Poor old Auntie: the decline and fall of the BBC

Oh dear: big bad Boris is going to clip the wings of our national treasure, the BBC. “Auntie” (as it used to be known) may very well lose the annual £3.7 billion of tax known as the licence fee and be dragged into the reality of 21st-century broadcasting — a world of endless personal choice. And meanwhile, you’ll no longer get thrown in the clink if you refuse to cough up for the privilege of being drowned in a tsunami of woke propaganda. All excellent news for most people in this country, whose views and sentiments have long been shunned and derided by our national broadcaster. 

For decades I loved so much of the BBC’s output. As a freelance working from home, I routinely listened to a number of Radio Four programmes. Today, The World at One, PM — how could you be an intelligent, inquiring member of society and not keep up with its excellent coverage of current events? I was a fan too of the often interesting and generally relevant Woman’s Hour. Heck, I’ve even been interviewed on it a few times, as well as on some of Radio Four’s other shows. And back in the Nineties, as a single mum in a stressful job, one of the highlights of my week was watching Have I Got News For You, for its reliably funny, witty light relief.

Those days are long gone, however. I stopped watching HIGNFY two or three years ago, when I could no longer take the yawningly predictable and unamusing jokes made by its rotating catalogue of Left-wing stand-ups. Yeah, you despise Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, you mock dumb Brexiteers and you really, really don’t like Tories. We get it already. It’s the same problem with Radio Four’s half-hour evening comedy slot at 6.30pm, which is only worth listening to on those rare occasions when it’s not just another Lefty rant by Marcus Brigstocke, Andy Hamilton and others of that tedious ilk, still stuck in the Ben Elton anti-Thatcher playbook of the Eighties.  

As for Woman’s Hour, where do I begin? In its desperation not to be seen as “hideously white” (in the deathless words of Greg Dyke, the BBC’s former director-general) or “hideously gender-normative” (my own phrase), it seems no edition is complete without an interview with a black singer/actress/writer/sportswoman about how she overcame racism, and an item relating to the rights and struggles of the LGBTQIA community. 

Throw in the serialisation of a novel on the plight of African and/or Middle Eastern refugees trying to reach Europe, plus a hefty dose of fourth-wave feminism and . . . well, you get the picture. It’s identity politics all the way. The Guardian of the airwaves. The difference is that we have to pay for the BBC, whether we want to or not, while we can merrily ignore the Guardian and its begging-bowl website. (Every page asks the reader to donate money to the newspaper. How pathetic!) 

I don’t necessarily object to any of the sort of programming described above. Of course, all subjects should be explored and people of all backgrounds featured. It’s just about keeping things in proportion. By giving the impression that everyone is (a) some sort of victim (except for straight white people, obviously), (b) obsessed with the issue of gender transitioning, and (c) desires an endless diet of politically correct comedy, the BBC has lost touch with the vast majority of the people who pay to keep it in business. 

So off you go, Auntie, and get subscribers if you can. No more protectionism for you. The estimable Lord Reith, the BBC’s first ever director-general and a firm believer in equal representation of all viewpoints, would shudder to see what his successors have made of this once great institution. So you deserve whatever Boris throws at you.