on media Raymond Snoddy on why we should fear John Whittingdale


BBC is in the hands of a teenage idealogue


B


elieving that Culture Secretary John Whittingdale would not be the ogre determined to “sort


out” the BBC was perfectly rational. He had chaired the House of Commons Media Select Committee for years.Its stance on the BBC had been tough but balanced and surely he understood the importance of the BBC? This was entirely wrong and Whittingdale’s natural political instincts may have been held in check by chairing a multi-party committee. The depths of his ideological


motivation and his misguided desire for a smaller BBC are now there for all to see. To get his way he even set up an embarrassingly rigged panel of advisors who mainly agree with his views.


In a great political putdown, the Tory grandee who chaired the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, got it right by describing his former colleague as “a teenage ideologue.” Whittingdale called BBC director- general Lord Tony Hall and Lord Patten’s Trust successor, Rona Fairhead, and announced as a fait accomplie that the BBC would shoulder the entire cost of up to £750 million a year of free licence fees for the over 75s. No negotiations and any balancing concessions or “mitigation” would come much later and without any guarantees in talks on renewal of the Royal Charter. According to a new book – The BBC Today: Future Uncertain – the Government only backed down on mitigation after being warned of the imminent consequences of its approach. BBC Two and BBC Four would have to close along with all


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local radio stations plus the national radio services of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was only then that the


Government agreed to phase in the free licence fees, phase out payments of £150 million a year on broadband combined with a sort of promise to link the licence fee to retail prices but subject to a “purpose and scope” inquiry which could result in a much smaller BBC.


It is a process that has greatly


angered Sir Michael Lyons, the former chairman of the BBC Trust.


With the help of resignation threats Sir Michael and Trust colleagues saw off both free licence fees and a “scale and scope” review but had to accept a licence fee freeze and hundreds of millions of pounds worth of new obligations including paying for the World Service. More than 2000 jobs were lost.


“


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” theJournalist | 21


The depth of his ideological motivation and his misguided desire for a smaller BBC are now there for all to see


Sir Michael believes it is an outrageous “breach of faith” that the Government accepted the savings imposed on the BBC five years ago and then returns for a second bite of the same cherry.


While individual director


generals say, with some justice, that the deals they accepted were the best possible in the political circumstances at the time, it is the cumulative effect that is doing great damage to the Corporation and its employees.


In effect the BBC has had 10


years of cuts or great uncertainty imposed on it when the licence fee and the media activity it


funds, feeds into jobs in one of the


few industries where the UK is both universally admired and competitive. The NUJ is looking at the legal


implications of discrimination in favour of the over 75s over the free licences. There is also the issue of the Government, without any discussion or consultation, turning the BBC in a arm of social services. Top BBC executives seem content with the porous deal they have done. It is up to everyone else to oppose the deeply damaging plans of John Whittingdale – the teenage ideologue and worst Culture Secretary the UK has had to endure.


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