Facing an exodus of licence fee payers and calls for a boycott, the BBC is teetering on the brink of an existential crisis, says James Warrington in the Telegraph. Here’s how his article begins:
Tim Davie, the BBC Director General, was candid this week about the scale of the financial challenges facing the public service broadcaster.
Speaking ahead of the publication of the BBC’s annual report on Tuesday, Davie said: “We have been working extremely hard to get a budget that balances. The market for content is inflating rapidly … We’ve got all kinds of cost pressures.”
Those pressures were evident in the BBC’s latest financial results, which showed an £80 million drop in licence fee revenues – the broadcaster’s main source of income – to £3.7 billion.
This was driven in part by a Government-imposed freeze on the licence fee. More worryingly for the BBC, though, the number of households paying the levy dropped by half a million to 23.9 million – an acceleration from the previous year’s decline.
For executives in W1A, the exodus of paying viewers is nothing short of an existential crisis.
The decline has been fuelled by calls for a boycott of the licence fee, with campaign groups such as the Taxpayers’ Alliance branding the household levy “archaic and unfair”.
Another campaign, calling itself Defund the BBC, has raised concerns about wasteful spending and alleged bias in the broadcaster’s output, as well as its aggressive prosecution of licence fee non-payment, which disproportionately affects women and poorer people.
Patrick Barwise, author of The War Against the BBC, compares the increase in licence fee dodgers to the epidemic of middle-class shoplifting. “This is people freeriding on the basis that they think they can get away with it,” he says.
Yet there is a more fundamental shift that the corporation must contend with. Audiences – especially younger ones – increasingly feel they can do without the BBC’s output.
The BBC is used by 69% of Britons under 16 each week. That’s down from 72% the previous year and puts the broadcaster behind YouTube and Netflix. The declines for children under seven are even more acute.
Even BBC Sounds – a cornerstone of the corporation’s efforts to reach younger audiences – is struggling to gain traction. The number of 16 to 34 year-olds using the streaming service slipped to 585,000 last year, behind a target of at least 600,000.
Instead, younger viewers are turning to video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. The BBC’s research found more under-35s watched global streaming services on average per week than U.K. broadcasters.
Two Just Stop Oil activists have been found guilty of criminal damage for hurling tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery, damaging its antique frame. The Timeshas more.
Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, both 22, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup at Sunflowers and then glued themselves to the wall in October 2022.
Although the painting, which was completed in 1888 and is worth up to £72.5 million, was protected by a glass cover, the 17th-century Italian frame was damaged by the soup, which acted like paint stripper, Southwark crown court was told. Prosecutors believe the soup may have caused £10,000 worth of damage to the frame.
The pair, who denied damaging property, showed no emotion as the jury announced its verdict after a four-day trial. Judge Christopher Hehir released them on bail before their sentencing on September 27th. Hehir told the activists to come to court “prepared in practical and emotional terms to go to prison on that date”.
The maximum sentence for the offence is ten years’ imprisonment. The bail conditions stipulate that they must not carry glue, paint or any adhesive substance in a public place and must not visit any galleries or museums.
The court was told that the pair had visited the museum a day before the incident to carry out reconnaissance and bought the tins of soup from a supermarket.
In a statement read to the jury, Isabella Kocum, a frame conservator, said she was “shocked and dismayed by the extent of corrosion this tomato soup” caused to the “exquisite antique frame”. …
Plummer and Holland said they were taking instructions from someone else in Just Stop Oil but refused to identify the person. …
In her closing speech, Plummer claimed that she was “sounding an alarm bell” on climate change and invoked the example of the suffragettes and the civil rights movement in the United States.
What happened in Britain during the extraordinary years of 2018-24 wasn’t the philosophical defeat of ‘Toryism’, or even its betrayal. It was a legal and bureaucratic power struggle that the British Right fought and then lost, decisively.
