Bbc

The politics of poppy-wearing shift slightly each year. The unofficial rule used to be that poppy-wearing began at the start of November. In recent years this has crept forward further and further into October, largely, I think, because of politicians and the BBC. The BBC lives in terror of someone appearing on one of its programmes without a poppy and thus sparking a round of ‘BBC presenter in poppy snub’ stories in the papers. If you appear on the BBC during this period you will find people on hand to pin a poppy on anyone not already sporting one. To my mind this slightly misses the charitable, not to mention voluntary, purpose of the exercise. But politicians have also fuelled this poppy mission-creep. Each year they begin to wear their poppies earlier.

What is going to happen next with the BBC Jimmy Salvile saga? In this week’s magazine cover, Rod Liddle blames institutional problems within the organisation and predicts there will be plenty of buck-passing to come. Fraser Nelson says in this week’s View from 22 podcast that although he sympathises with the decision the BBC took, he believes there are more scalps to come: ‘As an editor myself, I know that if you are to come up with a story that makes an explosive allegation it has got to be absolutely nuclear-proof nowadays and if it’s not, if there is a slightest bit of chink in your armour, it could sink the whole publication or programme. ‘…I think we are going to end up with a great long list of resignations — a domino chain.

I may sue for plagiarism. In my failed bid to become Director General of the BBC I suggested that the corporation should henceforth cover no news stories, nor commission any drama or comedy and instead simply occupy itself by debating, in public, its manifest incompetencies. I thought that this would be an entertaining and cheap way of filling up air time. Annoyingly, for me, this is exactly what the BBC is now doing. Friday’s edition of Newsnight debated at great length the culpability of the editor of Newsnight in scrapping a documentary about Jimmy Savile.

I took the opportunity yesterday to catch up with the BBC’s new comedy ‘Citizen Khan’. Focusing on a Muslim family based in my hometown of Birmingham, it lampoons the trials and tribulations of the self-appointed, self-important, and self-obsessed Mr Khan. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of British Muslim communities will recognise the basic truths on which the programme’s characters are premised. Alia, daughter of the eponymous hero, seems to have provoked the most controversy. Alia is a shrewd young girl, doting before her parents but defiant behind their backs. There are complaints she portrays a disrespectful daughter, affronting not just her myopic parents but also a stylised vision of ‘British Islam’.

Did anyone else notice anything weird about the BBC’s coverage of the story last week about the 14 NHS trusts that a government health watchdog found to be breaking the law in providing abortions? Those 14 clinics used pre-signed abortion referral forms to authorise abortions, which flouts the bit in the Abortion Act that requires two doctors to allow them. But for the BBC, as, inevitably, for The Guardian, the real scandal about the investigation was that it took place at all, at a cost of £1 million and with the result that the watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, the CQC, had to delay or cancel pre-planned investigations in order to carry out this one. And how do we know that? Why, as a result of a BBC Freedom of Information Request.

The job of George Entwistle, the new Director General of the BBC, will be to manage a gentle decline, rather than hurtling with great enthusiasm towards a state of inexistence. A very ticklish balance needs to be maintained on the issue of the BBC’s moral cross subsidisation – that is, the extent to which the corporation justifies its &"special” existence by doing intelligent and worthy programming which nobody else does and which pulls in few viewers, and the extent to which it justifies its mass appeal by broadcasting cretinous pap which every other broadcaster can do and which drags in lots of viewers. Good luck with that one.

A very lively and enjoyable Any Questions last night from the beautiful town of Aldborough in North Yorkshire. The question which seemed to bring out perhaps the most passion from an already very passionate audience concerned the BBC’s coverage of the Jubilee celebrations. I didn’t envy Jonathan Dimbleby having to chair that one. No least because the question included a reference to his own reported criticism of the BBC’s coverage. I mentioned that I had simply turned over to Sky and others on the panel went on to attack the BBC’s management. But there are two points which I didn’t get a chance to air last night which I thought I might note here: one ‘for’ the BBC and one ‘against’.