The BBC Lurching to the Right

Published: 08/11/2007

This Time it is Personal
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Unlike me, my husband is not given to hissy fits or surges of flaming outrage. The man is rational, reasonable, sangfroid, a becalmer. Last Wednesday, he threw down his towel ( literally) and finally gave up on the BBC. The broadcaster, he thinks has turned dilettante, is contemptuous of facts, progressive politics and its own responsibility to uphold decent values, its raison d’etre surely. I can completely understand my Englishman’s disillusionment, but I cling on still to the noble idea of the BBC, to the breaking branch of a dying tree though bleak winds shake my faith every day.

As an act of backdated contrition, the BBC had already given Alistair Campbell hours of free promotion for his diaries. Now Tony Blair confides in a trusted, hand picked journalist confessing his greatness and closeness to the Almighty. Then came news that the unique Dateline London ( News 24 and World) on which highly respected international journalists discuss world events, watched by 78 million viewers is to be axed. This act of vandalism was followed by an announcement of a season of programmes on the ‘besieged’ white working classes. Nick Griffin of the BNP could well be their consultant. Are migrants going to get their series titled ‘Scapegoats’? Sometimes I wonder if these bigoted attitudes chime with BBC producers in the way Families Need Fathers do. Perhaps their daughters are bringing home unsuitable ‘ethnic’ boys home too often.

Public service broadcasters must make uncomfortable programmes on any group or on immigration- and there are excellent examples of responsible, critical journalism. But a whole series propagandising against multiracial Briton? To validate the race hate that sloshes all over our isles, from playgrounds to football pitches? Some researcher rang to discuss one programme ‘re-appraising’ Enoch Powell. What’s to reappraise? My money is being used to reassure people who hate people like me. This is much worse than mere dumbing down

Belligerence is sought- bring on the alpha right wingers. Soon a Jeremy Clarkson mascot will replace Pudsy. The anti-immigration Andrew Green of Migrationwatch, is their unquestioned prophet; health and safety is presented as an attack on our liberties; all strikes are a betrayal of country and capitalism; progressive policies are namby-pamby or a licence to mug old ladies; The European Union is bad for us, true internationalism is suspect, so too the global movement of labour, multilateralism, equality, regulation, redistribution, legitimate ( as opposed to illegal) wars.


Several BBC broadcasters tell me they now ignore ‘Guardian and Independent’ points of view. The conservative press drives the agenda. We are passé, irrelevant, annoying, elitist and soft. Fashion moves on, the culture is now noisy and intolerant and the Beeb follows, too feeble to stand up for its own integrity. BBC shock jock fortunes can only get better. Whingers use phone-ins and the web to incessantly to complain they are not being heard. Sorry? So why you on air raving yet again? If they bother to read this at HQ they will not give a damn. They don’t even answer many such criticisms any more. And complaints by Black and Asian Britons are heeded less than the sounds of birds in the city.

During the Thatcher years, the BBC was stalked and slated by the right, accused of being dangerously liberal and PC. Blairites continued the onslaught, went for public broadcasting independence itself. During the Hutton enquiry, shockingly, many journalists privately told me they agreed with Campbell. The centre of gravity at the BBC shifted right.

And still they cry foul, the right wing ranters. Mr Jeff Randal, previously of the BBC complains the corporation keeps out the pro-hanging lobby and is still too pink. Won’t be long.

But yet, but yet, there is the wonder of the BBC too, as I was reminded last week when attending an event to mark the birth of the BBC world service, the best of Britain exemplified, today as reliable and authentic as our many yesterdays. Nigel Chapman the director- a Beeb man through and through- should be proud he keeps the promise made in December 1932, to tell the stories and uphold the good and free society. We watched a video of the key moments in history when the world had no other voice to tell them what was happening. Many of us were tearful- that crackling sound bringing back for me memories of the Idi Amin coup, Vietnam, the trial of Nelson Mandela. In the gorgeous Art Deco theatre, Gavin Esler ( who also presents Dateline) introduced and interrogated three previous Reith lecturers- writer Wole Soyinka, US economist Jeffrey Sachs and philosopher Onora O’Neill on free speech and journalistic ethics. Once upon a time the corporation understood these concepts.

Today the corruption of populism and relativism seeps under the imposing doors, fouls up a once venerated institution. As we stepped out, the coldest night so far this winter slapped our faces, brought us out of nostalgia. That BBC we knew and trusted is no more. It is a player in the marketplace of nastiness and I can no longer argue with any conviction for a licence fee.

Published in The Independent