Here was the essential question of the last six years: is opposition politics allowed in Britain? Almost everything turned on this issue; old Left-Right appeals were the exception not the rule. First came the saga over the referendum result and whether it should be honoured, which meant a constitutional crisis over prerogative powers and an extended showdown with the courts. Corbynism, so close to victory in 2017, was crowded out and fell by the wayside.
Then came a series of unprecedented interventions by the standards and ethics committees into politics. Sue Gray stalked the elected Government in plain sight. An obscure ultra-royalist reading of the constitution was invoked to prevent Boris Johnson from seeking a new mandate from the electorate.
The Parliamentary Right found itself winnowed away by investigations, which led to the former Prime Minister’s expulsion from the House of Commons and his allies being threatened with the same if they criticised these proceedings. A leading member of the Conservative Right, Miriam Cates, was hit with a gag order at the climax of its showdown with Downing Street over illegal migration. Investigations into workplace conduct unhorsed a Deputy Prime Minister and nearly did the same to two Home Secretaries.
Policy became almost irrelevant. The legal inheritance from New Labour made border control impossible. When Raab fell to a workplace investigation, his ‘British Bill of Rights’ that would have replaced the ECHR fell with him. After opposition to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) became Government policy, a Health Minister was asked to refer herself to an ethics advisor for leafleting against “15-minute cities”. In the closing days of the Sunak ministry, a court case killed onshore fossil fuel extraction at a stroke.
Seldom have ideas counted for so little. This was a battle over the levers of Government – not what should happen once they were pulled. Everything was downstream from a willingness or an unwillingness to challenge the various non-partisan bodies for control of the British state.
The coalitions that formed were motley and defied ordinary description. Steve Baker, Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak were each starchy Thatcherites. Rory Stewart was a Burkean stickler for tradition, Theresa May a committed Anglican. None of it mattered. When the time came, each made the only choice that really counted now: for ‘decentralised’ Britain and against the democratic executive. The same was true of their opponents. Almost nothing united Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Nadine Dorries beyond some defence (ebbing and flowing) of central and democratic authority.
Things were now elemental enough to make the old distinctions blur into irrelevance. The most scrupulous Thatcherite could not have passed a budget without first neutralising the OBR. No YIMBY could have built without defying Natural England and limiting the scope of judicial review. And no kind of Government is possible at all if probity and ethics boards are allowed to cashier the people’s representatives for interrupting people.
We are well beyond theoretical jollies about the remit of the state or the proper role of the markets. Owing to a few key individuals, in 2019 the British Conservative Party essentially solved the problem of centre-Right politics in the 21st Century: that is to say, how to rouse the lower-middle and working classes with a demagogic appeal against the Blob while not spooking the upper-middle classes. The solution, as it turns out, was to simply recast the necessary attack on institutions as modernisation and reform. This is a circle that has yet to be squared in any other Western democracy.
By the end of 2019 the way was open. If Dominic Cummings is to be believed, even after the folly of lockdown the permanent administration essentially surrendered to the Johnson Government, offering to let it carry out the long mooted reform of the Civil Service that would have drastically cut its headcount and ended its institutional independence.
Had this been carried out, it would have opened a new chapter in world history. Britain would have been the first major country to decisively break with the bureaucratic-oligarchic model that rules virtually every state on the planet. At the very least, it certainly would have made the old divides between, oh I don’t know, the Bow Group and Blue Beyond feel less pressing.
Britain is further along in this historical process than any other developed country. Even the most extreme Project 2025 stretch goals would leave a President Trump with far less control over the state than Boris Johnson enjoyed in January 2020. People like Keir Starmer appreciate this. His first speech outside Downing Street had almost nothing to say about living standards, everything to say about probity, ethics and the liberties of the quango. He is prosecuting a conflict that the British Tories began and then refused to wage.
