Bankrupting The Guardian
Guido has always believed that the nature of the statist BBC and the non-profit making culture of the Guardian encourages a statist and non-profit making culture to dominate the thinking of the political class. These two media organisations of course see themselves as providing intellectual and moral leadership. The knee jerk "government must do something" attitude of the two organisations supports the statist consensus. Breaking that consensus is an essential condition for the post-bureaucratic age.
Crucial to creating an enterprise culture and undoing the all-party, semi-socialist culture which prevails in Britain is shattering this media hegemony. Reducing the scope of the BBC is essential to this long term goal. The BBC is the primary reason Britain does not have a Silicon Valley culture, the multi-billion pound tax subsidy crowds out competition, undermines innovation and makes it impossible for rivals to compete profitably. The Tories are only tentatively thinking about "harm reduction" policies towards the BBC. The Guardian is far more vulnerable...
The Guardian is financed by a charitable trust (ironically taking advantage of tax exemptions) the two main sources of income supporting that trust are the profits from Auto Trader and the public sector advertising that fills page after page of the newspaper. One of the first thing the Tories should do in power is set up www.jobs.gov.uk. All available public sector positions would be listed there free of charge, this would save hundreds of millions in advertising costs for the taxpayer and deprive the Guardian of a critical revenue stream.
The second income stream has always been vulnerable to competition. Auto Trader profits have financially supported the salaries of the journalists who write environmentalist anti-car editorials in the Guardian. Now a group of former journalists from Autocar Magazine and Auto Express magazines have launched an online-only magazine Drivers-Republic.com. With a bit of luck it will be a deadly competitor to Auto Trader...
Without the taxpayer subsidy and the profits from Auto Trader, the Guardian could go the way of the Morning Star. Once it was deprived of subsidy, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it became an irrelevance.
UPDATE : Tim Montgomerie emails to tell me it is already Conservative Party policy to bankrupt the Guardian.
Crucial to creating an enterprise culture and undoing the all-party, semi-socialist culture which prevails in Britain is shattering this media hegemony. Reducing the scope of the BBC is essential to this long term goal. The BBC is the primary reason Britain does not have a Silicon Valley culture, the multi-billion pound tax subsidy crowds out competition, undermines innovation and makes it impossible for rivals to compete profitably. The Tories are only tentatively thinking about "harm reduction" policies towards the BBC. The Guardian is far more vulnerable...
The Guardian is financed by a charitable trust (ironically taking advantage of tax exemptions) the two main sources of income supporting that trust are the profits from Auto Trader and the public sector advertising that fills page after page of the newspaper. One of the first thing the Tories should do in power is set up www.jobs.gov.uk. All available public sector positions would be listed there free of charge, this would save hundreds of millions in advertising costs for the taxpayer and deprive the Guardian of a critical revenue stream.The second income stream has always been vulnerable to competition. Auto Trader profits have financially supported the salaries of the journalists who write environmentalist anti-car editorials in the Guardian. Now a group of former journalists from Autocar Magazine and Auto Express magazines have launched an online-only magazine Drivers-Republic.com. With a bit of luck it will be a deadly competitor to Auto Trader...
Without the taxpayer subsidy and the profits from Auto Trader, the Guardian could go the way of the Morning Star. Once it was deprived of subsidy, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it became an irrelevance.
UPDATE : Tim Montgomerie emails to tell me it is already Conservative Party policy to bankrupt the Guardian.
163 comments:
Ironic to think Monbiot gets his platform to rant thanks to the profits of Autotrader, isn't it.
I see Marks and spencer issued a profits warning today. The curse of Jonah strikes again after he heaped praise on them for supporting his plastic bag crusade.
But where will I be able to laugh at the beyond parody drivel of Toynbee?
Now this is crystal-clear, logical, fair to potential public-sector emplyees, fair to the taxpayer, and would create a balanced unbiased platform to attract balanced unbiased apolitical staff, ending the culture of the client state. It is blindingly obvious.
It'll never work.
'englishman abroad said it'll never work'
i on the other hand think it will never be allowed to work!
A conservative government should fill only frontline jobs for five years. Let civil servants retire and only replace the absolutely essential ones. This will reduce the head count substantially. Pigs might fly of course.
Spot on Fawkes ! I regularly have a rant at my MP over the necesity of a surgical strike on both targets.
The problem for the Tories, is that they are unwilling to stop pussyfooting around with the bbc and come out and say it has a history of pro labour bias and so we are going to 'reform' it.
ps. Nothing wrong with monbiot, that a spot up against the wall with the other labour luvvies wouldn't cure.
That is a most welcome development re driver-republic. It's going to be a very difficult time to be in the motor industry for Autotrader. Many of their clients will be cutting back or going to the wall and the volume of online auction sales has fallen off a cliff since April.
If you've ever read the corporate governance bits of the Guardian Media Group's annual reports openly admits to the cross-subsidies from Autotrader to the Guardian to fund 'wider social objectives'. Nauseating, but a useful reminder of what needs to be overcome.
An excellent piece Guido, & about time someone bought the rank hypocrisy of the Guardianista's & the neo socialists at Al-BBC-EERA to the fore.
