We’ve all watched the decay of the BBC. Whether you like what has happened, or dislike it, is your personal political opinion.
But one of the oddities has been the lazy assumption that some of those upset at the BBC dying, hate the BBC.
This doesn’t make any sense as logic. People who hate the BBC would, by logic, be skipping with joy as it slowly implodes. But such is our age.
Unless you recite the accepted political mantra, you are by default a wrong’un. And all wrong’uns are assumed to be exactly alike. That is political, but it’s also exactly how a cult behaves.
David Cameron said that the BBC makes him “leap for joy” and is a “brilliant service”
PALord Cameron self-identified as a cult member earlier this week. When on Tuesday he appeared before a House of Lords select committee and said that the BBC makes him “leap for joy” and is a “brilliant service”.
The demands of the cult are clear – you must ignore what is happening, you must simply repeat empty praise of the BBC.
On Twitter (@sbarrettbar) I said that talking about the BBC and not mentioning the collapse in impartiality is like telling someone that the cake has gone mouldy. And them just waxing on about how amazing cake is.
I love cake. I love the BBC. But the BBC is rotten. And it just isn’t even trying to hide that anymore.
In the same week that Lord Cameron recited the accepted mantras of the cult, what happened in the real world was very different.
On Thursday we were told - ‘Doctor Who’ Showrunner Confirms Upcoming Season To Feature Heavy Focus On Progressive Messaging: “If You’re Not Writing That In 2024, What On Earth Are You Doing?”
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Dr Who is going to be nakedly political claims Steven Barrett
Flickr
That’s an admission (surprisingly showing some pride) that Dr Who is going to be nakedly political. Now, most of us have known this for sometime. But at least in the old days if we said Dr Who episodes were political, the BBC defenders used to lie to us.
There was at least some comfort in being nakedly lied to.
But that is gone. The Long March through the Institutions is now a parade full of pride. The cult has forced people like Lord Cameron into a position were they are exposed as under its control.
It is a feature of modern life, everywhere resounds the same argument “this isn’t happening, and anyway it is a good thing!”.
So can we ever go back? Well the short answer is always yes. Humans can always save themselves. The longer answer is ‘if they want to’. Do people want to save the BBC?
If they do then we’re going to need to fix the rules. Because we’ve got to where we are slowly, by either malicious, or perhaps simply lazy, actors muddying up the waters of legal clarity.
There are definitions of words we need to fix. We first need to define what it is ‘to do politics’. That is because an awful lot of politics is being done. ‘Focusing on progressive messaging’ is doing politics. Do we want Dr Who doing politics? Do we want the BBC doing politics?
Because the next word to fix is impartiality. We fix that by identifying who we want to be impartial at the BBC, and using our now repaired definition of ‘doing politics’ to test who is and who isn’t impartial.
Then we need to enforce it, and discipline those who break these repaired rules.
I’m afraid I see little appetite to do this. But unless we do, to paraphrase a politician, things can only get worse.