DAVID Keighley, TCW writer and former BBC producer, puts together some fascinating pieces born from decades of research and full of interesting stats, links and evidence with the odd interview thrown in now and then for good measure.
Me? I scream at the television and then write short pieces like this complaining about it. My gripe today is the terrible use of language employed by the BBC during this lockdown period and their new fad of explaining everything British with the word ‘UK’ in front of it. I’ll get to the latter in a bit.
Has anyone noticed that when BBC reporters talk about economic strife in today’s brave new world, they blame it on the virus? ‘Laura Ashley shutting down because of Covid-19 . . . Rolls-Royce culling 2,500 jobs because of Covid-19 . . . pubs and restaurants may face a bleak future, with some shutting their doors indefinitely because of the coronavirus.’ If you go on to the BBC website, you’ll find a ton of stories like this but if you don’t have a predilection for self-harm, it doesn’t matter – you’ll hear them on most channels and all over the radio.
‘No, no, no, no, no!! It’s not the virus that is causing economic disaster, it’s the bloody lockdown!’ I scream at the television every time this occurs, which seems to be every every hour of every day. A lockdown, might I add, that was completely unnecessary, as Michael Levitt, the Nobel Prize-winning professor from Stanford University said recently.
You will have read loads of stories on here and elsewhere on why the lockdown was unnecessary, but our voices have been drowned out by the happy-clapping mainstream and a government who cannot and will not admit to their mistakes.
As for the BBC’s pandering to their global audience, I’m finding that just as annoying as hearing that businesses are losing their money to a virus. Over the last few months (thought it might be longer than that), they have described, in articles on their site and in reports on the television, politicians in this country with ‘UK’ placed in front. Why do they need to do this? Those non-licence-fee-payers watching or listening from abroad might need a refresher to know that Boris Johnson is our PM or that the opposition is the UK’s Labour Party but the indigenous audience doesn’t. You know, the ones who are paying this ridiculous tax. I find they do it with finance too, explaining how much things cost in dollars or euros, adding pounds in parenthesis as a last thought.
Both these things make my blood boil and remind me, as if I needed reminding, that the BBC are vehemently anti-British and incredibly stupid to boot. Why oh why do I put myself through this?
