BBC Funding And Dooda Stupidity

As the travails of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson continue, with the Mirror revealing today that he attended yet another of those Downing Street parties that he didn’t know about because they were really work meetings, so the more unpleasant and vindictive part of the Tory Party, and its allies in and around our free and fearless press, has latched on to a suitable scapegoat, a repository for blame.

To no surprise at all, the BBC has been selected for this purpose, and now stands accused of hounding poor Bozo mercilessly. But here a problem enters: every revelation regarding Partygate has come from elsewhere: ITV, the Mirror, even the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. So the Beeb bashing excuses have had to change accordingly.

Cue self promoting TalkRADIO host Julia Hartley Brewer, who has recently reminded us that she wrote an article for the increasingly wayward Mail on Sunday last year sneering at those attending the G7 summit while not wearing face coverings. “Any pub landlord who’d allowed such a large group to behave like this in their pub garden would have risked losing their licence” she trilled, thus demonstrating a total lack of knowledge on the rules.

At the time of the G7, gathering indoors in pubs, with provision of food and drink by table service, was not illegal. So it was in St Ives at G7 time that BBC Host and pundit Andrew Marr caught The Rona. Sitting at the same table was someone I know personally: he and his wife also caught it and were seriously unwell. More in the same pub caught it.

Having seen Ms Hartley Dooda parading her ignorance and lack of research so openly, it should surprise no-one that she has not only waded in to the BBC funding debate, but has managed to display a significant amount of sheer stupidity while doing so: “I pay the BBC licence fee and these are the only services I ever use. Good value for money…?”

So she “only” uses BBC One, BBC Two, BBC News Channel, BBC Parliament, Radio 4, Radio 5 … and BBC iPlayer, That’s the same BBC iPlayer that allows you to summon up every recently broadcast item of content. Everything the Beeb has to offer. Including offerings from all those channels she doesn’t watch. That’s stupidity #1.

Not stated, but blindingly obvious, is stupidity #2 - that she, and everyone else who pays any kind of tax, does not use all the services she, and they, pay for. Those without school age children pay for schools. We all pay for the fire service; most will, thankfully, never have to call on it. We don’t, generally, call on the armed services. But we pay for them - and the nuclear deterrent, a pointless waste of rather more than the BBC budget.

How much do the alternatives charge, compared with the 43p a day for the BBC? Netflix? Sky? Disney Plus? Moreover, Ms Hartley Dooda says she doesn’t use BBC Online, but her Twitter feed contains screen shots from it. Perhaps she’s a secret Beeb sleeper agent, making opposition to the Licence Fee look so stupid as to ensure its continuation.

The BBC does not always get it right, and has been pointlessly bending over backwards to appease the Tories of late, but as Joni Mitchell put it, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater (hello left-wing critics).

Rupert Murdoch’s going to have to get himself a better critic. Cos this one’s bust.

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