Tuning in briefly on Sunday to the Andrew Marr Show, appropriately belatedly via the iPlayer, I was amused and appalled in equal measure by what lay ahead (I didn’t actually watch it all, partly out of fear of what I would see, but mainly out of fear of boredom).
I was greatly amused by the format of the program. I’ve got used to listening to the Today program’s political correspondent “cut through the crap” immediately after a political interview, which I like to hear. However, it is a little odd when that correspondent does this before the interview is complete, which seems to have become more common, particularly when the politician doesn’t seem to challenge the interpretations of their spin.
For those like me, who don’t political shows every week, it is very amusing to see the same contrived approach on TV, when the commentating correspondent is in the same room as the politicans without interviewing them directly. Although I haven’t been very politically active, I am interested in politics and have been since I was at school, just before the millennium. Given my personal affinity for politics, it worries me what impression these highly staged programmes will make upon those with less inclination for politics. It feels as though the journalists and interviewers are all part of the “Westminster elite” to use the popular SNP catchphrase, which of course Andrew Marr and Nick Robinson definitely are, and I assume Sarah Baxter probably is too. To me this just makes the politician seem even more distant from the electorate, and can make for very boring TV.
On top of that, the content of the Andrew Marr Show depressed me – including working tax credit cuts, inheritance tax threshold rise and the cut in free over-75s TV licence – all supposedly in George Osborne’s upcoming budget. Working tax credits are complicated, but it is clear that the Conservatives are just trying to reduce the welfare bill rather than genuinely trying to make employers pay their employees decent wages. The inheritance tax threshold rise is just a stupid promise made by the conservatives, but one which they are keeping (probably hoping that it will affect fewer people, more in the future, than the public think). Despite my revulsion at the policy, that is good politics by them even if the stakes are much lower than for the Lib Dems when they renegaded on the tuition fee promise.
However, the main problem I have, and something that exemplifies George Osborne’s (in particular) skill as a politician, is his attempt to take away a subsidy for wealthy pensioners (the free TV licence for over-75s), but delegate responsibility to the BBC for any final decision to cut the free licence. Nick Robinson pointed out the clever politics of this, and yet Andrew Marr let Osborne shift the focus onto why the BBC could afford to cut 1/5th of its budget. It feels as though the Tory policy people spotted an interesting anomaly with the licence fee, where the money is administrated by the government, but collected by the BBC (or Capita actually), and have earmarked the over-75s subsidy for free licences as the priority for taking money off pensioners, as it is a win-win option for them: if the BBC decide to ask the over-75s for money, they are the ones that have cancelled the subsidy, despite it being a government initiative first introduced in 2000; and if they do cut costs to keep it, they will have to shrink in the process, something the Tories clearly want.
I was very surprised that the BBC had been actively prevented from charging for iPlayer content, given that no licence is required to watch it, and given that it is (arguably) a superior service to the traditional scheduled service! I hadn’t paid the licence fee since university until this year (except in Switzerland where to have access to the internet meant that you had to pay the radio licence fee – perhaps we should adopt a two-tiered model too?), when I mainly decided to pay it out of solidarity with all the anti-BBC bashing, but partly also because I wanted to be able to watch the rugby legally as it happens rather than trying to avoid knowing the score and then watching it afterwards just to try and keep within the law. This is particularly important with the world cup coming up, even if it is on ITV…
* Jamie Shaw-Stewart is a member in Coventry
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22 Comments
Clever politics by Osborne in delegating responsibility for any decision on a future cut to the BBC, but I have little sympathy for the outrage on the left considering the silence and sometimes active encouragement they have given for financial advisers to fund government freebies.
All freebies should be funded by the taxpayer. Personally I don’t know why the BBC have gone along with this.
No one pays for it. The point is that the over 75s don’t have to pay. really, BBC is an anachronism and I have never understood my fellow left leaning progressive types attachment to what a lot of the time looks like an Oxford/Cambridge employment scheme mixed with an old establishment propaganda outlet. Let’s be honest the BBC was basically designed to control a new technology and by extension what ordinary people saw and heard. It didn’t really loosen at all until the arrival of ITV and even then apart from a vaguely arty patch between the late 60s to mid 70s to at a pinch early 80s, it never did that much that was that interesting. Seriously, I think the rhetoric of both The Left and Right that surrounds the BBC dates to stuff that hasn’t existed for the best part of 30 to 40 years, mainly one suspects Dennis Potter. Dr Who, Master Chef. Royal Babies and programs about Victorians fronted by posh people is all the BBC really is.