I have a horrible feeling that DC will be as placid & compliant towards the BBC as Neo Labour - a deal will be done to keep their monopoly, & as you say stifling investment in a vital sector.
At least I can deprive the Guardianista's of funds - unlike the BBC where we all pay the TV Tax under threat of prison if its refused.
What sort of country forces you to pay for a global political organisation under threat of prison if you refuse?
And why are we the ONLY "EU"* country that does not have the Right to "free to air TV broadcast News"?
* Another sociailist organisation that I have no choice but to fund.
Excellent article! Spot on! There is no such thing as 'socialism' it's all fascism. 'Socialism' is fascism with a smile on its face. The BBC must be destoyed it is the modern version of the medieval church with us mugs all forced to pay tithes. You could 'get rid of the TV?' No! Don't even think hard about doing that, aren't you? The Guardian is run by neo-fascist scum. BBC and the Guardians of fascism will be destroyed. We are nearing the tipping point: your time will come. Get the P45 ready. Imagine all that scum signing on!
Trinty Mirror going down. Sign of the times. Taylor Woodrow going down. Sign of the times.
In the words of Richard Mottram;
We are fucked.
Thank you Gordon. Thank you Tony.
Given Whitehall's lamentable record with IT the last thing we should do is encourage them to do is set up www.jobs.gov.uk. Many Government jobs are advertised on-line anyway.
If The Guardian had any influence on the politicl class we would not be in Basra. It is small ciruclation newsppaer, all but unknown outside the M25
Common Purpose will not allow it to happen. The Guardian and the BBC will be protected.
Common Purpose is asactive within the Conservative Party as it is in all parties.
The real threat to our nation and the future you describe, Guido, is without a doubt, Common Purpose.
Strange that not one article or documentary has been produced on this body, which calls itself a charity.
It is Communism wrapped in attractive packaging...most teachers have now attended a Common Purpose course and are 'graduates' our children are being indoctrinated.
If I sound melodramatic I do not apologise. Common Purpose comes from the EU and is designed to break down all structures in this country we love.
It i doing a bloody good job so far.
Read about it, watch the many video's on the web, learn about it and do something!
As with publish the Balen report - no-one gets forced to buy the Guardian but whilst I do, I very rarely agree with the commentators but if I wanted to read something I agreed with I'd buy Nuts (although not crazy about footy). Fair play smash the BBC - why it needs about 8 useless gimboids to do Glastonbury on my quid I'll never understand.
And this Zimbabwe thing - all the 'correspondants' are in South Africa - heaven forfend that they station in Botswana - they don't have the claret dear boy!!!
Cars are cigarettes.
I think the break-up and privatisation of the BBC should be Priority Number One on Day One. Dave's willingness to do this should be the assaying block on which his true mettle is tested.
If the BBC remains in place, then the cause of liberty in Britain remains extraordinarily difficult to champion.
Many Government jobs are advertised on-line anyway.
As are many local govt jobs e.g.www.lgjobs.com
This being the case there's already no need for the Guardian to carry all those job adverts.
Whatever shall I wrap the cat shit in now?
Does anyone know what the ECB loans to the BBC are all about?
Its a bit rich a foreign insipid power usurping the british National Broadcaster with "loans".
And just how many of the vast majority of culturally left wing employees of the BBC have actually been on the the "RE-EDUKATION" course to grow, nurture & instill within them the ethics & politics of the "EU Common Purpose"?
This will all end in bloodshed & heads on pikes at Traitors gate.
Er, this is already Tory policy. George Osborne announced it in 2006.
Daily Mail 4/12/06
We'll kill Jobzilla!
Tories pledge to save taxpayers £800m by moving public sector adverts online
By: BENEDICT BROGAN, JAMES CHAPMAN
ALMOST £800million of taxpayers' money is spent advertising public sector jobs every year, according to recruitment experts.
The money is enough to build 53 fully equipped secondary schools or four district hospitals.
The findings have prompted Shadow Chancellor George Osborne to promise a radical overhaul of the system if the Conservatives win the next election.
He is today pledging a ban on Government recruitment through newspaper adverts.
Instead, all jobs available in Whitehall departments or quangos would be posted for free on a new official website.
Local authorities would be 'strongly encouraged' to follow suit.
The multimillion pound advertising bill reflects the huge increase in the numbers employed by the state – a phenemonon branded Jobzilla after the all- devouring movie monster Godzilla. Nearly six million Britons, or one in five workers, has a job in the public sector.
Mr Osborne's announcement will delight the Conservatives' traditional supporters.
But the party risks a major row with the Leftwing Guardian newspaper, which could be bankrupted by the move.
Research suggests around two-thirds of advertising for public sector jobs is placed in the newspaper, mainly in its huge Society supplement.
Mr Osborne's pledge was prompted by the shocking results of a survey by recruitment firm Reed Personnel Services.
It found that £1.2billion is spent each year in the UK on recruitment advertising.
The private sector accounts for just a third of the spending – £390million – even though it makes up four-fifths of the workforce.
The public sector, by contrast, spends £790million on job adverts but accounts for just one in five of the workforce.