And so to say now, as many do, that the Conservative Party should in the wake of its defeat muse on the philosophical case for the centre-Right is to forget all that has happened – perhaps wilfully. It ignores how politics has regressed, or perhaps progressed, into a bare conflict between institutions. It means everyone can go back to ignoring that a Prime Minister with an 80-seat majority was ousted from office for eating cake. It means that everyone can go back to ignoring that the particular formation around Johnson and Cummings got within an ace of actually dissolving the Blob and transforming politics forever. Those who would sooner forget about these events are taking Keir Starmer at his word: that the ordinary democratic process has resumed and that the last few years were only a freak aberration, never to be repeated.
More than anything else, it allows the Tories to ignore the fact that they have, since 2019, known perfectly well how to win a popular mandate from the British people, which can then be used to carry out a reformation of the state. Everyone knows what would drive a person to vote against something like Starmerism – this showy, hand-wringing over the reason why only invites us to think they don’t like the answer.
How will a centre-Right Government elected in 2028 pass a budget in the teeth of OBR opposition? These are the salient questions, and their ultimate answers are more profound and more revolutionary than any paean to ‘institutions’, or even to free markets. Politics as commonly understood ended in 2019, and those who would now lead the opposition should not forget it.
And so it ended. Not with a bang, and hardly even a whimper. After the triumphant, overwhelming election of Biden as the Presidential nominee of his party earlier this year, polling showed Team Biden that they could not win in November under any circumstances, after the catastrophic debate revealed his cognitive problems for all to see. From 90% support of his party to doing an LBJ in only two months is some kind of record. It’s as if Democrats were the biggest victims of the massive gaslighting that has been done, on their behalf, by the MSM over the last few years, and not their target audience, which is everyone else.
Biden differed from LBJ in that his version of “I will not serve” was not delivered by a televised speech from the Oval Office but instead a text on X. Over the last three weeks, the political news had been followed avidly on X, as well as other social media platforms, to the detriment of all other media. If you want breaking news or interesting comment or even whacko conspiracy-mongering, it’s all there. And its the fastest way to get the attention of the whole world, as even Team Biden understands. Lefties regard this as a weird and bad thing. One suspects the criticism comes more from the fact that it is a popular platform where Lefties don’t control the narrative.
Biden has not been seen for several days, which is unheard of in a modern Presidency. But then again, many other unheard of things have happened in the last few days. First up is Biden himself. He flew back unexpectedly from campaigning in Las Vegas as he reportedly had contracted Covid. Reports now suggest, however, that he also had a medical emergency in Vegas, such as a mini-stroke, and hot-footed it back on Air Force One (AF1) to the East Coast for treatment. Emily Goodin (Daily Mail) was on that flight and posted after AF1 landed, “AF1 flew so fast the plane shook.” Is there anything at this point that will not be covered up by the most deceitful White House in history?
Even weirder was the immediate reaction from Democrats and MSM folks (I repeat myself) on what a wonderful, selfless decision to quit the campaign had been made by a great, nay, the best President. Lefty rags such as the Orlando Sentinel were all in on the tongue bath: “Joe Biden has been as good a President as any and better than most… Yet he stood down from his re-election campaign to allow someone younger and more the picture of vigorous health to finish the work of keeping the nation, and the world, safe from Donald Trump.” One believes that the Sentinel got the last phrase the wrong way round. Trump would rightly feel that he has to be kept safe from the world, especially one that has a Secret Service that is increasingly looking like deliberately incompetent, as opposed to just incompetent.
And then came the politicians. My favourite was from the appalling Jerry Nadler, congressman from New York City: “Joe Biden, like FDR and LBJ before him, will go down as one of the most consequential Presidents in American history having led our nation’s recovery through one of its darkest chapters.” Sorry, Jimmy Carter, Democrat pols have used up all the superlatives appropriate for really bad Presidents and there will be none left for you when the time comes. At least we know now how ‘Top Democrats’ got ‘President Get-Off-My-Lawn’ to step down. He has been promised his legacy and his place in history is secured – well, at least when history is written by the Left.
