Beeb Bashing – Three In A Row

For some reason which escapes me right now, the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre has ratcheted up its anti-BBC rhetoric recently, with three attacks today alone. This comes after last week’s feeble attempt to rubbish the Corporation’s new operation in Manchester, which I covered at the time.

Wimbledon is an event with which the Mail has issues: after all, the Beeb has an exclusive on the tournament, and for the Dacre hackery this is A Very Bad Thing. So when former player Tim Henman is confirmed as part of this year’s commentary team, there will be complaints from Dacreland. As Henman is also getting paid, that is too much, and thus today’s hatchet job.

The mildly inconvenient fact that Henman was the best British player of his time, and but for the rain and Goran Ivanisevic would have won the mens’ singles in 2001, appears to have escaped the Mail. After all, Henman is only a proxy for the Dacre rage: it’s the BBC they’re kicking. As for the characterisations of Henman, there is no point in discussion: they are beneath contempt.

Next up on the Dacre BBC hate menu is Even Davis, now presenter of the Today programme on Radio 4. Davis enjoyed a lunch with Steve Bundred – now formerly of the Audit Commission – which cost £90. But ninety quid is not nearly scary enough for the Mail, so we are told that at the restaurant concerned, “eight ounces of Royal Beluga caviar costs £2490”.

Excuse me, but this is drivel twice over. Nobody, but nobody, would trough even half that amount of caviar at one sitting and hold it down. And unless Davis and Bundred partook, the smear is as daft as saying that I’m a greedy and wasteful motorist for owning a Seat Ibiza, because they build Bentleys across town.

But the biscuit is taken with some style by an attempt to smear new BBC Trust chair Chris Patten, by linking him to John Browne, who like Evan Davis is gay, not that the Mail has any problem with that, of course. The overlong and mind-numbingly tedious piece states that, although “there is no suggestion of impropriety on anyone’s part”, “questions have been raised” about the appointment.

Sadly, though, the only question comes from rent-a-quote Tory MP Philip Davies, who provides the required character assassination of Patten. For the uninitiated, this wave of knocking copy may seem strange, but is quite normal for Dacre and his hacks. For the Mail readership, the BBC is to be demonised at every turn, its integrity undermined, and its funding and spending excoriated.

All part of the iron code on this part of the dunghill that is Grubstreet.