The advertising bill could pay for 35,000 more nurses, 30,000 police officers, 15,000 teachers or 10,000 doctors – or 230,000 hip replacement operations The figure of £790million is the first estimate of public sector job advertising spending by both central and local government.
The total spent on advertising by the Government's Central Office of Information alone has almost trebled since Labour came to power, from £111m in 1997 to £322 last year.
Reed's executive chairman, James Reed, said: 'If the public sector were to spend proportionately the same on recruitment advertising as the private sector now does, it would spend only £10million per year.
'This would represent a massive saving of £690million on what is currently spent.' The Guardian relies on a near monopoly of advertising for State funded jobs to stay afloat.
The Conservatives have previously claimed that the Labour-supporting newspaper has been effectively subsidised by the Government through the practice.
A single small advertisement on a page in its weekly Society section costs £2,500, and a larger one £3,600.
Jobs on offer range from permanent secretaries at Government departments to 'human rights facilitators' and a 'breastfeeding strategy coordinator'.
It is estimated that a dedicated website for public sector posts would cost about £5million a year to run, more than 150 times less than the current bill for newspaper advertising.
Mr Osborne believes local councils would quickly follow the example of central Government, although they could not be compelled to do so.
He points to the example of Hertfordshire County Council, which has saved £20,000 in printing costs by going online.
He told the Daily Mail: 'Here's an example of how you can use new technology to get real value for money for taxpayers. This Governmentis still stuck in the past. Private-companies like Reed are using websites. Good councils like Hertfordshire are pioneering their use.
'And yet the Government is spending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on newspaper adverts which could be better spent improving the frontline services like schools and hospitals.
'The next Conservative Government will change this and advertise for Government jobs on a dedicated jobs website, saving potentially more than £700million a year.' A recent study by online recruiter JobsGoPublic estimated that a typical local authority with 14,000 employees could save £4million a year by moving 80 per cent of its recruitment advertising from newspapers to the Internet.
James Frayne, of the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, said: 'This massive figure reflects the huge growth in the public sector that has taken place under this Government, which families across Britain are having to pay for.'
yes - let's dismantle the BBC and then you will have a diet of ITV2, Sky One and Talksport.
Doyles the lot of you.
I'd go further and abolish the Arts Council, which also uses public money to promulgate the socialist world-view. I don't normally agree with Herr "Crazyfoam" Heffer, but he has a piece in today's Broonograph which sums it up.
And for anyone who still doubts where the BBC is coming from, take a look at this overtly Orwellian propaganda for TV Licensing.
Go to the BBC Resistance site for advice on throwing a nice, big, tungsten steel spanner in their works.
Publish the Balen:
Absolutely, talk about the trough! Guido you have been campaigning and drawing our attention to MP's on the take. The Guardian certainly is! How can so much money be spent with just one nwspaper by a government determined to follow EU rules on job sadvertising.
Yes! Do it on the net, get rid of the false market in the news industry.
Onto the BBC; I have interviewed (AND IT IS ALWAYS THE POOR) folk who have been imprisoned for watching the TV. one single mum had her kids put into care, and because of this namby pamby socialist crap they were now telling her she was criminal and would be on the register, being watched hrself, child check upsetc., kids damaged from care and parental separation.
When is the EU going to stop this tax on free speech and communication?
It is pathetic when such a huge proportion of a wage goes on the box and yet... this govt wants to screw anyone with more money saying they have to contribute more. The Govt propaganda tool the BBC has a civil servant, anti-enterprise agenda, its flabby and spends 50% of its news on Zimbabwe...whats that about? Filling space?
Where's the lawyers on EU on this blog? Is it a breach of EU Law?
LOL from Planet Mad
As a non practising Jew, I am still uncomfortable reading the Guardian or watching or listening to any BBC platform.
We have a natural instinct to know where we are not welcome.
Dear Minister
I am wholly seized of the urgency and importance of setting up the "jobs website" that you have described.
The Steering Committee on Governmental Information Technology Project Pre-planning and Scoping will be considering (at the next but one quarterly meeting) the establishment of a Task Force to take soundings as to the preferred remit for the Action Team that might in the fullness of time take this matter forward to a fully-termed Proposal of Works.
I will recommend to colleagues that urgent consideration be given to including the "jobs website" on the Schedule of Candidates for Prioritisation in the Period 2014 to 2020, though of course I can give no guarantee at this stage.
As to costings, I think we might get EDS to agree something above £20 billion but I would hope less than £40 billion (excluding inflation and so on...)
yours etc...
"Frank Kemble said...
This being the case there's already no need for the Guardian to carry all those job adverts.
July 2, 2008 9:53 AM"
The adverts are for control freaks with chewed down fingernails and a penchant for impulsive destruction of IT equipment.
BBC:
Use M18A1s with overlapping fields of effect, bulldoze the buildings, salt the ground.
No quarter.
No responsible parent would encourage their offspring to work for either media outlet. The Beeb and The Grauniad are to thought and ciulture what water is to fire.
Let's go one better. Don't just abolish the advertisements. Abolish the jobs.
I must be sad,I got a hard on reading that piece.
