In my lifetime the BBC has gone from respected across the world to something, underhanded, coercive and deceptive! This is true for all our institutions!
The Media in general have morphed into one big Cartel. Britain is a small Island and it's easy to control the masses and they do it very convincing. Masters of bluff, ilussion and BS.
But what about BBC pidgin though? They put so much effort into English with a bad generic ‘African’ accent… I agree, the BBC should lose its mandate of impartiality and we should no longer be coerced into paying the licence fee.
@4evaavfc Savile committed more grooming crimes than all the grooming gangs. There were prolific white grooming gangs too, not to mention dozens of MPs. But some people only talk about Muslims. Villa are a shit team btw
I agree, I read the book by one of the victims “ I never gave my consent “ a harrowing read. The bbc brushed it under the carpet and hid it away, absolutely disgraceful!
@johnwright9372 For the past fifteen years I have scarcely consumed a single item of content of ANY kind from the legacy broadcast and print media in Britain. Got rid of my TV thirty years ago anyway, but I was a regular Radio 4 listener and (mostly) Guardian reader; now, I keep broadly abreast of things via a wide array of independent US and British journalists and commentators on RU-vid.
@@Blog4JusticeYes, I have had a similar experience. I gave up on the BBC TV news ten years ago. I moved to Radio 4 and LBC and gave up on both fairly quickly. The betrayal of Mark Steyn by the GB News management disgusted me. Now, as you write, the new media online is proving surprisingly satisfactory and clearly, in time, those various outlets will bury the 'legacy media'.
@@frasersutherland1834 Yes, I like Mark Steyn too: l became familiar with him when I was following Trump's presidency. I have never been convinced enough by GB News to even bother subbing the channel (and still less LBC).
The BBC has become a voice for the Guardian. The Guardian has a very low subscription rate and keeps asking for funding. Without the compulsory licence fee the BBC would be a fringe outlet like the Guardian. The only hope for the BBC long term is a clean out of the Woke types and it should become less politicised.
I never watch BBC news. Mostly always GB News which is far more truthful and unbiased. Listening to truth is a lifeline. Inbibing rubbish can have a serious effect on one's life and even one's health.
GOOD!!! I love to read about people who haven't a clue so are disgusted after watching something they don't like so to watch again to be disgusted 🤦♂🤦♂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@leaguefan7640 You’re really a bit of a plonker, aren’t you. You don’t work for the BBC by any chance. You WANT the media to be a propaganda outlet?? What exactly is your position? Because you seem to think this is all so very funny
I've stopped paying mine - that won't kill it though. When enough people stop paying, the government will simply devise a new funding model. They'll probably stick it on the utility bills as several European countries do. If that situation occurs, the BBC at least won't be as smug as it is now - it will likely be much reduced in scope as well.
@@dazjackson1972over 400,000 have got rid of their TV licence think that is having an effect as the BBC are considering changes and possibly not having a license.
Finally somebody made the comment that the BBC never investigates working class life. Its been known since the 1990's that its never looked at anything to do with that. So much has gone unreported. I also always knew that the BBC never reported on that segment of society. I completely agree the BBC needs reformed.
An important, thoughtful and honest conversation. High time that the social engineering mentality that has overtaken the BBC and done harm to the standard and reputation of Journalism was examined and discussed. Thank you, Robin and Lee.
Well said, the BBC has outlasted its usefulness. I am tired of being force fed a diet of Life according to the (dubious) morals of the BBC. It should be defunded immediately.
Oh do get a life - The BBC has infiltrated so much of modern day uk society that it is virtually impossible to avoid their sanctimonious diatribe. As I mentioned - they should be de-funded immediately. They no longer represent or stand for the majority of the UK population.@@bobjames6622
Robin said; that immigration makes for a healthy society. Was society 'unhealthy' for a thousand years until, say, 1960 ? And did immigration really make us healthier over those next 50 years?
