For the right, the BBC has always been a safe space. Now this space is being contested – and it scares the life out of themFor almost 50 years MI5 had agents embedded at the BBC, vetting job candidates with the specific aim of weeding out prospective left-leaning employees. It was known as the “Christmas Tree” process, after the discreet symbol on a personnel file that would advise executives that a particular individual was to be blacklisted. The practice continued well into the 80s, and until a 1985 Observer exposé was denied at all levels.Perhaps this jars a little with the warm and fuzzy image of the BBC that has been bequeathed to us over the generations. This lovable national...
We all lose when the state, no matter how third-hand or arm’s-length, is able to engineer the silence of public figuresKeep politics out of sport. Ha, yeah. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, in what we must, if only out of a sense of convention, call the Real World, we have this: the strange and sinister developments of Friday evening in what will now come to be known as the Lineker affair.The suspension of Gary Lineker from BBC presenting duties – not Newsnight or Question Time, but the bloodless warm bath of Match of the Day – over a tweet sent on Wednesday afternoon criticising government policy on migrants is, frankly, a jaw-dropping act of political intervention. Continue reading...
Lineker marshalled the studio well, Mowbray and Jenas made a solid double act, but the forgetful prime minister got a kickingFootball punditry can be a detestable sham. The BBC gave an ominous reminder of that during their Euro 2020 preview show on Thursday, when Gary Lineker said Micah Richards knew a lot about North Macedonia and everyone in the studio, including Richards, fell about laughing. Apparently the notion that a highly paid analyst might swot up on one of the tournament’s lesser known teams was top banter.But that was a lone outrage in a tolerable production and, in fairness, it is both the privilege and the burden of the national broadcaster that it must try to cater to everyone’s taste....
The ceremony’s usual bombast was dialled down a little but odd moments were reassuringly present and correctAs the BBC’s small, Covid-friendly Sports Personality of the Year award ceremony drew to a predictable conclusion, Lewis Hamilton – appearing via video link from a position in front of a lavishly decorated Christmas tree in Monaco – held up the replica trophy he had been thoughtfully equipped with in case of victory and thanked the people of Britain for voting for him. “All the frontline workers, all the children of the world, please try to stay positive at this difficult time,” he said. “Please, everyone out there, go out and follow your dreams.”Unless you’re in a tier 4 area, of course, in which...
The coverage of Sunday’s England v Pakistan T20, the first match on the BBC in two decades, will be very different to the days of Peter West and Tony LewisNostalgia is the comfort blanket of our times. The BBC knows this, which is why it spent lockdown pacifying or existential angst with golden replays of the Olympics, Wimbledon and West Indies tours. When it shows Sunday’s England v Pakistan T20, the corporation’s first live cricket TV broadcast in two decades, there will be a quiet sigh from older viewers, of something finally being put right with the world.Cricket and the Beeb used to be wedded to each other. For 60 years – it first showed the game on TV in...