Guido for president!
Love the Guardian strangulation plan.
As for the Beeb. Let's not confuse the whole thing with BBC News. Most people are probably quite fond of Strictly Come Dancing or nature programmes - it's the News that is where the poison resides. A good Tory plan focus on News content and bias.
Personally I'd kill the TV licence on day 1 of a new administration and fund the BBC from general tax. Not ta full solution but 'he who pays the piper calls the tune' and this would force the News to be more even handed.
Put Clarkson and Littlejohn on the Board too!
You can't do that, Mr F. There would be nowhere for people to go after the 'Public-school-Oxbridge-' treadmill if you did. I went into business to make some money, some go into the city, but what about all the 'left-wing' ones?. We need some form of crèche to put them in, and the Beeb and the Grauniad have hitherto been perfect...
Sorry Guido, you are wrong on this one, and I'm starting to worry about your agenda.
The problem is not these two media outlets, it is the rest of the establishment.
Both of them have financial independence of a sort, so they can take a longer term and less biased view.
No-one wants to see every paper privately owned and the quality of the BBC reduced to Fox News.
If you want social change, get something done about the inequality of wealth, and the methods by which the establishment fleece everyone mercilessly while enriching themselves.
We want our country back again.
We do not get a proper story any more from the BBC, all is twisted and distorted. These days the BBC just represents a narrow point of view. We want more choice.
TV and radio news are currently intensely undemocratic. This is how NuLab are able to stay in power, in spite of everything they do. No true democracy can work with TV and radio news as they now are.
1. There must be a new CODE OF PRACTICE, and a REGISTER OF INTERESTS to stop them being an unrepresentative and unaccountable love-in with the Indy and the Guardian, peddling their own politics and destroying dissenting voices. News should be separated from opinion.
2. Open up the digital broadcasting infrastructure to allow dozens of other companies to provide simultaneous news programmes - we would choose by a Remote from an on-screen menu which comes up at News time. We did it to BT - so we can do it to the BBC.
The power and influence of the BBC news department is now enormous. When reading a paper you have to be alert, but when watching TV news you are passive, receptive, in a mild form of trance - and this allows the mind to be influenced even more by what you see and hear and how it is presented - with a sneer or with enthusiasm and support. The technical skill of these news programmes is now astonishing, compared to even 20 years ago. The constant and repetitive presentation of news to fit an agenda is a mild form of brainwashing.
The staff of BBC news are therefore in a position of colossal power without historical parallel. We have had democracy for quite a while in this country and constitutional checks and balances eventually evolved to check most abuses of the political process. However, TV news has developed so quickly in historical terms that no constitutional mechanisms have evolved to control the appalling manipulation of the political process that we are seeing as a result.
MPs are now totally subservient to the superstars of BBC news and the BBC politics programmes. They wag their tails and smile in the face of arrogant abuse from the interviewer or presenter - and then go and collect their appearance money. They cannot say anything that is not BBC approved, or they can expect sharp hostility, so they don’t. They have all been seduced by the fame and money that only the TV can give.
The BBC are the real kingmakers in our “democracy”. And the truly terrible fact is that the staff of the BBC news department are totally committed to NuLab.
Anyone who denies this is either lying deliberately or simply does not know what they are talking about.
The connections between Labour and the BBC are legendary.
The shameless daily manipulation and distortion of the news is a democratic outrage. NO opposition to Labour is allowed to function properly.
These BBC news staff people are NOT ELECTED, they are unrepresentative, nominated and self-selecting. In effect they appointed themselves. They have hijacked the air waves. The BBC news department has become an intensely dangerous and mind-controlling monster.
These BBC news staff people are the Military wing of Nulab. Without their help and protection, Nulab would 35 points behind in the polls.
There must be a complete reform of the way the BBC news department operates or it should be closed down
Simultaneous news programmes from a large range of private news providers would allow us CHOOSE - so that no one can have such monopoly power ever again.
Within 48 HOURS of the Tories taking over in government they should bring in these reforms. If not, the BBC will orchestrate such opposition to anything the Tories propose that they will be prevented from bringing in the reforms so badly needed after the long years of Nulab holocaust. The BBC is now a force of reactive inertia and they must be stopped from preventing the changes our society needs.
In my opinion, the answer is improvement, not destruction.
Guardian - yes, Polly is a pain at times. Sometimes she spouts propaganda, but other times she reflects the frustration of politicians and civil servants at the slow pace of change.
Here's one solution - change the top down control culture.
Alas, it will mean lots of Civil Servants having to implement change instead of theorise about it. They won't like it, and we won't need very many in senior roles.
The Colonel has been advocating this since before the idiot Osborne was out of short trousers (2003)
An essential accompnanienment is to form a Cicil Service Central Staff Pool.
Civil servants transferred to the pool would continue to receive their previous Departmental salaries but would be expected to be transferred into other Departments as vacancies arose.
