My Spectator column this week is about the BBC’s much written about initiative to ensure 25% of its employees are from “lower socio-economic groups” by 2027 so it “reflects the extraordinary diversity of the lives, backgrounds and experiences of the whole U.K. public”. Needless to say, I’m unconvinced that yet another ‘diversity target’ will do anything to reduce the progressive, metropolitan bias of the BBC.
The problem lies in the way the BBC has defined ‘working-class’.
To qualify for special treatment, applicants will be asked what the occupation was of the main parental earner in their household when they were 14. But what if they had no occupation? I know plenty of posh deadbeats who don’t work because they don’t need to. Would they be classed as ‘unemployed’ by the BBC box-tickers? And what about recent arrivals in the U.K. who have had to take menial jobs to make ends meet? My cleaner in the 1990s had been a professor of geology in the Soviet Union before its collapse.
No, if the BBC’s aim is to diversify the political attitudes and cultural taste of its staff, it should go the whole hog and stipulate that only white British working-class applicants – defined by a combination of household income when they were growing up and their parents’ education – are capable of meeting this target. They are the truly under-represented group among the BBC’s staff, as they are in all the professions, not least because they’re less likely to go to university than almost any other demographic. According to a report by the House of Commons Education Committee last year, the proportion of white British pupils eligible for free school meals participating in higher education by the age of 19 in 2018-19 was 16%, the lowest of any ethnic group apart from travellers of Irish heritage and Gypsy/Roma.
One reason that white British working-class people will continue to be under-represented at the Beeb in spite of the new quota is because the Corporation announced last year it wasn’t satisfied with just 15% of its workforce being from BAME backgrounds and wants to increase that to 20%. And many of the applicants who tick the BAME box will also tick the ‘working-class’ box, given that non-white people from low income families are more likely to go to university than whites. According to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, 59% of black African pupils eligible for free school meals progressed to higher education in 2018-19, 58.6% of Bangladeshis, 57.2% of Indians, 47.1% of Pakistanis and 31.8% of black Caribbean pupils. So much for ‘white privilege’.
And that 16% figure for poor white British pupils conceals an even starker figure – just 12.7% of boys in this group progress to higher education, compared with 19.4% of girls. That’s the truly disadvantaged group in modern Britain: white working-class males. It is their taste that is completely neglected by the BBC, with the exception of Match of the Day. But even for those brief moments of pleasure on Saturday and Sunday night, they have to put up with the BBC commentators extravagantly praising the Premier League footballers taking the knee before the game. The implication is that people like them are racist troglodytes badly in need of cultural re-education.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Andrew Tettenborn has made a similar argument about this new BBC hiring quota in the Critic.
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Apologies are only worth anything if they are sincere – either in recognising that the other person had a point or was right OR at least that while you still disagree with them, your initial conduct was less than decent. The howling pack that contributed to the most evil/stupid peacetime episode in all of human history (taking into account the global scale) are going to have to do a lot to convince me that they mean any “apology”.
This, precisely this.
I can think of 3 doctors (at least) who should be investigated for medical misinformation, if not outright disinformation.
They could, if we are charitable (but why should we be) have believed what they were saying back then was true (misinformation), and the charge of disinformation would be very difficult to prove – unless you are MSM, which means you’re not required to prove anything!
And those despicable “factcheckers” should be arrested for disinformation, or misinformation at least!
I don’t like the idea of all this witch hunting through mis-, dis- and malinformation, but their side started this, so it should be used equally against them!
The scary bit is one side needs proof, and the other doesn’t, because it’s got political backing. No real doctor believes politics over scientific proof… they should ALWAYS remain able to question everything
What is so important about these sinister preparations that they must be given the status of pharmacology infallible? The courage of these non compliant doctors is something for which to be truly thankful. They shouldn’t need courage to question scientific matters but the fact that they do speaks for itself.
Dr Trish Greenhalgh convinced herself that wearing a mask 24hrs a day was the only sensible course of action. She probably still has them on today.
The FACT, that the virus is many times smaller than the holes in the mask passed her by….! Also, every single genuine study conducted on mask wearing, (e.g. Spanish 6 yr olds masks, Spanish 5 yr olds no masks) showed zero difference in outcomes. Surprise!
She should be so ashamed of her lack of judgement that she resigns from the medical profession with immediate effect. I won’t hold my breath.
