The BBC and Analogue political attitudes in a digital age.
The BBC prides itself on its inclusive attitudes to everything. The blatant smuggery when advancing a progressive cause, leaves most normal people feeling a little nauseous. And then aside from the smuggery there is the unapologetic bias demonstrated for example prior to Brexit when every ‘Leath’ principle was twisted to ensure we were being educated about the horrors of Brexit even if ostensibly we should have been just informed or entertained.
The BBC has recently ‘justified’ itself to Elon Musk. Exposed to the full sanctimony of the state broadcaster’s delusion that as it is ‘publicly funded’ its output is wholly universally legitimate.
The BBC operates a coercive model of revenue raising. It’s more akin to a protection racket than a service supplier. Threats to licence fee avoiders are frequent in an age when people want to have personal control over what they buy. However, the most harmful effects of this ‘state sanctioned’ model of broadcasting is that Its output is designed to promote, not just the politics of one party or another (based on a crude numerical formula that fails democracy once you get down to constituency levels) but is designed to reinforce the status quo. The status quo being the top down, attack and defend binary system of politics designed in the eighteenth century, which is described as ‘embarrassing’ by a growing army of disillusioned voters.
The claim to support minorities referred to above and to promote minority interests fails once you stray into politics. This is when the BBC shows its true ‘state broadcaster’ credentials. It will subtly overlook some political groups whilst almost embarrassingly falling over themselves to promote others. The flim flam of their ‘policy documents’ allows them to justify whatever they do to whomsoever they need to justify it, and that is usually just to themselves.
Two cases in point. In 2017 a small group of people started a political group called Blue Revolution. The idea came to us because it was clear the political system was stale, elitist, and failing to deliver policies that benefitted working people financially. Debt was the ‘money supply’ and rich few were getting richer whilst they systematically ‘fleeced’ the many. As a business model this aligns perfectly with the licence fee-based BBC funding model. 2017 was the year of Theresa May’s ill judged General Election and having only existed for a Month ‘Blue Revolution’ felt compelled to field a candidate.
The BBC Radio 5 Live team came to Skegness for a constituency visit with Emma Barnet and an unfunny Irish comedian and placed their caravan adjacent to the beach. Blue Revolution, one of only five candidates standing in that constituency were not invited to participate in the seaside discussion. However, there was a ‘stand in’ for the Ukip candidate representing Paul Nuttal the then Ukip leader. Why go to a constituency and base your choice of interviewees on the established parties? Why not see what else is out there at a grass roots political level? Why not examine the views of political minorities? Because the BBC is the broadcaster of the British State, and the British State wants to maintain the political status quo. Anyone struggling to be hard or more over questioning the legitimacy of party based, top down, attack and defend parliamentary politics is not given a voice. Subsequently the Blue Revolution candidate was invited to chat to Emma Barnet. But it was clearly just intended to be a piss-take. Without his consent decreed that he was to become mere entertainment, rather than to inform. A subsequent complaint resulted is the usual self-justifying BBC waffle.
Roll onto 2023 and the public’s appetite for alternative ideas to the ‘embarrassing’ status quo has increased. Blue Revolution has fought council seats and is gaining an increasing vote share, whilst steadfastly observing the principle that a formal party structure is bad for democracy. It’s a slow burn process getting candidates elected as there can be no central ’command and control’ structure beloved of mainstream parties and some ‘independent’ groups.
However, in 2023 Blue Revolution fielded eight candidates in the May elections. This made the group the third largest after the new Boston Independents Party and the Conservatives. Blue Revolution ran a good campaign as eight independents under the same banner. Blue Revolution increased its vote share and managed to get a councillor elected. However, it received absolutely no coverage from the BBC unlike the new Boston Independent Party. This no coverage even extended to no reference to the group name. This resulted in the name Blue Revolution being omitted from the BBC website detailing the final council results. Which then failed to be referenced on Wikipedia. It thus gives a false picture of Boston’s political history. You don’t need the Russians to interfered in elections when you have the BBC.
The BBC is an outdated institution. A throwback to power based analogue politics but in a new less tired digital age.
