC's mission is increasingly questionable. Not all change is for the better as the BBC should learn from their mishandling of their previously successful Strictly Come Dancing.

In the 2011 census over 86% of the population were white with 13% identifying as  BAME but often the BBC's news coverage conveys the impression that white people are the minority in the UK. 

The BBC's Breakfast time programme constantly undermines the Government's strategy to defeat Covid-19 while some of the presenters adopt the role of official opposition to the Government.

One ought to expect the highest standards from a public service broadcaster but some of the trailers are jaw dropping. 

Following on from their promotion of BBC 3's Drag Race, the BBC are currently promoting Little Mix in a series that encourages grotesquely made-up youngsters to mimic their hosts by cavorting around in clothing that could easily be mistaken for underwear.

I do not watch EastEnders but the trailers illustrate life in the East End as constant misery and angst. No wonder the programmes are accompanied by health warnings.

As a public service institution the BBC should be readily available to all, informing and educating. 

Instead we have an over-paid politically correct woke elite constantly lowering standards by foisting their own liberal views on audiences thus 'normalising' abnormal behaviour.

The announcement by Gary Lineker that Sue Barker is to be replaced on A Question Of Sport by ex-soccer player Alex Scott brought one of the best suggestions: Alex Scott should replace Lineker.

That would be diversity!

Get Cummings

The PM's Chief Advisor running the gauntlet of hate                                                                                                                                        Source: internewscast

Regardless of which side of the fence you find yourself in the 'Cummings must go' campaign, the treatment he and his family have had to endure as glimpsed in this tweet is not British. It is a disgrace. 

Following the example of snowflake no-platformers, get Cummings campaigners have been acting as judge and jury. A witch hunt designed to ensure the departure of the Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister, thus settling old scores after Remainers lost the vote to remain in the EU. 

Allegedly unbiased TV presenters who are paid vast amounts of money by the cash strapped BBC decided that Dominic Cummings' actions when he and his wife were required to self-isolate were reprehensible. The man was guilty regardless of circumstances, timing or his use in the fight against the common enemy, Covid-19

Possibly emboldened by the fact that BBC Breakfast's presenter Naga Munchetty was let off  after she 'breached BBC rules', presenter Emily Maitlis launched into her Newsnight introduction with: "Good evening. Dominic Cummings broke the rules. The country can see that and it is shocked the Government cannot. The longer Ministers and Prime Minister tell us he worked within them the more angry the response to the scandal is likely to be.... He made those who struggled to keep the rules feel like fools and has allowed many more to feel that they can flout them".

 Crackpot Acting LibDem Leader Sir Ed Davey described the breach as "brilliant journalism". The BBC has since said that "an introduction about Dominic Cummings on Tuesday's Newsnight did not meet the required standards of due impartiality".

'Journalists' and MPs following the pack have been lining up to demand the PM's Chief Advisor should either resign or be sacked regardless of his value in combating the Coronavirus. The Church of England's duplicitous bishops have also weighed into the Prime Minister with "lied to, patronised and treated as mugs" although one has to acknowledge their considerable expertise in that area. 

This week we have been celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the rescue of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk. The coverage of the BBC today is in marked contrast with the desire for victory regardless of the cost in 1940.

The get Cummings campaign has completely lost sight of the need to beat the real enemy, Covid-19.

Sir Keir Starmer has tweeted: "Boris Johnson's unwillingness or inability to do the right thing has left the Government looking untrustworthy and unprincipled. Worst of all he's undermined the public health advice that keeps us all safe, just to keep one aide in his job. Our nation’s health must come first."

Sir Keir is correct. Our nation's health must come first. For that reason MPs, the media and Anglican bishops should stop doing what they accuse Dominic Cummings of having done, putting the country at risk. 

The issue has been flogged to death. 

It is the vendetta that is more likely to undermine the Government's fight against Covid-19 with mischievous suggestions that people should perhaps make their own judgements rather than follow government guidelines.

Postscript [01.06.2020]

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Blasts Bishops over Cummings Controversy

"Controversy is ridiculously overblown, says George Carey

Hysterical, coarsened and divisive nature of debate is creating a dangerous culture war that could harm civic life, he says."

A joyous, solemn occasion

New priests for the Personal #Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, ordained yesterday at the Birmingham Oratory.          Source: Twitter @FrJamesBradley

Compare the above photograph of eight new priests ordained at the Birmingham Oratory yesterday with the selection of photographs of Church of England’s dabbing deacons and jumping bishops.

As a Guardian article put it prior to the Petertide ordinations, "the stern, decorous images that used to mark these occasions are being replaced by a trend for more frivolous action shots – with dabbing deacons showing up alongside priests leaping, baring their knees and even wearing L-plates. Their defenders see the new informality as a sign of holy joy. But hardcore traditionalists, along with casual curmudgeons, are less than elated.

"Their ire was recently roused by a shot of six readers being licensed at St Alban’s Cathedral, showing clear air under the heels of a jumping bishop of Hertford, the Rt Rev Michael Beasley."

Ministry reaches new heights in St Albans as 6 Readers are licensed.        Twitter@StAlbansAbbey

There is no dignity of office apparent in the St Albans photograph. The sacred ministry is made to appear comic. While the Anglican Church has become 'more relevant to society' it has lost its sense of 'otherness'.

Following a previous entry a commentator took exception to my reference to Messy Baptism which appears to be getting people out of church rather than in. When the Messy 'font' was revealed a child could be heard calling out, "That's our paddling pool!" Precisely. 

Fonts are often placed at or near the entrance to a church's nave to remind believers of their baptism as they enter the church to pray, since the rite of baptism served as their initiation into the Church (Wikipedia). In bygone days there was a link with the past when generations of the same family may have been baptised at the same font.

Surely it is more important to get people into church and Holy Baptism is one of the main opportunities for doing so along with marriages and funerals.

But that is no guarantee of success. People can be easily put off as was a mother who complained to a friend about a modernised confirmation service in which the bishop invited all the candidates to stand around him in a semi-circle. He awkwardly negotiated his way between the vicar and the candidates in an informal, happy-go-lucky manner rather than having the candidates kneel individually in front of him to hear those memorable words: "Confirm, Lord your servant with your heavenly grace, and anoint him/her with your Holy Spirit; empower him/her for your service and keep him/her in eternal life.  Amen." A moment I still recall as one of deep spiritual significance, probably enhanced by the austere bearing of the bishop.

The lack of 'otherness' was not helped by the fact that the bishop first baptised one of the confirmation candidates inserting a few wisecracks. If holiness is next to Godliness the Almighty was conspicuous by His absence.

Familiarity is killing Anglicanism. On BBC Breakfast TV yesterday, the Chief Constable of Durham police shared his supposedly impartial views on the consecration of woman bishops.

Consecration of woman bishop                                                                 Source: BBC Breakfast TV

Struggling to explain what was happening he reached a consensus with the presenters that the consecration of women bishops had become 'normal', creating a 'balance'.

It may be 'normal' for the Church of England as currently informed by society, mainly non-churchgoing bystanders who feel free to voice an opinion from a position of ignorance.

It is definitely not normal in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.