Freed from the inhibition of putting their staff out of jobs Ministers and Permanent secretaries could then go through their Departments and transfer ALL spare staff to the central pool
At M.O.D this would reduce numbers by about 80%
With such a large pool of people to choose from the Government would then simply freeze all Civil Service recruiting for the lifetime of the administration and after five years would have painlessly reduced the the Civil Service to a manageable and efficient size
Anonymong - I'd have financial independence too if I levied a disproportionate tax on the rest of my fellow citizens and you can be sure I'd have a long term view - which junket shall I attend 3 cricket tours from now - oh, the pain, the anguish, the horror. Oh, hang on, they haven't even got the cricket!!!!!!!!!! Flog it, daft cooking progs where indolent tools get fed and paid, smegheads, weakest gimp etc etc
I hate the Guardian as much as Guido, the only good thing in it is the cartoons of Steve Bell. However, when ever the word 'hegemony' appears in any article a reader should worry. This is a Trot-logic article - where ideology drives reality.
Is it the intention of the Tories to bring about a sweeping social revolution as Guido suggests, or is the Tories intention to achieve power?
If it is the former, then people are going to quickly lose interest as they have been subject to pointless and ideological driven change for the last ten years of New Labour. If it is the latter, then being openly CONSERVATIVE, defined here as being against pointless ideologically informed change, will be a more successful strategy for achieving and holding on to power. Britain needs a steady government not another with a radical agenda.
If you go for the Guardian on free-market grounds then you should also have a go at News International's cartel or the Barclay brother’s off-shore tax status as an equal threat to the free-market.
Finally, Guido I have asked before but got no reply, do you actually own a BBC TV license or do get BBC TV free like the rest of Eire?
As for changes from a new Tory Government -
I'd like to remind our readers that the Thatcher years were not that rosy.
High unemployment
A face saving war - somewhere where they may have oil
Financial Services boom, rape and pillage (endowment mortgage, anyone?)
A lot of people around the Leaderene who troughed mercilessly.
A massive wealth grab by already established players.
I say again - nothing will change until inequality of wealth is resolved. It's a global problem and could be sorted quite easily if the super wealthy were not so greedy.
Didn't the Scott Trust sell about half of Auto Trader to a private equity group for about a billion not that long ago, and indulge in some legitimate tax avoidance, of the kind which it critices from on high when some plcs do the same?
Hypocrisy is an inadequate word, but it may be able to survive on the cash for a while, which I believe was a stated intention of the sale.
The problem that I saw with the BBC's Glastonbury coverage was how limited it was - essentially limited performances of just a few groups being played over-and-over again.
Presumably this was a result of the copyright/Royalty holders determining the coverage - not the Beeb.
The Beeb's never been right since 405 line TV closed down. In a hilly area I used to get resaonable reception instead of the current crap UHF coverage I get now.
And what about no longer being able to get a TV licence at the Post Office? So much for 'choice' of payment methods.
dennis, "tungsten steel spanner" ?, come on old chap, the affectionado of the finely made spanner would insist on the more usual chrome-vanadium steel type for throwing into the works of the BBC.
.... and why are you here at work every day? thought you had a bad back.
If you had ads on-line surely there could be software that would simply deny any attempt to place ads containing words like diversity, outreach, addressing, empowering, social cohesion etc.
This morning on Toaday, Tim Yeo was championing:
increased excise duty on fuel,
increased (and retrospective) vehicle duty,
road pricing.
Isn't he (alledgedly)a Conservative MP?
Burn them, burn them all.
Propagandizing bastards can't even keep to their charter (Pravda).
Sink or swim fuckers, produce something people want to watch or fuck off with your Communist Purpose agenda.
Fucking traitors.
I recently bought The Times after a long time. I see that they're trying to get some of their hands on the filthy lucre that is public sector job ads with their own Public Agenda supplement on a Tuesday...still slim compared to The Guardian's Wed. pages though.
Agree with the idea of a centralised public sector job site...but with the Jonah's track record on IT schemes even a simple website will be screwed up. And where will we then get our "outreach workers" from?
anon 10.15,
so, you are starting to worry about Guido's agenda.
excellent!
and isn't it funny how when there is a real story going on, the guardian fucking disappears and avoids it like the plague.
bit like the bbc.
bit like gordon.
The Govt doesn't have to waste any money building it's own website.
Jobserve or any of the other big players could just set up a new section (cost about 10p) for public sector jobs.
I'm sure the Govt could get a bulk rate.
Anonymong@1015 - "I'm starting to worry about your agenda"
Eh?
Fawkes, PBUH, is an open book - liberty, small government, transparency and subsidised party essentials like claret and spliffs (I might have made the last one up, but we don't want him sounding like a policy wonk all the time)
If your prescription for keeping newspaper titles out of the hands of private individuals is more ownership by leftie trustees on expenses and with REAL agendas, I doubt you'll find much comfort in this parish, sunshine.
Yes, the BBC isn't perfect.
But it is a great deal better than any other media outlet I can name.
The few BBC people I have dealt with have been highly gifted and very professional.
The quality of output ain't bad - it's a shame they have to sink to the level of the independent, mindless shows, but they need to keep viewers.
I'm not sure they are biased, but even so, there is nothing wrong with pushing liberal values.
Market forces alone can't deliver the life we all want - as both Tory and Labour have found out.
