BBC or 2 Bs and a C means failure

According to sacked BBC presenter Graham Danton, who was dismissed instantly a few weeks ago after 20 years service, he had, since February 2009 been;

“Forbidden to talk about politics, crime, immigration, religion, the EU, Islam and health matters and was even forbidden from talking about the number of mice killed each year by domestic cats for fear of causing offence to cat owners.”

Graham Danton was 77 years of age, an experienced newspaper journalist, writer, Master Mariner and weather forecaster and he was sacked from BBC Radio Devon, which is part of the very same “ South West region” as are BBC Jersey and Guernsey.

His ex- listeners have been complaining from all over England and some even from overseas at his summary dismissal which he blamed on a post Jonathen Ross and Russel Brand pretext to suppress anything challenging throughout the BBC.
Danton had “ highlighted the uncomfortable topics of the day” and so had to be removed from the airwaves and Terry Gilham was also apparently moved in the same purge.

Local newspapers in Devon have been full of letters of support for Graham Danton but an official complaint sent through the BBC received a typically dismissive response on 8th April and the great organ of public broadcasting declined to say how many had actually complained.

Of course a great many listeners complained in Devon newspapers about the BBC’s ever increasing control over freedom of expression through its presenters and this was typical;

“The BBC is a beast that is out of control. No longer happy to just deliver the news in an impartial unbiased way, they now want to control it. What they can’t control they now have to shut off. What a blow for free speech.”

Another wrote;

“There is a cull going on throughout the BBC of presenters who all have views, thoughts and comments which go against what the BBC hierarchy do not want to hear.”

If all this sounds familiar to BBC Jersey listeners and viewers then we should not be at all surprised because the orders come from London and the likes of Denzil Dudley and his team are hardly likely to resist them – certainly not in order to defend such novel notions as free speech and expression. You only have to listen to any Jersey phone-in or Talkback to realize that the trigger finger is already poised to silence anybody who dares to express a dissenting voice and criticism of the BBC itself results in “virtual exile”.

Unfortunately, since old auntie BBC was gutted during the Iraq war and the infamous “Today” programmes which dared to challenge Prime Minister B. Liar and his spinners – the whole organization has been reduced to a spineless ghost of its former self and remedies and effective complaints are reserved for the likes of Frank Walker who have shafted themselves in front of millions – yet are influential enough to elicit some sort of apology.

For the plebs - aka the licence paying general public – such remedies are just an illusion. There is of course absolutely no point in complaining locally about local standards and the “national” complaints centre in Glasgow is so submerged in complaints that you will be lucky (!) even to receive a reply.

Beyond that, it is almost impossible to penetrate the broadcasting “Fort Knox” that is British Broadcasting. Everybody but everybody on the BBC Website hides behind a myriad of FAQs and endless pages of totally pointless and irrelevant information with virtually no named individuals and no means of actually contacting them.

It seems that even the almost useless local “listeners panels” have been disbanded!

So, if you had wondered how it was that Brigitte and the cat lovers’ party came to control the BBC – well now you know. And if you have any desire to express contrary points of view and to defend the free expression of ideas, then protest and blog with all your might whilst you can, because you can be sure that this facility will be curtailed too, just as soon as all the Graham Dantons have been silenced.

Submitted by Thomas Wellard