The cultural politics of the BBC's so-called "Sachsgate" scandal are fascinating. I discern a sea change. Under attack for its "standards" not being worthy of the licence fee, the debate has opened up many cracks in the status quo. Those who see the Beeb as a dinosaur have in the past had to make the attack on disbanding it, but now the BBC is forced to mount a defence its position.
And for me at least that position is indefensible. Can the Beeb claim that it offers a shared cultural experience? Not when a large part of its audience is howling in dissent about the lowbrow antics of the Sachsgate players. Can the Beeb claim that it has to provide a seamless robe of programming? Well, it can – but the split among licence payers shows that many don't want to pay for what others want. Can it be proud of its dedication to public service programming? Yes, but what about the dross from Ross and Co?
And sniping from the sides are those who see the lumbering dinosaur poaching markets on-line, in digital and from your local press.
At last the BBC's incumbency of access to the public purse is being seriously questioned. The micro-politics of change in such a cultural icon is ever so slow – our politicians are too entwined in the Whitehall media village to want to act on any principle – but I think we have reached a point of no return. The BBC's fee-protected bigness is now being seen as a problem not an answer, audiences are fragmented and paying for what they want more and more.
I still believe the BBC will end up dying slowly, cut by cut it will lose out on other media channels that grow up around it. What a pity that the politicians cannot just get to grips with privatizing it and letting it win or lose in its markets. My bet is that there is enough talent in its corridors that it would end up even larger than it is now, but serving subscription paying customers in a competitive marketplace that brought out the best of its genius.
Following the now infamous prank telephone call by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to the actor Andrew Sachs of Faulty Towers fame, it is worth considering the future of the BBC. The public is rightly outraged and as such it is the perfect time to consider reform.
Firstly, the incident itself was utterly perverse. Such harassment is possibly a matter for the police to investigate. If the police are unconcerned, under normal circumstances I would suggest that it is up to the company to decide whether or not to discipline their employees. However, given the fact that we are forced to pay for BBC broadcasts, on this occasion the shareholders - that's you and me if you have a licence - should decide the fate of Ross (Brand has now stepped down). A simple poll on their bloated website would suffice.
Those that defend the BBC as an institution that does things others won’t or can’t are wrong. A visit to the website of the subscription run HBO will suffice to dispell this illusion. Such innovative programming could be possible in this country, if only the BBC and regulations were not holding back competition.
So how should we proceed? In fact the solution is very simple and it goes by the name BBC Worldwide. BBC Worldwide is a subsidiary of the BBC whose profits are delivered back to the BBC, supplementing the Corporation's licence fee funding. During 2007/08 BBC Worldwide achieved sales of £916 million.
The current licence fee of £139.50 needs to be phased out. BBC Worldwide should be given more control over the BBC’s assets, competing on equal terms with its competitors. Within ten years the licence fee should be scrapped completely, with BBC Worldwide managing all of the BBC’s interests and the public liberated from paying for the abuses of oddities such as Brand and Ross.
An interview in the Daily Telegraph with Tourism Minister Barbara Follett prompted me to check out the new "Tourism Strategy" recently published by the Department of Culture Media and Sport.
The strategy is almost entirely devoted to making the Olympics a booster for tourism. More importantly, it shows just how true the old adage is about any pot of taxpayers' money being like honey for the busy bees of the public purse.
In her remarks about her plans, the minister revealed some unintentional truths about government support for tourism. Eight government departments have responsibilities relating to tourism, but she also pointed to five other publicly funded organisations and four QUANGO-managed initiatives chewing on the public purse to "promote" tourism.
Unravelling QUANGO budgets is as always nigh on impossible, but if we take an average of 50 staff members in each entity or initiative paid at the average wage of £25,000pa involved in the above that's £11.25 million in wages alone on this industry "support". If you double that for the cost of interference by the eight government departments you get a public-expense equal to almost exactly a quarter of the entire £85 million turnover of the industry.
How about disbanding them all. Taking that expense off National Insurance taxes in a staff intensive industry and you' could have a 20% price reduction on all UK holidays – which 95% of people say are overpriced.
Governments love to govern, but they so often achieve outcomes that are the opposite of their intentions.
Apart from the obvious fact that the government – like most of us – should be tightening its belt in these uncertain times, its decision to offer £2.5m worth of free theatre tickets to under 26 year olds is a gimmick that will go nowhere to meeting its aims.
Firstly, it should be admitted that some young people simply don’t enjoy the theatre. In fact, a very strong argument can be made that the artistic quality of theatre is at present below that of cinema, an art form that young people go to in droves. Theatre is disconnected from many of the people it could (not 'should') entertain, and with the state increasingly subsidizing the arts, the connection between theatres and the people is being broken down even further.
