BBC, Savile, And More Mail Hypocrisy

Following their misleading assertion about the resignation of Newsnight editor Peter Rippon – which hadn’t happened when they said it had, and failed to happen subsequently – the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre have maintained their assault on the BBC over the past activities of Jimmy Savile, about which they couldn’t have given a stuff for so long.

It's f***ing true if I say so, c***

This has involved their resident BBC knocker Paul Revoir (crazy name, crazy guy?!?) concocting a range of scare stories about the “pressure” on Director General George Entwistle, the supposed hundreds of millions of pounds that will have to be paid out in the claims that have not yet been made, and of course the accusation that the Corporation “isn’t telling the truth”.

That last point is a staggering slice of brass neck, coming from a paper that has redefined the word “truth” to mean not what the OED might say it means, but what the Vagina Monologue deems it to mean for the purpose of furthering his agenda, which is driven by a boiling, obsessive hatred for the BBC and all who sail in it. Dacre’s legendary aggression is all over the Mail’s coverage.

But there also has to be the authentic gravitas of reliable punditry to march through the gap that the shock troops have punched in the Beeb’s defences, and today this has been provided by Max “Hitler” Hastings, self-proclaimed liberator of Port Stanley, as he declares “I know from experience that the BBC is an empire of control freaks and cowards”.

Yes, seriously, Max is writing in the Daily Mail and accusing another organisation of control freakery. Pot, kettle, Dacre lackey. What a come down it must be for someone whose CV includes editing the Telegraph – when its journalism was half-way decent, to boot – to be reduced to asking “How high?” when the Vagina Monologue orders him to jump.

And Hastings goes at the Corporation with some zeal: “Some of the Corporation’s most senior executives, from the Director-General downwards, could well lose their jobs — and deserve to ... Most of the men and women who rise to the top of the BBC hierarchy are self-serving bureaucrats of meagre abilities and scant editorial judgment”. Yeah, not like our Max, eh?

So why is Hastings so sore? Simples. He was at the BBC when a film he was making about Robert Maxwell had to be re-scripted to avoid legal action from the man known as the “Bouncing Czech”. That’s not cowardice, as Hastings asserts, but self preservation – Maxwell sued anyone and everyone who dared to suggest he was a crook (even though, of course, he was). Ask the folks at Private Eye.

This is just sour grapes. But it satisfies Dacre’s orders, so that’s all right, then.