The future for government should not be corporate. It isn't a magic solution. The corporate style is to grab market share and then deliver shoddy goods at prime rates. And it soon develops a management style that is intimidating and counters innovation.
Look at the American Health Service - millions of people are outside it, it rolls far too many pills and extracts vast sums for directors' profits.
A more effective public sector could do a great deal.
Why can't we hear more about the guy who advocates the Toyota Production System for the NHS? The solutions are in front of us if we only would try them out.
Web advertising anyway - the likes of ebay - must be affecting Auto Trader. But having learned this I will never use the magazine again.
The gov. could just publish simple 'classified' type adds in the Guardian - or indeed any other paper. Surely the point is why does ikt have to be the Guardian?
It seems that the Scott Trust is not a charity (there is a "Scott Trust" listed on the Charity Commission website, but that seems to be a different one), although a separate arm, the Scott Trust Foundation, is.
A pity, because otherwise it would have to pass the new "public interest" test - which might have been interesting.
Zena Phobe said...
"This morning on Toaday, Tim Yeo was championing:
increased excise duty on fuel,
increased (and retrospective) vehicle duty,
road pricing.
Isn't he (alledgedly)a Conservative MP?"
Yes, but he is also a realist.
Anonymong 10:15 here again.
TAT - it would only take a few journalists not afraid of the government, using their skills learned at both BBC and the Guardian, to provoke real debate and get some social change.
Idle - the Guardian is a Charitable Trust, I dislike the deal over Autotrader, but it is still more independent than the other broadsheets, owned by millionaires with their own agendas.
As for the BBC, it was bashed over the Iraq debate and has yet to recover. Again the problem is at the top, they are afraid to take the government on.
All I'm saying is, think carefully before you try and smash an institution - what follows may be much worse.
Whilst I can share some of your reasoning I don't think that you are looking at the overall picture.
If you scrap the BBC and the Grandad would you be happy with what's left? i.e. $KY and the $UN....... Muckdoch Shite!
If you think back ITN used to have a news channel but they couldn't afford to keep it going. Probably strangled out by Bliar and Muckdoch and all that was left $KY SHITE! and the BBC.
Who was it that told the truth about the Iraq invasion "Andrew Gilligan working for the BBC"
It's my belief that there is a place for state broadcasting but it should totally independant. The government should have NEVER had the authority to set up tribunals such as the Hutton whitewash in an entirely independant BBC. If they had a grudge then they should have used the courts to settle them and maybe we would have been then given the truth.
As for the links between the government, Grandad and Auto Trader etc...... If only we had and Office of Fair Trading.....
As a Northern lad (unlike the Hitch, who blew his cover when he admitted to drinking Girl Grey tea), I was dragged up on the Manchester Guardian. And a fine paper it was, once upon a time, truly independent, thoughtful and with a seemingly limitless stash of fine writers.
Toynbee and Monbiot drove me away some years ago, with their insistent hectoring of us the great unwashed, to do as they told us and think as they think. They have both shown themselves up to be the twats they are, along with Ashley, the nauseatingly patronising Dame Michaela of the Knee Pads and co. Sod 'em. If they go bust, then that's one less mouthpiece for New Stasi.
Rusbridger or whatever he is called - up against the wall, motherfucker.
It's right to debate the BBC from a socio/political/economic perspective. But there is a more prosaic point of view as well. That most of the programmes are irredeemable shite; repeats are legion (and remain just as irredeemably shite as they were at 1st -or 10th - broadcasting; that of the £3 billion or so we are forced to fork-out (less the £400 million or so it costs to collect the shagging licence fee and effect the pathetic attempts to curb evasion), £18 million for three years' of 'Friday Night with Jonathan fucking no-mark Ross' - 'cos there's no-one else who could do his 'job' is there, and wouldn't we all be bereft if he wasn't there any more? Prima donna newscasters who are paid £100s of thousands to read from a fucking autocue; millions on advertising - their own programmmes for God's sake - in a virtual monopoly situation! In a digital age all this is just so much protectionist toss.
Sorry that I've drifted into the economic arguments but, in any event; Dave, stuff the BBC: root and branch.
Drivers-Republic.com
Boy racers - a bit last century - give it 6 months till the cash runs out
Despite being a vaguely socialist liberal, I'm beginning to find the Guardian nauseating, from the Shell-sponsored "carbon capture pullout" to the demand that "legislation must be passed quickly" in a recent editorial following the law lords ruling against anonymous witnesses (how retarded are leader-writers? Its hasty legislation that leads to these kind of problems you fuckwits!)
But the Times is Murdoch, the Telegraph is now celeb-tastic and the Independent jumped the shark some time ago... so what else can you read on the crapper?
(Roll on internet-enabled paper!)
@Anonymous said at 10:41 AM ...
//
Yes, the BBC isn't perfect.
But it is a great deal better than any other media outlet I can name.
The few BBC people I have dealt with have been highly gifted and very professional.
//
That's as maybe, but Hutton castrated them and they are no more than New Stasi's mouthpiece these days; witness it in the slant of their political reporting (Tory think tanks are always "right wing" think tanks, whereas New Stasi ones - such as the IPPR - are just "think tanks").
