Broadcasting
Gerald and the Schnorrer
Paul Johnson When BBC1 missed an entire day's broadcasting last week, as a result of its dispute with the scene-shifters, did anybody miss it? Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, a black-out of the BBC would have been regarded as a national crisis, evoking leaders in the Times, com- ments by the Prime Minister, and other symptoms of deep middle-class distur- bance. But what happened last week seems to have passed as a non-event. I saw no editorial comment. I heard no one discuss it or complain. Once the BBC was a central pillar of British middle-class culture; ITV was for the lower orders. Now, if anything, these roles have been reversed. Of course the BBC still has a few things going for it in the sports world, and a few major per- sonalities like Sir Robin Day, but it has quite lost its centrality in our national life, and is sinking into demoralisation and apathy.
A significant element in the decay of the BBC has been the decline in its news ser- vice. News is and must be at the heart of a newspaper; and news ought to be the domi- nant preoccupation of broadcasting. The BBC has neglected its news coverage, and it shows. One reason why ITV has risen in the public's estimation has been the excellence of ITN. It would never occur to me nowadays to watch BBC-TV news by choice, though I often look at both chan- nels for purposes of comparison. I prefer ITN not merely because it seems to me ob- jective and impartial — I don't feel I am be- ing got at — but also because it is more pro- fessional, enterprising and authoritative.
Again, BBC radio news seems to me poor and politically slanted. For radio bulletins I now usually prefer Capital or LBC. But I do hear BBC news bulletins on Radio 3, which I listen to a great deal — the last real jewel (if I may use the phrase) in the BBC's tarnished crown. What I hear on these news bulletins is not very reassuring. There is, I would say, a marked anti- American flavour, and in terms of domestic coverage a distinct tendency to present news, or rather 'news', hostile to the Government. For instance, during the past week the official leadership of the miners' union has been mounting a deliberate smear campaign against the police. Everyone knows that the police are carrying out their statutory duties in the embattled coalfields, the chief one of which is to ensure that men who wish to exercise their right to work are able to do so, and that picketing is con- ducted within lawful limits. The Scargill group wish to close pits by mass intimida- tion and stop miners who don't agree with them from exercising their rights. The only way they can do this is to make the police action ineffective. The smear campaign is designed to put pressure on chief con- stables to `go easy', and let the fascist Left pickets mount their terror campaign without real interference.
Under a pathetically weak leader, the Labour Party has to some extent lent itself to this campaign of systematic mendacity against the police. Gerald Kaufman, the party's 'Home Affairs spokesman', has been conducting his own little anti-police campaign. Poor Kaufman's is a sad case. He is a fundamentally decent fellow, who dislikes the fascist Left as much as the rest of us do. But like some other Labour moderates, he is in desperate trouble in his
The Spectator 14 April 1984 own constituency, and the easiest way to curry favour with his internal opponents is to go for the police. So Kaufman has been `conducting investigations' and 'laying the facts' before the Chief Constable of 1•1°I" tinghamshire, and so forth. The little episode which occurred last Saturday was a non-story which tells us more about the internal state of the Labour Party than cwohaalftieisidactually happening in the Midlands Yet BBC radio news made it the lead story on Sunday morning, playing it LIP for all it was worth, with the insinuation that there was something sinister about theel." forts of the police to enforce the law. We even had Kaufman himself holding forth, using that tone of theatrical indignation he employs when he knows he is talking nonsense. Nobody else thought this story worth much, or anything at all. The only newspaper which gave it substantial coverage was the Sunday Times, which Pr?" vided eight inches tucked away on an insiue page. The Observer dismissed it in seven lines at the bottom of its main coal crisis story. The Sunday Telegraph ignored it' though it noted Kaufman was expected to apply for an emergency debate. The Sulll Express had nothing on Kaufman. Nor ha the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Mirror or the News of the World. That the BBC should lend itself to a smear campaign against the police seems to me an instructive commentary on its Pre; sent state of health. For, of course, Lft always operates more freely and effective in a body which is manifestly sick or decor": posing — as the sad history of the Labour, Party itself in recent years testifies. D0 ri° those who, in theory, run the BBC care what is happening to this once great by tional institution? The BBC is paid for what is, in effect, a poll-tax on the public• It aisuctboomrpituylsobryily, nisilulipopnosrtoefd,orudnidnearry stapteuotpoire): many of whom are very poor and find it ex' ceedingly difficult to grub together their a,": nual licence fee. They are people of an finite diversity of opinions and politieb4e1 views, and they rightly expect the BBC to as objective and impartial as is huma'," tpiosasbsibploe,taincsd. above all to keep out of Pal don't As I saliy, most viewers and listeners do take much notice of the BBC nowadays' s0 the actual effects of any BBC bias are Prof bably of little consequence. But the isstleeucit principle is important, and it is one I singly Conservative inosoesrlNyra taisv et h eMmPos nthtos the great Schnorrer of British public Ino`i and it is currently rattling its begging-13°
ided again. Its strategists imagine that prov they lobby the right ministers and go by. TinbcerenasHicSlii:
at the Home Office they will get the licence fee increase they seek, or something like, a But it is Parliament which decides, growing number of MPs feel that the it poration must not receive more cash until it makes a serious attempt to restorevilt; reputation both for quality and object' — the two are closely connected.
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