- Topsy-Turvey Land. Or -- you can't rely on anything these days Archived Message
Posted by scrabb
on March 14, 2023, 12:53 am
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Just watched the segment on Newsnight dealing with the Lineker saga. To their credit (he said through gritted teeth) the programme invited both the Director General and the Chairman Richard Sharp and all eleven members of the board to appear and every single one of them declined. However, the thing that confounded me was this. They had Alan Yentob on and Baroness Wheatcroft who had been executive editor of the Telegraph for two years around 2009. I expected Yentob to be the more critical one (of the BBC's handling of the affair) and on Lineker's side -- and Wheatcroft to be the Tory toady dribbling the usual platitudes about "left-wing" bias and defending the BBC chairman's role in helping Boris with his loan. Not a bit of it. Yentob was all gung-ho for the D-G and defending him for his pathetic handling of the fiasco, and what was even more astonishing, the Baroness went for the jugular and actually brought up the Johnson loan and what's more said it was quite obvious the D-G had been leant on by the government and pressured by Tory backbenchers. She actually named Reece-Mogg as issuing threatening noises about the future of the licence fee. She was so outspoken and vociferous in her condemnation of Sharp and the BBC's cowardice and cowering to Tory pressure that Yentob leapt to the defence. It was very bizarre in witnessing the complete reversal of what I had expected. I realise of course that Yentob has to be careful because he makes programmes for the BBC and couldn't be too critical, but to see a Baroness ex-editor of the Telegraph as the main attack dog was mind-bending. Watch it on catch-up and see if you agree. |
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