Missing from the cringe-fest was any mention of the fact that Biden has another six months to go as the bestest President ever. He cannot be a candidate due to his serious mental issues, but he can be President. After all, for some, being the most powerful guy in the world is just a part-time hustle akin to working as a customer greeter at Home Depot. And that was, and still is, the weirdest thing of all about Biden this week.
The Top Democrats’ election strategy also included their ‘chosen one’ for the nomination. A second tweet on X appeared after the campaign resignation tweet and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the choice of whoever was behind the resignation strategy. Biden’s resignation had the usual synchronised messaging, as can be seen by the same words being used over and over, as if quoting from a script – “selfless”, “patriotic”, “putting the country first”. But this had to be delayed with Harris, as presumably she was not that popular a choice within her party, and initially, folks were slow to get onboard. But the next day, normal service had been resumed. Harris was now showered with praise. The script this time had no specificity, due to her stunning lack of any notable accomplishments, so there was now a lot of “smart”, “strong”, “skills”, “strength” and “character.”
Harris is the worst candidate the Democrats could anoint, other than Biden of course, judging by opinion polls. But it is easy to see why the Democrat big brains put their money on Harris. Her name is on the campaign already as VP, so she is able to use the Biden campaign money for her candidacy. This does not apply to anyone else. In addition, they have been quietly working for the last week to provide momentum to ensure Biden’s delegates will now vote for her at the convention and so avoid an open convention. No-one wants to show the chaos that always lurks under the surface in American politics on TV. This happened back in 1968 after LBJ dropped out, and the results were disastrous for the Democrats (although not for the country), as they lost the Presidential election.
It does not bother Top Democrats that they have branded themselves as the party that will save “democracy” from the “fascism” that is Trump. Folks like Randi Weingarten, head of the biggest teachers’ union in the country and committed Left-wing activist, rant 24/7 about how Trump will become a fascist in the future and so destroy democracy. Democrats prefer to trash democracy in the present. The party members that voted for Biden in the Democratic primaries, all 14 million of them, have now had their votes ignored and given to someone else entirely, whom they may or may not support.
Cover for these kinds of contradictions with Harris’s candidacy will be provided, as always, by our MSM. In this case, it will be by ignoring them. A more sinister approach is evident in how they wish to address other criticisms of her. CNN has already launched a salvo this week against folks calling Harris a “DEI hire”. Republicans have labelled her this because, well, she is. Biden said before he was elected that he would pick a woman as VP and then further specified his choice by narrowing it down to four black women. Nothing was said about their capabilities – gender and colour of skin were enough. Two months ago Biden was all ‘DEI VP’ again: “To me the values of diversity, equality and inclusion are literally… the core strengths of America… And it starts at the top with the Vice President.”
CNN’s response to this criticism of Harris was to park the bus in front of the goal by flat out calling it “racist”. Their reasoning was surprisingly not based on pointing out that Biden does not know what he is saying these days, but rather based on calling someone a “DEI hire” would be grounds for dismissal in corporate America. It has not occurred to the crack journalists at CNN that DEI is gradually being kicked to the curb in corporate America. Even very Left-wing media likeAxios have picked up on this.
For regular folks this is the least of all criticisms against Harris. As a candidate, she has two much more serious weaknesses. America just does not like her, due mostly to her word salad manner of speaking, and the fact that we all twigged several years ago, when she was running to be the Presidential nominee for the Democrats, that she has no principles but just articulates whatever is the mantra of her party at any time. Her party shares America’s opinion. Similar to today, she won no delegates on her own merits four years ago after running a disastrous campaign.