Thanks for the comments. My main impetus for writing this was George Osborne’s clever politics, and I was shoving it out there partly for people to express opinions on the BBC, but also because I think the Lib Dems have a lot to learn from the Conservatives’ approach to policy. Ideology and values are essential groundwork, but more than just being a coalition government partner is required for sustained influence – the Lib Dems need to be more canny about their politics than they were over the past five years. Easier said than done I realise, but much as it pains me to say, perhaps we can learn some things from Osborne’s budgets which have surpassed New Labour in the quality of their spin (as far as I am aware).
Regarding the BBC, I’m not surprised they’ve agreed a deal (although I didn’t realise that they had when I wrote this) – I suspect they want more autonomy apart from government, and to ultimately move to a subscription model so that people will stop referring to them as “taxpayer funded”. The licence fee was only reclassified as a tax in 2006, and this has obviously caused them problems, as the Scottish Referendum, and the SNP, and Conservative problems with the BBC have highlighted.
“The inheritance tax threshold rise is just a stupid promise made by the conservatives”
Inheritance tax is a tax you do not have to pay, it is paid by your heirs.
The Tory spin is illogical, Hard working people should be able to pass on their houses to those who inherit.
It is usually difficult to think back to the context at the time of the announcement, but Gordon Brown had become Prime Minister after Tony Blair and was considering a general election to give him a term as PM of up to five years.
He had made Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman party chairman, without consultation with her, previously an elected post, and given her the job of organising Labour’s preoarations for a general election, which she did.
George Osborne announced at the Tory conference his proposal for inhjeritance tax .Labour wobbled. Please see Peter Mandleson’s memoirs “The Third Man”.
Tories appeared with bottles of Brown Ale, saying Brown had bottled it, which he did.
Comparisons can be drawn with Jim Callaghan’s procrastination in 1978-79, which did not benefit the Labour Party.
Best option would be to make the BBC a subscription channel and finally end the broadcasting poll tax.
Free over 75’s TV license issue solved and the public no longer forced by threat of imprisonment to pay for it.
Free licence for over-75s is a political decision and so obviously should come out of the government’s budget.
Clever George for effectively cutting the BBC funding by £800m in such a devious way.
Stupid BBC for picking up the tab.
Not that I think the free license for all 75s is a good idea anyway. Should be just for those on Pension Credits.
The Director General was on the Today Programme today (7/7/2015) just before 8am.
One of the accusations was thaat the BBC Trust had been sidelined.
Part of the defence was that negotiations had produced other sources of money.
Jamie, what a good piece – spraying out thought provoking notions like a garden sprinkler!
Please write more.
watching Andrew Neil ALWAYS depresses me, with his stupid attempts at humour and getting his team members to perform for the cameras, so embarrassing.. but to the point… wasn’t our campaigning argument about increasing pensions to a decent level all about enabling our seniors to manage without hand-outs? Anyway, the funding of BBC is going to have to change so ‘free license for pensioners’ will shortly be time-expired. A better campaign tactic would be to find a better way of funding BBC that doesn’t get it into further control by either the Govt of the day or the Press barons.. suggestions please.?
Thanks for the comments again – particularly Bill!
peter – I don’t think I’d watched the Andrew Marr Show before (although I’ve seen him lots), but I have watched Andrew Neil recently – I thought it was just because he was a poor actor that his show appeared so false (although I do think he is a bit funnier than Andrew Marr), but it appears to have become a standard format for these type of programmes…
Richard – thanks for reminding me about the inheritance tax pledge. Doesn’t stop it being a stupid idea though, even though it worked (and possibly still works a bit) politically for the Tories.
I’m of the thought that the BBC may quietly get rid of the free over-75s licence anyway, and replace it with a reduced charge – would make sense to me, but that is complete speculation!
peter tyzack
“A better campaign tactic would be to find a better way of funding BBC that doesn’t get it into further control by either the Govt of the day or the Press barons.. suggestions please.?”
That is the issue we have had, too many LibDems have been so conservative with regards the BBC and insufficiently critical of its failings.
The BBC is biased (which too many refuse to accept), this is normally a bias that I agree with, however I recognise my biases are opinions the BBC group think regard these as fact.
A better model for the BBC would be a transition to being similar to one of the large charity structures (just picking a simple one at random, I can think of a few others):
1) The Licence fee would initially be a “membership” where you get to elect either trust members or a council who appoint trust members.
2) The BBC should be forced to sell Radio 1 and Radio 2 (there is no justification for them) as commercial operations.
3) The Licence fee transitions to a subscription membership entitling you to free access to services.
4) The BBC should be allowed to have advertising revenue for limited services.
5) The Licence fee is separated from the subscription membership and reduced to £10pa, and is administered as a grant making body for pure public service activity which any broadcaster could bid for funding.
6) BBC is subject to whatever other regulator operates in each particular market rather than having special exemptions.
This would mutualise the BBC and give it flexibility to raise funds via its subscription and advertising (on a restricted basis). It would make it accountable to its viewers via its elected trust or elected council appointing a trust.
