OK, so let me put this another way.
Suppose we all agree that Trump is the biggest cunt ever to walk the face of the earth, and that Bozza's an arse, Sir Keir Starmer is a saint, that the NHS has been fucked over by the Tories who secretly want to see it dismantled and all poor people dead.
Do we want the BBC to feed back to us what we want to hear? Do we just want confirmation that we're right? Depends whether you believe the BBC should reflect society and popular thought, or follow the Reithian principle of enlightenment.
The truth is, that it needs to do and be a bit of both. But from time to time, it could do with re-calibrating.
Jeez... at times like this, I wish Orwell was still around. He'd have something to say about all this malarkey.
For a start off I don't agree with all of that.
Any of that, actually, as purely blanket statements.
You're assuming all those things so that you can pigeonhole me (or my argument) as a raving Lefty who believes everything the BBC says (even if it's crap). You're capable of a far more nuanced debate than that (I'm not being patronising, you're personally far more successful than I from what I can make out), you understand reason and you can fucking spell and write properly
.
Trump is out of his depth, he frequently lies and the Whitehouse have to clear up the mess after him. That stuff can't be hidden. It could be in Russia or China of course, but I don't think you want to live there, do you?
I actually quite like Johnson, and I'm interested to see where he'll take us with Brexit, and how he'll fight off the worst excesses of Trump's America, while trying to trade successfully with them. I'm also interested to see whether his recent life-threatening illness has changed him in any way (I don't mean that as a dig) because those situations have a habit of doing that. Having said that, our decision (taken by him no doubt) to resist joining up with the EUs' PPE supply-chain was a big mistake, taken to prove we don't need the EU. Very silly, and could have backfired badly if it actually had worked.
Why is Keir Starmer a Saint? I didn't vote Labour last time, and we don't know how he'll be as the new leader of Labour. Certainly he'll be better than Corbyn because Corbyn was a complete arse, and with him at the helm they would never have got into power.
The Tories have fucked over the NHS? I don't think they have, and I think under Cameron they did OK. And getting back to my earlier point, he openly admits the way he regarded the NHS was changed for the better when his son died (I read Cameron's book
For The Record) . Another life-changing situation which changed someone's outlook on something very important, and very dear to the UK as a whole. I actually think the NHS needs radcial reform, but overall it will STILL need more money as a % of GDP, and the basic tenets should always remain the same, ie basically free care for all, at the point of delivery, whatever your means. Within those concrete bounds I think it can be made better and more financially accountable. The way Germany goes about things is perhaps a good example (those bloody Germans again
).
The BBC.
The truth is, that it needs to do and be a bit of both. But from time to time, it could do with re-calibrating. Very true, and I've said as much recently on here as you know, they're currently too preachy. A lot of that will be because of the Luvvie Tony Hall as Director General. Well he's going soon, so watch this space. Previous DGs have all put their mark on the BBC, Michael Chequebook (Checkland), John Birt, Thompson, Greg Dyke (gone too soon, and fucked over by a post-Iraq Blair/Campbell), the list goes on.
But just like the NHS, it needs to evolve to suit the modern day, but the vast majority I believe will want both of those because of what they stand for, and what they deliver.