Her biggest issue, however, is her policies. Her lack of any foundational principles has led her to attach herself to all of the far-Left nonsense that Democrats have been hawking for the last twenty years. Her support of any and all illegal immigration and the deliberate evisceration of the forces of law and order are the two biggest examples. The consequences for us have been dire. And, as in so many cases with Democrat policies, women are the hardest hit. By coincidence, an investigation into the explosion of rape in NYC was published by the NY Post early this week. The existence of over a hundred thousand illegal immigrants has contributed to this issue, with these folk being both offenders and victims. The NYPD is down significantly in terms of manpower, while soft-on-crime prosecutors such as Alvin Bragg in Midtown Manhattan deliberately do not prosecute many offences, such as murder and rape. Defending these policies will be a tough road.
The last two weeks have been among the craziest ever in American politics. It started with a Presidential candidate being shot and ended with his opponent stepping out of the race. And yet, nothing much has changed. Talk of unity and turning down the temperature evaporated very quickly, and our MSM is back doing what it does best: acting as a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party and their policies, while also muting any possible sympathy for Trump from the assassination attempt by ignoring it. Trump is back to in court as the Democrat lawfare agenda seeks to both bankrupt him and stop him from campaigning. And the Democrats have, as a candidate for the Presidency, a vapid, unlikeable puppet who will defend whatever nonsense they want to push down the throats of the American people.
The Government appears ready to claim that the ‘imminent’ threat of climate change justifies what will be the largest taxpayer investment ever recorded in wind and solar farms in British history. The Telegraphhas the details.
Sir Keir Starmer is to unveil the first investment by the £8.3 billion taxpayer-funded Great British Energy, which will back renewable energy projects to help meet the Government’s Net Zero goals.
The Prime Minister will say the Government is “rolling up our sleeves to deliver for Britain” as he announces a partnership with the Crown Estate to help develop the seabed for offshore wind power.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, said the £8.3 billion investment in GB Energy was vital to meet the “huge challenges” the country faced, including the climate crisis, which was “not a future threat but a present reality”.
“In an unstable world, the only way to guarantee our energy security and protect billpayers permanently is to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and towards home-grown clean energy,” he said.
“That is why making Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030 is one of the Prime Minister’s five missions, with the biggest investment in home-grown clean energy in British history.”
A Great British Energy Bill will be introduced in Parliament on Thursday to formally establish the company, which will have its headquarters in Scotland.
The company is expected to take a stake in renewables energy projects alongside the private sector. …
In its first major project, GB Energy will provide spatial planning, surveying and grid design assistance to the Crown Estate to help speed up the development of offshore wind projects. …
It is not yet clear how much of the £8.3 billion will be divided between projects such as the Crown Estate deal and other types of investment. …
Josh Buckland, a former civil servant in the energy department and senior fellow at Policy Exchange, said there was a lack of clarity about how GB Energy will operate.
“This includes how any public ownership will be designed in such a way not to distort the market for private investment,” he said.
“Until that is understood, it’s hard to assess how much value GB Energy will deliver in practice to the taxpayer or billpayer.”
Four years on from Covid, the Civil Service’s reluctance to return to the office is tanking productivity and leaving empty desks in its wake. In the Telegraph, Tom Haynes explains how the pampered civil service’s obsession with working from home is costing us all. Here’s an excerpt:
The Conservatives tried to force staff to turn up to their place of work just three days out of five, but the small ask was met with intense resistance.
The new Labour Government has so far failed to lay out any demands at all. All the while, the Government’s weekly office attendance figures have remained unpublished since the General Election was called.
Yet while public sector productivity has fallen, Labour is now dangling an inflation-busting pay rise in front of civil servants – many of whom are making considerable savings on childcare and commuting costs by doing their jobs at home. …
One said: “We’re TWaTs [Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays], the lot of us. On Mondays I’d say the office is about 50% full, Friday maybe 25%, and the other days 75-100%.”
Another added: “What’s the point of coming in on Friday when no one else is in?”
Public sector workers have long resisted attempts by previous governments to haul them back into the office. In April, it was reported that some 1,000 employees at the Office for National Statistics had refused to come into the office for even two days out of five.
The 60% in-office mandate, meanwhile, prompted 40% of civil servants to consider jumping ship, according to a November survey by the Public and Commerical Services union.