There are other permutations on this type of transition but it would do away with a 1940s model of a “state broadcaster” that is nominally independent of state control but actually is susceptible to pressure.
People need to stop seeing criticism of the BBC as a right wing desire to hand power to Press barrons and recognise that many people just believe it can be done better and it is conservatism holding us back (particularly within BBC management and among grandees).
“The BBC is biased (which too many refuse to accept)”
The BBC is the voice of the establishment. Many Tories think it’s a den of lefties, many left wing people think it’s very right wing. It’s probably not that far off neutral.
It’s been interesting, over the last couple of weeks, to watch how they have been banging on about terrorism. Less than 40 dead in Tunisia, less than 60 dead in the tube bombings 10 years ago, but terrorism has led every news bulleting for two weeks. What are they softening public opinion up for? We’ve had more people killed on bicycles on the roads of London in the last ten years than that, but we don’t see the headline news being about villainous HGVs every day.
Jenny Barnes
“Many Tories think it’s a den of lefties, many left wing people think it’s very right wing. It’s probably not that far off neutral. ”
The bias being identified may exist on issue by issue and each side identifies the biases against their point of view and ignores those in favour. That does not make them neutral just biased in multiple directions.
If I take one area where the BBC and I share a bias (which they seem unaware of their own bias) is immigration and membership of the EU both being positive. The effect of the BBC bias is that it has tended to dismiss the views who disagree with it. Often trying to “label” the motives of those who hold a different view; this in turn has prevented the topic getting a quality rationally discussed. The result is that many people in the country are suspicious of both, many not keen to express their opinions and lack an understanding of the detail of the arguments on both sides.
The result of the bias is that we have people being less informed than they would otherwise be, less willing to discuss (what was that about freedom from conformity) for fear of being accused of nefarious motives and frankly out news and current affairs programs are very boring.
The BBC needs to accept it is biased and act on it. It will not be an easy fix as group think becomes institutional but should be possible given the scale of the BBC operation.
Is there a reliable forecast for the worldwide income from Top Gear?
Psi has a point Jenny, it could be called “mixed bias” instead of “neutral bias”. As to how much the BBC needs to acknowledge that – I think that should be discussed internally, not publicly. It still needs to keep to political broadcasting guidelines though.
Regarding Top Gear – I’m sure it is pretty large, I have no idea how much though. My own inclination is that the BBC would do much better completely independent of government influence, even if it remains state-owned (which I think it should do). If it doesn’t, then it deserves to fail!
In the paper version of yesterday’s Guardian there is a table identifying how much the BBC spends on TV and Radio stations.
From this we learn that each year the BBC spends £1,311 million on BBC 1.
It only spends £66 million on BBC 4.
Which seems to me to indicate that the less the BBC spends the better the programmes broadcast.
Similarly Radio 1 costs £52 million to run whereas Radio 6 is only £12 million.
As they are both music stations one wonders why one can possibly cost four time more than the other.
Radio 3 costs £57 million a year. More than a million pounds a week.
I would happily play old CDs of classical music 24 hours a day for much less than that and possibly achieve a larger audience doing so.
At more than £1 million a week, how much is that per listener for Radio 3 ?
I have just found the answer to my question about how many people listen to Radio 3.
Interestingly it is fewer people than listen to Radio 6.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28567752
Jamie Stewart
“even if it remains state-owned (which I think it should do)”
The comparison I would use to make the case for a mutual BBC would be the comparison between English Herritage and the National Trust up untill about 15 years ago. English Herritage managed more famous land marks yet visiting anything under this management was like visiting a stale museum price, purely there to be frozen for the purpose of academic interest. The National Trust by comparison were much better at giving its properties a feeling of life. English Heritage have raised their game in the last 15 years but that was often (but not exclusively) by copying the NT.
I would rather a mutual member organisation than a nationalised one.
John Tilley
“Radio 3 costs £57 million a year. More than a million pounds a week.”
Any indication on how they managed to spend that?
Are they allocating costs from things like the promos? I’m not a regular listener so I can’t imagine how they cost so much.
There is no reason to pay for bbc via tax. The technology to make it a subscription service is trivial. If it’s rubbish then stop making making payment compulsory; if it is great then a bbc charity would have no problems getting worldwide subscribers.
It really is theft to force all tv watchers to contribute to your Tv and radio consumption.
They could still offer free subscriptions to the elderly as a charity, or those who want to could start a charity to pay for the radio and tv for the over 75s.
Btw, this is the URL for Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show episode – I meant to link to it in the article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b061z54h/the-andrew-marr-show-05072015
Simon Gilbert
“There is no reason to pay for bbc via tax. The technology to make it a subscription service is trivial”
I agree, the BBC’s defence that they wouldn’t be able to manage a subscription service is just bizar, they don’t seem to understand that noone believes them.