I have long believed that the BBC is one of the main supporting pillars of socialism in Britain today and that many who work for it are rootedly anti-Semitic.
After the events of the weekend, when the Corporation live-streamed disgusting chants of ‘death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]’ by punk duo Bob Vylan from Glastonbury, who can doubt it?
As Culture Secretary in Boris Johnson’s government, I came to understand that the problem lies deep within the BBC itself.
I’ve been told that there is a strong, well-organised and influential anti-Israel lobby group which – drawing from the ranks of both broadcast and administrative workers – is determined to drive the BBC into a pro-Palestinian stance.
Also troubling is a wider attitude of hostility towards Israel among the staff at large.
Pervading the BBC at every level, this is something I know executives must navigate on a daily basis – and it is sadly typical.
Far too many of its employees are fixated on the trendy causes of the moment, whether that’s trans culture wars or the conflict in Gaza.
This one-eyed metropolitan perspective is naive, ignorant and completely out of step with the vast majority of British people.
Did this insidious anti-Israel bias push the BBC into Saturday’s disastrous failings? I fear so.
In fact, I believe such prejudice, particularly when it comes to the Middle East, is a major reason why the BBC is losing more than half a million licence fee payers with every passing year.
Today’s consumers can choose from a variety of platforms and channels, online and terrestrial, for their news and entertainment, including some which have adopted the Reithian mantle of informing and educating as well as entertaining.
These technological advances are unstoppable, which is why, in government, I spent a year preparing for a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, due for renewal in 2027.
I was ready to implement an alternative funding model, to find ways of forcing the BBC to better comply with its founding principles and its legal obligation to remain impartial.
Given that we, the public, pay for the Corporation, it is the least we should expect. Yet, in truth, we get nothing of the sort.
Instead, we have a behemoth that is well beyond the control of individual managers, however smart or well intentioned.
The founding vision of Lord Reith, the BBC’s first Director General, was genuinely noble.
From its inception more than a century ago, the Corporation has promised to ‘inform, educate, entertain’ and these much-praised ‘Reithian principles’ became, over the years, the cornerstone of its mission to serve the public.
Yet claims that the BBC continues to uphold these values today ring hollow.
Simply throwing a switch or two would have removed Bob Vylan and their vile incitement from our screens on Saturday night. Cutting the live feed was the obvious thing to do. The moral thing.
Was there no one on that night’s BBC production crew who had the guts to act?
And did no one consider the wider implications of demanding that the men and women of the IDF be wiped from the face of the earth?
The IDF is no ordinary army and Israel is no ordinary country, after all. It is a tiny nation under siege – and the IDF is all that protects the Jewish state from the bloodbath threatened by its Iranian-backed enemies.
There are some who will try to dismiss last weekend’s fiasco as a mere a slip-up, an oversight in the course of an outside broadcast.
But that is nonsense.
We would do well to remember the lesson history has taught us: first, they will come for the Jews. And if we don’t speak out, they will come for the rest of us, too.
Thank God for 80-year-old Rod!
Not everything was dire at Glastonbury.
For Boomers like me, born in the post-war years, it was sensational at times – not least when the incomparable Lulu, 76, joined 80-year-old Rod Stewart on stage.
But, from the comfort of an armchair, my personal – and rather delicious – highlight was watching Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker sing the iconic Common People to a well-heeled Glastonbury audience paying around £400 for the privilege of hearing him do so.
Not so common after all, then.
BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty faces claims of bullying. She denies it and I have no way of knowing the truth of the matter.
But I can say that I have never warmed to her. Over the years, I have found Naga and Charlie Stayt, her fellow presenter on the BBC breakfast sofa, to be pompous and sneering.
Give me down-to-earth and friendly Susanna Reid and Ed Balls on ITV any day.
Wedding to make us weep
Why are 55-year-old Lauren Sanchez’s wedding celebrations appearing in fashion magazine Vogue?
As celebrity guests flew their private jets into Venice, the most beautiful city in the world – one which is literally sinking with climate change a factor – one word came to mind: ‘decadent’.
From medieval Latin, it is a word meaning a state of moral or cultural decline. It sums up the most grotesque wedding of the century so far on every level.
Yes, Keir, it’s clear you are to blame
Karma is a beautiful thing. ‘Blame me for the welfare chaos,’ says ‘honest’ Keir Starmer.
Judging by his disastrously low popularity ratings – which make him one of the least popular prime ministers in British history – most of us already have.
He was quick to dish it out before he was PM when, as leader of the Opposition, he specialised in sneering, pompous jibes at the Conservative government.
Now his own MPs are saying it’s unlikely he’ll last the year.
How quickly the tables have turned.
