Friday 8 August 2008

Some auntie

I hate the BBC.

Most people don't; it continues to enjoy a fuzzy sense of admiration from many, and enduringly misguided loyalty.

I have absolutely no idea why. Imagine hearing of an equivalent elsewhere: a left-wing state broadcaster employing 28,000 people, possessing an annual budget of £4bn, funded by a compulsory television tax. You'd snort with derision. Yet here, we speak warmly of "Auntie Beeb".

Its bias is so obvious it has even been forced to admit it. In spite of the principles of public broadcasting, it engages in the same mad dash for ratings that makes ITV wholly unwatchable. The crucial difference is that we don't pay for ITV to exist - it pays for itself, and while its schedule is filled with abysmal lowest-common-denominator rubbish, at least it does this off its own back.

So should the BBC be privatised?

Why not. Just to see what happens. Just to see how this fat, lazy, complacent organisation copes when exposed to the real world. Just to see how many of those 28,500 staff it actually does need. Just to see whether £4bn is the actual cost of its operations. Just to see the wails of horror from its pro-EU, AGW-fantasy-propagating, Tories-are-all-evil correspondents.

And best of all, having spent so long rubbishing the Conservatives, their backs are up. It's too late to back-track and make amends. Any right-wing party worth its salt should be opposed to a monumental waste of public money such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, let alone one that so palpably hates it. Revenge is in the air, and the Tories are likely to have a long time in office in which to settle a few scores.

This would be a great place to start.

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