You don’t have to be a Dykista (A Dykie?) to think that DCMS Select Committee Chairman Gerald Kaufman’s attack on the corporation yesterday was unprincipled, opportunistic – really a politically disreputable act. I can’t be the only one who’s getting fed up with Kaufman’s unreconstructed, Wilson-era Statism disguised as consumer advocacy or anti-establishment vim or whatever it is.
His latest soapbox is the extra-curricular activities of Messrs Marr, Gilligan, Simpson et al, which he thinks should be curtailed in the interests of balance, impartiality etc.
How stifling a group of the most intelligent, independent, high-minded journalists on the planet can aid accountability at the beeb is entirely beyond me. That these journos can sustain the BBC’s high (and rather unusual) editorial standards while writing grown-up opinion for other outlets is a testament to their quality, not their venality.
I totally agree. It’s strange that on Thursday I watched a session of Kaufman’s Select Committee questionning the late Alexander Walker (it was a recording from June), Stelios of EasyJet fame(and now EasyCinema), and Tessa Jowell. He comes across as a reasonable and informed MP. I know that he has a special regard for films. But his attack last week, and then again in even more extravagent terms at the weekend on the BBC are intolerable.
He was tantamount to threatening the break-up of the BBC over the David Kelly affair, sad though that is. And in the next breath was threatening the BBC with its impending Charter Renewal.
What’s his problem?