Dr David Cartland has also been hounded by the Covidists.
Shame on the BMC.
Many of these people are utterly appalling, in my view they should be heavily sanctioned and if necessary struck off by the GMC because they have acted in a spiteful manner without thinking that they could be on the wrong side of history.
There are plenty more who should be in the sights of the professional bodies, assuming that those bodies are neutral.
Come on man do you really think these people are capable of contrition and circumspection and humility? They are total scuzzballs. The one saving grace of that period was that it gave us time to identify the nature of the enemy.
Excellent news.
That said, shouldn’t the vast majority of doctors and the NHS – be reported to the GMC for peddling and even worse continuing to peddle misinformation/lies about the safety and efficacy of the mmRNA drugs/vaccines necessary to defeat the ever so new and novel Sars Cov2 disease?
Why did they not do any research of their own instead of blindly relying on guidance and propaganda – often from the MSM?
Informed consent. Lol.
First,do no harm. Lol.
Bar a small and honourable few, most just sang from the same rotten hymn sheet.
‘He who pays the piper, sets the tune’… they all knew who their paymaster was
They were told to by the GMC! You will get nothing there. Government stooges.
I think nuclear weapons are misunderstood as they are generally perceived to the biggest of all weapons and possession of even one of them means that you are untouchable. Yes all true but the real purpose of these weapons was to blast a hole through dimensions and they succeeded and the good and the bad came through. For example the entities that appeared at the Trinity crash site were very tearful and upset. But nasty forces popped through too. If you imagine you were given a job to govern these forces then you will understand the direction of post-war geopolitics. It is never talked about but a lot of the caution on the part of Russia and China is the concern that the Yanks might have access to spiritual realm technology.
Everything the Good Law Project touches seems to fail. Well done, Jolyon. Keep up the “good” work. (irony, in case you wondered).
The fox will forever come back to bite the kimono-clad one.
It’s also fascinating to note how the Good Law Project is anything but what its name implies.
It’s not just doctors who told the truth about the vaccines that deserve an apology. Doctors who ignored protocols based on “the science” and treated patients with hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin also deserve an apology for being ridiculed/smeared.
Drs Aseem Malhotra, Mike Yeadon and Carl Heneghan I salute you for your honesty and bravery. You each have my undying thanks as an unjabbed 76yr old.
There were many “heroes ” in those dark days. For those of us who shared the scepticism they were reassuring voices. Not all were medics but all shared an enquiring mind. All should be celebrated. I didn’t realise Aseem had lost his job what a waste.
I doubt,other than GB News this covid legacy will reach publicity
Or will it go like the thalidomide saga? Everyone knows, but it is considered ancient history? Just move on?
I wonder…. In the case of Covid vaccines we are talking about billions of people vaccinated. A whole new ballpark.
I should imagine the GMC are thoroughly ashamed of their conduct throughout the whole sorry saga and would rather forget the whole thing happened i.e. sweep it under the carpet.
Shame on them.
I fully agree!
It is about time there is a proper study on all morbidities and mortalities from 2021 onwards comparing vaccinated to non-vaccinated people. And if the overall numbers in this study are high enough, we should be able to show exactly what is happening.
Clare Craig has filed a lawsuit to get them to release the data so it can be looked at.
Dr. Malhotra is a heroic individual. He stood up to Big Pharma and our own medical authorities at huge personal cost. He did that for us. So pleased that he was selected by the Trump administration to contribute his exceptional knowledge. He also helped produce a film, “First, do no Pharm”, exposing the collaboration between Big Pharma and health authorities, to help sell medical interventions.
Can anyone explain why the medical profession threw the precautionary principle out of the window when they supported the use of poorly tested, experimental gene therapies (wrongly re-labelled as vaccines) for an illness with an infection rate that was no worse than seasonal flu? Have doctors and professors collectively forgotten the life long, catastrophic harms caused by thalidomide? Did they forget the first principle of their profession – ‘first do no harm’?
To me, it’s quite clear that 21st century medicine is not fit for purpose. The whole profession is captured by a dogmatic scientific theology and by a corrupted system of corporate sponsorship. Nor are the regulatory institutions sufficiently independent or unbiased enough to regulate professional misconduct. The end result is a failed NHS and a population whose health outcomes are worsening year by year.