Note also the news blackout on the day of the Crewe bye-election. If you got your news from the BBC website, you wouldn't have even known there was a bye-election on.
No - it is now the State Broadcasting Conmpany, and as a result, we have got rid of out TV, so that our license fee does not go to a New Stasi mouthpiece.
The quality of output is APPALLING, as well.
Elby,
Funny you should mention the Guardian's Manchester origins.
Having a mother from Benchill, somewhere I visted freauently as a child I'm not surprised that they moved to the more 'sophisticated' London.
Toynbee et all wouldn't have dared show their mugs about the place.
Inspite of being on the money Guido, there's more chance of seeing Chinese Democracy, and even less chance of the album of the same name from Guns n' Roses.
On an unrelated note, I read this morning that Gordon Brown (and Alex Salmond for that matter) has sent his best wishes to Andy Murray for his forthcoming match with Rafa Nadal. Given the Jonah touch, presumably the only question remaining is whether Murray can even win a set...
Good luck with bankrupting the Guardian campaign though. This should be considered a public service.
"Zena Phobe said...
"This morning on Toaday, Tim Yeo was championing:
increased excise duty on fuel,
increased (and retrospective) vehicle duty,
road pricing.
Isn't he (alledgedly)a Conservative MP?"
Yes, but he is also a realist."
the price may have to rise, but how is it 'realist' to say the the government should take a larger cut?
I'm with Zena. That is not a Tory policy.
@Anonymous said 9:47 AM ...
//
Common Purpose will not allow it to happen. The Guardian and the BBC will be protected.
Common Purpose is as active within the Conservative Party as it is in all parties.
Read about it, watch the many video's on the web, learn about it and do something!
//
Do tell. What are YOU doing to combat this hidden menace? And are the lizards in on it?
July 2, 2008 9:47 AM
bbc propagandist 10.50,
do you mean smashing up institutions like in Iraq, where we smashed all their institutions and turned the country into a failed state?
don't be silly, smashing the bbc wouldn't bring this country down.
if the bbc had been doing its job, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place.
the bbc are a bunch of propagandist cunts who have aligned themselves to the new labour war and occupation party.
and now they must pay the price.
if you don't understand that then you must be a retard.
Cap'n Haddock, I do not soil my lily-whites with such objects as spanners, so bow to your superior knowledge of same.
Thanks for the enquiry about my dorsal invalidity. My carer, the lovely and selfless Esemeralda, has fixed up an ingenious series of mirrors that so I can read a laptop screen. I operate the keyboard with my toes, the touchpad with another part of my anatomy.
@ Anonymous July 2, 2008 10:41 AM
Thank you for your contribution supporting the BBC.
The BBC employ trolls through agencies to look after their interests on blogs and provide supporting comments.
They are employed to diffuse the attacks and confuse.
The Biassed BBC blog has become useless because of it - BBC trolls on that site hunt in packs and ridicule and shout down any dssenting voice dangerous to the BBC's interests. They do not discuss anything but simply attack and shout to drown out the person causing a problem to the BBC. Some of the trolls "Hillhead" "John Reith" can post up to 24 times each on the same thread over a number of hours. They do not deny they work for the BBC.
The fact that the BBC feels it needs to do this with licence payers money shows what a sinister and dangerous organisation it has become.
Guido,
PMQ's today?
I've already started warming up, the Gigondas is going down nicely.
Let's hope it's better than the last two weeks.
It is 12:09 here.
Potential Friday Competition photo?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030963/Cherie-Blair-shone-starring-spooked-eyes-MPs.html
On the last Cherie thread it was mentioned that with the credit crunch she would be looking for easy pickings - like Chair of some charity, but we forgot the best pickings - a quango: Chair of street crime commission, with that SBB Keith Vaz for company. She does look quite mad..
I don't want Rupert Murdoch to tell me what to think either!
You are of course writing this entirely without prejudice, being a non-driver yourself (for the next few years!) :¬)
anonymous says the "BBC isn't perfect ..." This is not the point. The BBC could be perfect but we shouldn't be forced to pay for it through the license fee.
Guardian and Beeb carry on endlessly about the environment, and yet never report the good news that many people are already running their cars on hydrogen and saving thousands. You produce the hydrogen from water using the car battery and bicarbonate of soda - and add 33% to your mileage per tank of fuel. LINK
Some dude mentioned it earlier but considering the adverts between bbc tv broadcasts are as long as on commercial channels, why not just allow advertising. The website, as Guido points out is leader in the market - adverts again. I'm glad i'm not poor and I'd pay £130 for Dr Who and I'm sorry I haven't a clue - it'd be nice to be asked tho.
@ Elby the Beserk July 2, 2008 11:06 AM
Re Common Purpose and your sneers and pomposity.
Are you denying Common Purpose exists, mutt head? They rely on droogs like you to throw chaff in the air.
You say in your profile "I'm very tall, and bang my head quite a lot". Maybe you should lie down a bit.
The Tories are only tentatively thinking about "harm reduction" policies towards the BBC.
