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THOMPSON ON LEVESON

>> MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012

Perhaps you may wish to comment on this from BBC DG Mark Thompson to the Leveson Inquiry this morning?

"The BBC is not a business and it might well be that someone running a media business might take a different view from the view that I took as director general of the BBC.

"The BBC is a public service broadcaster. It is committed to be the most trusted, trustworthy source of news in the world and we want to maintain the highest possible standards in all matters, including matters relating to privacy."

OPEN THREAD

Monday morning and a new Open Thread to start the week!

THAT WELFARE CAP

Did you catch this VERY hostile and interrupting interview by Evan Davies of Iain Duncan Smith on the BBC this morning? How very dare Government try to limit Welfare! I'll be on the BBC myself later today (BBC Birmingham around 12.40) discussing this topic. My view is that whilst the principle of a cap is a good one, £26,000 seems an excessive amount. What about those many people who earn so much less than this? Why did Evan Davies not pursue this line?

THE NIGERIAN NIGHTMARE

In the wake of further acts of Jihad by the Boko Haram Islamists in Nigeria, I was somewhat surprised to hear the Bishop of Durham on the BBC this morning pointing out that the "conflict" there is not really about religion but just as much about the lack of job opportunities for the young. Amazing - the BBC must have dhimmified clerics on speed dial!

IPPR A DAY...

It's becoming an almost daily feature on the BBC. I refer to the "left-leaning" IPPR getting high profile for one of their "reports." This morning it was all about voters living in England placing more emphasis on their English rather than British identity. Whilst one absolutely welcomes the wishes of English people being giving attention (at last) one also must be careful about where this leads. The EU, for example, would love to see the UK break apart into a mass of small controllable regions, and the encouragement of this via an IPPR study is surely a watch out. The other point is that this study claims most English people would like to see "Devo Max" for Scotland but this is surely a misrepresentation by the IPPR and BBC as to what exactly "Devo Max" actually constitutes? As I understand it, Devo Max will ensure that the taxes from England will still continue to flow north of the border but in addition Scotland can then vary taxes even further.