The BBC and Rupert Murdoch
A LARGE number of constituents have contacted me to raise concerns about threats to the integrity, impartiality and quality of the BBC.
It is quite clear that the government is under increased pressure from Rupert Murdoch and his ilk to remove funding from the BBC so as to allow them to be in a much weaker position vis a vis private broadcasting empires.
Recent statements about reducing the level of the licence fee, top slicing a part of what is left and also offering a 50 per cent cut in his own departmental budgets give me no confidence that the government and the new Culture Secretary intends to defend the BBC in the way it needs.
That having been said the BBC is often its own worst enemy and under the present director general have in my opinion adopted a craven position to opponents of public broadcasting many of whom now inhabit the cabinet and the coalition government benches in Parliament.
This mistaken view that free marketeers will ever be appeased by the BBC is obviously nonsense and certainly doesn't help in making the case that needs to be made.
Those of us who even so support the absolute necessity to maintain the BBC as an exemplar within the broadcasting field need to take every opportunity to build support for the corporation.
The dumbing down which has taken place in British society over the last 20 years, in large part through the likes of Rupert Murdoch, does not help nor the steady erosion of community at both local and national levels. I have already relayed my concerns, and those of my constituents, to the new secretary of state, Jeremy Hunt.
MIKE WOOD
MP for Batley and Spen
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Weather for Cleckheaton
Friday 25 May 2012
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