The arts should be prized away from the state. The first phase should be to introduce a more localized tax system, then letting local communities decide whether or not to subsidize their theatres. Taking the unwieldy hand of state out of the education system would also be a step in the right direction. Competition between schools would encourage better teaching of English and Drama, inspiring students to love rather than loathe the idea of watching a Shakespeare play.
For the second phase we can learn from the masters of theatre: the ancient Athenians. This city-state did not burden its citizens with excessive taxation, forcing citizens to contribute to a general fund to make theatre accessible to all. Instead, wealthier citizens would finance plays out of their own pocket, revelling in the glory that came in staging the latest play by Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides. Currently, those with more wealth are taxed at a higher rate than the rest of the population. If the next government eases this burden, those with the wealth and interest will be free to give.
Noel Edmonds may be as mad as box of frogs, but his recent stand against the BBC licence fee should be supported. He is not against the BBC per se, but against the harassment surrounding their way of extracting the licence fee. Speaking on a BCC breakfast show at the weekend, he stated:
I worked for the BBC for 30 years. When I was there it promoted the licence fee by saying how wonderful it was. But now Auntie’s put boxing gloves on. I am not going to have the BBC or any other organisation threatening me. I’ve cancelled my TV licence and they haven’t found me. Nobody’s coming knocking on my door. There are too many organisations that seem to think it is OK to badger, hector and threaten people.
Our Director, Dr Eamonn Butler was one of the first to point out the Gestapo tactics the BBC’s latest Orwellian drive to strike fear into homes around the country. A campaign that those in the BBC should be thoroughly ashamed of.
Of course Edmonds should not break the law, but the license fee really should not be enshrined in law in the first place. If the BBC has any value at all, it should be able to survive in a competitive market, if it cannot, it should go to the wall like any other service provider. Without doubt it now fails to fulfil even that most patronizing ideal, 'public service' broadcasting. After all, they put Noel Edmonds' House Party on the television every Saturday night for eight years... What kind of public service was that?
On Friday The Independent led with the article: Art for whose sake? Up for deliberation was the Duke of Sutherland's decision to sell off a highly regarded collection of paintings, known as the Bridgewater Loan. It includes such wondrous paintings as Titan’s Diana and Callisto.
The Independent suggests “ministers might look at whether the tax regime might be further reformed to make it less easy (or desirable) for the holders of these great collections periodically to hold the nation to ransom in the name of art." What skewed analysis! In fact, we should be thanking individuals such as the 7th Duke of Sutherland for letting the public view the masterpieces for so long. Also, the Duke is offering to sell two of the paintings to London’s National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland for £100 million, paintings that on the open market that could fetch upwards of £300 million.
Of course, taxpayers should not be paying for the works, even at this bargain rate. The solution? Start charging for museums again. This will mean that only those that like what’s inside will be paying to keep it that way. Galleries could offer membership for those who wish to pop in throughout the year, school groups and art students could have free or reduced access and they could even offer the odd day a month in which access is free. Given the right management, there is no reason why galleries could not run at a profit.
If the state stepped away from the galleries, charities involved in enabling access to art would once more be legitimised. Also, wealthy individuals who believe in the value that holding on to works of art for the benefit of the nation will be free to take up their responsibilities. Unpopular? Perhaps. Yet surely the right answer.
Chris Wilkinson writing on The Guardian's website on this year's Edinburgh Festival concludes: "No one seems quite sure how to tackle green issues successfully at this year's festival". Oh, I didn't realise that was what the festival was for.
That said, the clear message that last year's summer floods were the first horseman of the apocalypse didn't slip past the astute Wilkinson:
The most directly and emotionally engaging piece at the festival that touches on these issues is The Caravan at the Pleasance. Strictly speaking, this is not a show about climate change at all. Rather it is a verbatim piece based on testimony from the victims of last year's severe summer floods. Yet while it is always difficult to prove a direct link between any specific weather event and global warming, the suffering that these people have experienced acts as a stark warning of what is to come.
He also writes:
Ironically, the show that might actually have the most positive impact on reducing our carbon footprints, is Charlie Victor Romeo, a piece that doesn't mention the environment once. The script is based on the black box recordings of doomed passenger planes. It's a bleak, depressing bit of work - and once you have seen it, you are not going to want to set foot in a plane anytime soon.
This is typical stuff from The Guardian in its quest to spread fear and moral outrage throughout its readership. On this occasion it achieves this by tying together the loose ends of the Edinburgh Festival into an easily swallowable pill of guilt.
A few days ago on the Adam Smith blog, Callum Adams-Carr wrote that kids were perfectly responsible human beings. They were just never given the opportunity, in today's nannying state, to be responsible. Quite so. And there's more to it: they are never given the opportunity to learn to be responsible either.