@@SlowhandGreg Not true. Read Eva M. Hubback's "The Population of Britain", published in 1947, just before the 1948 Nationality Act opened the floodgates to mass immigration.
@SlowhandGreg the UK has indeed had a level of immigration over the years. However it has had to absorb the same amount of combined immigration for the past 2000 years in just 20 years. This is leading to ghetto-isation and low trust society.
@@jumblestiltskin1365 My advice is that when someone like Greg comes out with 'We've always had immigration' you are just going to have to leave him to explain to his grandchildren that he didn't realise how dumb he had been.
All of this also applies to the CBC in Canada. It has been painful to witness the withering of an institution that once brought calm, balanced coverage of news, as well as creative and humorous original programming. It's been a decade since I've listened or watched.
True that. What was EVER good about the CBC is no longer. I'd miss some of it but never turn it on anymore. Watching the coverage of the trucker convoy was the last straw. It's very offensive that 'CANADA'S CBC 'NEWS' would misrepresent that time, the way it did.
They have an agenda to support. The bbc received 300m from kill gates pre 2020. How unbiased is that? Don’t get me started about Canada! Another crying shame watching Trudeau invite nazis in to chambers and STILL keeping his job? Corrupt to the core.
I'm Canadian too and I completely agree with you about the CBC. It has long since become a woke joke offering nothing but leftist propaganda on what it markets as "news". It is unwatchable and I really resent having my tax dollars going toward subsidizing it.
From affection and respect for the BBC, years ago, my consumption of BBC content, TV or Radio has gone down to zero over the past few years. (apart from occasional 1980s episodes of Top of the Pops on RU-vid!) I used to be an avid listener of the Today Programme, World at One and PM but don't touch any of it nowadays and - sad to say - I feel a lot better for it. I wish it were not so, I wish the BBC could recover its footing but I'm sceptical.
Whenever I turn on Radio 4, I usually hear one or more of the following: An American woman talking about feminism and the gender pay-gap Someone talking about trans-rights, racism, or praising Hamas, denigrating Israel Calling Trump a Nazi, telling us there is a climate crisis Praising Sadiq Kahn and ULEZ, etc. Of course, I switch off immediately
As a working class kid in the 60’s, I found the BBC reasonably relatable, but rather middle class. As a by now senior citizen, I can’t relate at all to most of the output, because of its current obsessions and manic catering to the liberal/cosmopolitan under 40’s. Robin has nailed it with the Super-Liberalism tag. Try any of recent Archers’ storylines, for the latest BBC thinking.
To finish off the BBC make it a subscription channel, Guardian readers alone will not keep it afloat . Regrettably the BBC did a great propaganda service for the government during the lockdown era and are being rewarded for that .
During the Brexit era the BBC held numerous outside broadcasts, always within ear shot of Steve Bray shouting 'Stop Brexit' at the top of his voice. Steve Bray was the voice of the BBC they couldn’t bring into the studio. Why did the BBC picked up on the death of George Floyd (just one of hundreds of deaths in America every day) and run with it the way they did? The speed of the take up was astonishing, as if phone calls had been made saying ‘this is the one’ very, very fishy indeed.
The BBC latched onto the George Floyd 'murder' because it was another very usefull tool to further its lefteing cause.The whole BLM cause was an insult to the British people and it has now been exposed for the 'con' that it is.The 'death' of that crook and the subsequent imprisonment of the policeman involved has now been shown to have been a miscarriage of justice .I await with baited breath for the BBC to be reviled for its behaviour and the backing it gave to that criminal organisation.
Also, the George Floyd thing happened during lockdown when common sense had gone out the window and we were cowed at home under threat of punishment. Strange, strange times, definite feeling that the whole thing was being orchestrated.
A word about Mr Hall. I appreciate that Robin Aitken is something of a perfect interviewee (just light the blue touchpaper and let him go....), but I thought Lee was masterful. Completely non-intrusive, you hardly knew he was there. As a result we had a chance to hear Mr Aitken's views in full, rather than an argument. Celebrity interviewers take note!