The BBC should be terminated with extreme prejudice.
correction LINK
What a marvellous idea, to bankrupt the Guardian and the BBC.
We have our own problems in New Zealand with TVNZ and the Sunday Star-Times.
TVNZ will survive as it is funded directly from the state/ taxpayer but it does take ads.
As for the Star-Times, the sooner its Australian owners wake up to the losses the paper makes because of its leftism the better, but Fairfax are leftist in Australia too.
It's their gap in the market over in Australia, but the New Zealand news market is very monoplistic, one paper for each city.
Increasingly, it's thank heavans for the blogs, like this one.
And the one I contribute to-
www.nominister.blogspot.com
Please drop by.
It's the 'Guardian' letters page that really kils me. A colleague regularly has his fuckwittery plastered all over it, usually something along the lines of 'Harumph! Israel/USA/UK certainly deserved that! Isn't Cuba wonderful?' Fucking English teachers. I hates them.
The idea of a central website for all government jobs is one of the best ideas I have heard in ages.
Not only would it result in huge cost savings (and achieve your aim of snuffing out The Grauniad) but it would also enable the general public to see just how much tax money is wasted on so many of these pointless jobs. Smoking Cessation Officer and the like!
How could we go about recommending this? Is it the Public Accounts Committee??
the only people around here who can easily afford the most regressive, arbitrary, pointless and coercive tax in britain (AKA tv license) are the drug dealers. and they don't pay it, because they are, well, criminals.
socialism in action.
ps. thanks for the info about autotrader, wasn't aware of that and that's the last time i purchase it.
Don't buy Auto Trader then.
My TV works perfectly well without the BBC, so why do I have to pay for it on pain of imprisonment ?
Incidentally - isn't the Beeb subsidised by Top Gear now ?
Ironic that both liberal and anti-car organisations get so much funding from motoring.
Why not bang jobs on the BBC? All the same money - namely MINE or would that add too much value. To be fair I guess graphic designers etc would be a bit hacked off.
Anon 11.22
in reply -
I don't think that the BBC would be improved by going private.
Within a few months it would be driven by commercial considerations - i.e. not upsetting its corporate advertisers - and we'd end up with anothr Fox News.
I accept your comment about the licence fee, but I think it is well worth it.
By the way, I'm just an ordinary punter, not a troll.
I love Guido Fawkes blog to bits, but I'm not happy at all about destroying these two institutions; hence my numerous blitherings this morning.
"I love Guido Fawkes"
Australian pub rules.
Rule No 1. No poofters.
Rule No 2. No poofters.
Rule No 3. No poofters.
etc etc
Guido,
PMQ's
Wake up you bastard.
Get rid of BBC and be faced with even more bland, advert driven crap that we have on ITV.
BBC is not perfect by any means but the idea of having to sit though even more shite adverts is the one reason I want to keep the BBC!
The day we have a commercial BBC is the day we have a UK Fox News. ITN already seems to be going that way.
BBC pisses off Labour & Tories - so their impariality must still be in force.
This quality argument for keeping the BBC doesn't wash with me. If TV gets even more crap I'll just turn it off more and go and do something else. If it is so crap that even the most diehard of couch potatoes starts to turn off, well why isn't that a Good Thing? Kill off telly. Get fit.
BBC also pisses off George Galloway.
In Tehran, on a PressTV junket
[Galloway in English with Farsi voiceover] This has been a big step for me. This is because the news broadcast by this network is different from the news broadcast by most of news networks in the world. Many viewers in the world know that Fox News, Sky News and even the BBC do not tell them the truth. Therefore, they turn to networks such as Press TV.
Although he is now being paid by Iran to say it.
The Times Educational Supplement (both dead-tree and web) also makes a fortune from having a near-monopoly on teaching-job ads. I hope you'd have the government take that on as well, Guido.
EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City ...
White middle-class people are often portrayed terribly in these programmes.
The anti-Christian Jerry Springer Opera was televised by the BBC.
When is Islam going to be given this sort of treatment ?
The BBC feels like it's anti-me so I'm anti-it.
Guido is in best form ever today.
"tax subsidy crowds out competition...makes it impossible for rivals to compete profitably"
"One of the first thing the Tories should do in power is set up www.jobs.gov.uk. All available public sector positions would be listed there free of charge"
And how is this free website to be funded? Advertising? Obviously not a subsidy, as that would.
How is it enocuraging innovation to force public sector recruiters to use a public sector platform? Isn't this a recipe for crowding out innovation?
Agree the BBC has much improving to do (e.g. Sky send 1 reporter to adequately cover a story, the BBC sends upteen) etc. But in many other ways it is superior. One small example, didn't you enjoy the Footbal more when it was on BBC uninterupted by poxy adverts?
As for the Guardian......is it really public funded? Honestly didn't know that. Can't think of a single reason why it should be, or any benefit to the general public as a result. Would life change if it wasn't there? I rest my case.
"BBC is the primary reason Britain does not have a Silicon Valley"
What a load of horseshit.
beingapropagandistmakesyouacunt,
is that it, I thought you were going to make a point arguing against the statement but then you just came out with horseshit.
you fucking dullard.
what a fucking moron!