We're so worried about the dangers of knife crime, for example, that we try to keep knives out of the hands of children. But that's the point: kids never learn, under the guidance of adults, how to use knives responsibly – and that knives are dangerous. Likewise with booze: health puritans find alcohol bad enough for adults, but to give it to children is positively shocking. Our repugnance of militarism leaves us with a deep suspicion of the boy scouts. The result? Kids form themselves into their own platoons of street gangs, drink specifically to get hammered, and start sticking blades into each other.
The French have it right, introducing kids to alcohol in the home, where adults can teach them its pleasures and its evils. We had it right when we sent kids to the boy scouts and gave them penknives for Christmas. Under adult supervision they learnt to handle these potentially dangerous things. And talking of penknives, the Swiss Army teaches young adults how to use guns – with the result that guns are very rarely used in crime, despite the fact that all adults possess one.
We should be exposing our kids to more dangers. And younger. And in the setting of the family and in the context of the transition from kidhood to adulthood. Then they would be more able to handle the dangerous things that political correctness prevents them from experiencing and learning to control.
"We need a change of approach from the government. Brewing is a major industry, beer our national drink and pubs a treasured part of our national culture." What the BBPA fail to realise is that the government intend to destroy this part of British culture. Pubs are closing at the rate of 27 a week, a pint of beer is taxed at around 80p and the competition from super markets with their more flexible selling techniques means that a part of Britishness is being killed. I wonder if Gordon has noticed, indeed even cares?
The pub trade is facing it’s toughest test in years but it’s being stifled in how to combat it by overbearing government interference. The smoking ban is a prime example, rather than allowing pubs to decide it was deemed necessary to instigate a blanket ban. This has driven many people into the arms of the cheap booze available from supermarkets and the comfortable armchairs of home, away from prying state power (for the time being) where they can smoke and drink in peace. On top of this is the ever increasing tax (2% above the rate of inflation for the next 4 years), on all alcohol, which is resulting in excluding many from their local pubs as they can no longer afford a tipple.
But as the BBPA Chief Executive Rob Hayward points out:
"This is hitting Britain's brewers and pubs hard. It's also creating a large hole in the Chancellor's pocket with the Treasury's tax take also down (£88 million). This must call into question the government's planned beer tax escalator. Where's the logic in taxing more when you're taking less?"
There’s no logic in it, which is why they are continuing with it. Another side affect (unintentional or otherwise) is the destruction of the community. Pubs are no longer focal points for the locals (more so in urban areas) but meeting places for all those only interested in inebriation. A sorry state of affairs that is difficult to repair unless the government removes its claws from the pub landlords back.
Julian Critchley, who used to be the director of the Cabinet Office’s anti-drugs unit, has come out and said that drugs should be legalised. In his opinion, the government’s current policy on drugs and enforcement of the laws has “no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs". He argues that, contrary to what many believe, there would not be a large increase in drug use as a result of legalisation and his argument makes sense: “The idea that many people are holding back solely because of a law which they know is already unenforceable is simply ridiculous". He describes the actual effect as similar to what is happening with tobacco. “Tobacco is a legal drug, whose use is declining, and precisely because it is legal, its users are far more amenable to government control, education programmes and taxation than they would be were it illegal."
Which brings me to a point my colleague made a few weeks ago about the black market in which drugs operate. Drugs are big business and a lot of revenue is generated that isn’t counted in the legal economy. Bringing drugs out of the underground and into the open market would provide a boost in GDP and employment, while also reducing the incentive for drug dealers to use theft and violence as tools of enforcement.
Besides bringing the previously diverted funds back into the economy, legalisation restores the citizens’ right to choose for themselves what they deem acceptable to put into their bodies. Thanks to the media and advertising, people are extremely well-informed of the effects of abusing any type of drug, be it marijuana, cocaine, alcohol or tobacco. People should be allowed to use this knowledge to evaluate for themselves what is appropriate.
The cultural politics of the BBC's so-called "Sachsgate" scandal are fascinating. I discern a sea change. Under attack for its "standards" not being worthy of the licence fee, the debate has opened up many cracks in the status quo. Those who see the Beeb as a dinosaur have in the past had to make the attack on disbanding it, but now the BBC is forced to mount a defence its position. 
An interview in the Daily Telegraph with Tourism Minister Barbara Follett prompted me to check out the new "Tourism Strategy" recently published by the Department of Culture Media and Sport.
Apart from the obvious fact that the government – like most of us – should be tightening its belt in these uncertain times, its 
Noel Edmonds may be as mad as box of frogs, but his recent 
On Friday The Independent led with the article: Art for whose sake? Up for deliberation was the Duke of Sutherland's decision to sell off a highly regarded collection of paintings, known as the Bridgewater Loan. It includes such wondrous paintings as Titan’s Diana and Callisto.
A few days ago on the Adam Smith blog, Callum Adams-Carr 
"We need a change of approach from the government. Brewing is a major industry, beer our national drink and pubs a treasured part of our national culture." What the 
Julian Critchley, who used to be the director of the Cabinet Office’s anti-drugs unit, has come out and