Childcare remains a strong draw for continued hybrid working across the private and public sectors – an October survey by Capital One found that 87% of remote workers regularly look after children while working from home, with a further 85% doing so in the same room as a child.
However, Neil Leitch, Chief Executive of the Early Years Alliance charity, warned that parents juggling working from home with childcare could be damaging for children.
He said: “If you can work from home and at same time you can be around your child, you can save a small fortune.
“Not a word has been spoken about what’s in the interest of the child. The reality is if you’re holding down a job, it’s very difficult to spend adequate time with the child.”
It comes despite repeated criticism that continued remote work has led to a decline in efficiency across departments. This week it emerged that workers at the Department for Work and Pensions had left customers on hold for the equivalent of 753 years, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
Welcome to episode eight of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors:
Dr. David Livermore, microbiologist and Daily Sceptic regular, on the growing concerns about the Lucy Letby verdict and how the Daily Sceptic led the world in raising them;
Dr. Angus Dalgleish, Emeritus Professor of Oncology at the University of London and co-signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, on how the first report of the Covid Inquiry has blown up the establishment’s pro-lockdown consensus;
And for those donating £5 a month or more to the Daily Sceptic, Laurie speaks to Steven Tucker, author and regular Daily Sceptic contributor, on French politics, immigration and the West’s “post-human” elites through the eyes of the celebrated French novelist Michel Houellebecq.
“Why there’s rioting in Leeds” – In the Spectator, Rod Liddle investigates who, precisely, was setting fire to buses in the Harehills area of Leeds last week.
“Bibby Stockholm asylum seekers say ‘hope has returned’” – Suella Braverman has accused Labour of signalling that Britain is “open for illegal migrants” after announcing it was closing the Bibby Stockholm, says the Mail.
“Will we always have Paris?” – If the Olympics go off safely it will be because of months of preparation by every arm of law enforcement, says Douglas Murray in the Spectator.
“TV boss Kevin Lygo slams BBC for plugging American shows” – ITV’s boss has hit out at the way the BBC used the Euro 2024 football tournament to plug old U.S. shows it had bought, at the expense of its own British content, according to the Radio Times.
“Cambridge University is in a state of moral collapse” – Cambridge University has gone from being a beacon of excellence to a swamp of third-class ideas, poisoned by the worst of the social sciences, says Zoe Strimpel in the Telegraph.
“Royal Mint to stop making coins from scratch after 1,100 years” – The Royal Mint plans to stop producing coins from scratch at its facility in Wales from December with staff diverted to mining gold from laptop circuit boards, This is Money can reveal.
“‘What about penny arcades?’” – Brits have reacted with howls of dismay to the news that the Great British penny could be at risk of being scrapped, says the Mail.
“We all know who’s really running the White House” – President Biden has again shown America that he’s no longer fit to serve. Not that you’d know it from the glowing coverage of his all-too-brief primetime address, writes Maureen Callahan in the Mail.
“Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris by two points in Times poll” – Donald Trump remains ahead in the race for the U.S. Presidency with a lead of two points over Kamala Harris, according to polling by YouGov for the Times undertaken after President Biden’s decision to withdraw.
“The great big GB Energy swindle” – The supposed strengths of GB Energy are already falling apart, says Callum McGoldrick in CapX.
“Ford loses $50,000 on every electric car” – New financial reports from global car manufacturer Ford have revealed that the brand loses almost $50,000 (£38,700) on every electric vehicle it sells, reports GB News.
“Swinney must not hide behind Starmer on conversion therapy” – Scotland’s First Minister is said to be considering adopting a new law that will pit children against their parents. He should be supporting families, writes Lois McLatchie Miller in the Times.
“Police update regarding the Manchester airport assault” – On X, Andrew Lawrence returns as Sergeant Constable Detective Officer Peter Pisspot from Twat Valley Police to discuss the unfortunate events that took place at Manchester Airport.
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