MONOCHROME BAND OF PEOPLE"

MONOCHROME BAND OF PEOPLE"

>> SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2011

James Naughtie, discussing internships and work experience on this morning's Today programme:

"You've raised the point about companies getting people to work for them for nothing. That's one side of it. The other side is you get an army of people who are given an opening, an entrée, into the, y'know, professions or quite well paid jobs by being able to work for nothing because their families can afford it and perhaps if the family has got a connection whether it's a business connection or a friendship, what you end up with is an absolutely almost monochrome band of people who are gonna end up in the best jobs because they've got the experience and they all come from sort of middle class professional backgrounds."

And where did James Naughtie's son do his work experience? Newsnight. (Naughtie JR's twitter account - Sarah Palin appears to be a favourite topic. Monochrome band of people indeed.)

PATTEN "TO BE CONFIRMED" IN BBC ROLE

The Daily Mail claims today that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has recommended that Lord Patten should become the next chairman of the BBC, and that the this is now almost certain to happen. It's a horrific prospect, and it beggars belief that the Tories should appoint this euro-bigot to the role. Any idea that this is in any way eurosceptic administration - already highly questionable after the handling of the Irish bailout and the daylight-robbery increase in the EU budget of 2.9% - is shot down in flames. Mark Thompson finally begrudgingly accepted (after cacophonies of protest stretching back years) in December that there had been bias in BBC reporting of the EU. With the appointment of Patten, the whole topic is now off the agenda and the euro-bigots who run the BBC will be smirking all the way to their White City eyries. One of those will be the insufferable Andrew Marr, a europhile-in-chief. It's been revealed that he is paid £600,000 a year of our money so that he can present BBC shows in which he rams his prejudices down our throats. How much more of this profligacy can be tolerated?