Sound many interviewers mistakenly believe they are in a 'conversation'.. But it is sometimes good to be devil's advocate so the interviewee can expand their point.
@@johnwright9372 It applies to all the main political parties, Lib/Lab/Con alike.The introduction of a presumption of shared parenting following separation or divorce would be an obvious first step towards repairing the damage, but that won't happen any time soon. Family law is so biased in favour of women that nothing will change until men start boycotting marriage and cohabitation en masse, and the growth of MGTOW over the past fifteen years has set the example for this.
Robin, thank you for your views. I am right behind you. You speak the truth. How I would like you to be in charge of the BBC. God bless yuou for speaking out. Fr. Francis Maple, the Singing Friar MBE
I was truly shocked by the BBC's reporting over the recent attack on Israel and have come to the conclusion this self appointed ministry of truth needs retiring 😕
I got rid of my Television an year ago, because I had not watched ANY of it for at least 10 years. I used to be a licence holder, but I have declared to them that I do not require it, nor will I need it in the future.
The demise of the BBC and many other formerly sound beacons of news dissemination is why outlets such as this are so important. Thank you for an interview with such a wise individual.
Excellent interview. After a lifetime of loving the BBC, I came to really dislike & distrust it few years ago. Nowadays I simply don't watch BBC news & current affairs (and I suppose I hardly watch or listen to The BBC at all.) BTW Why is the interviewer dressed as a Lib Dems party leader?
No diversity of thought or class. The BBC ought to be defunded. I resent having to pay for it under the threat of the law. For my generation this is so upsetting..at nearly 70 I was brought up with Auntie Beeb.
The way all interviews should be handled. The interviewer poses a question and then leaves the guest to answer it fully. I've enjoyed all the ones I've seen here.
The BBCs coverage of the Brexit debate highlighted the awful bias of the BBC towards staying in the EU & that bias continues into so much of their lazy journalism Newsnight is a case in point where the interviewers are just aggressive & now irrelevant to informing the country on important issues in an unbiased way
I only clicked on this because I've been held hostage by the BBC for 20 odd years obliged not to watch any of their products, I used to work for them, I have family allegiance to Canada and I see them popping up their heads saying they're world authorities on this and that and they look stupid.
In 13 years in power, the Tories have never made life remotely uncomfortable for the BBC. One simple way would have been to ask them about how representative they are of today's UK. Ask them, what proportion of their 21,000 Employees are Conservative Voters or Brexit Voters, or aged over 50......ask them if they have more than 3% of their staff identify as Gay, and if so why is that number so big....ask them why most of their newsreaders are from Minorities etc etc etc.. But....the Tories have failed, as they have with everything since 2010. TO make matters worse, the BBC has lost 25% of its audience this past 20 years....yet are to be rewarded with a higher Licence Fee. Only in Britian is failure rewarded.
Stopped paying my licence fee about 3 years ago now. Honestly ignoring the barrage of daily woke politics its just not value for money compared to the multitude of far superior and cheaper streaming services.
The BBC as gone woke, they no longer employ the best person for the job but how woke you are. I used to watch the BBC for my news but no longer. They still produce fantastic nature programmes but news no thanks.
Mr. Aitkin, I have very much enjoyed hearing your thoughts, today, and, in this chaotic world, they are very much needed. I agree with you about the BBC, and the same is true of NYT and public broadcasting in the US. Since a teen many decades ago, my self selected outlets were my public stations because of the thought provoking and inspirational content and I can readily say those stations have shaped me in a good way, and, because of that, their teaching me "how" to think, I can now say that they have, now, gone astray and they have changed to the point I would call them pablum. Somehow they need a come to Jesus moment, but, when they are truly impartial and serve to inform, they are a public good which all the public should support so I disagree with your thoughts on the license fees. We all should support public schools and its the same with public broadcasting because there are already a surfeit of partisan channels out there. But yes, they truly need reform and that can only come with a huge change in staff. ... I agree, too, that the breakdown of family is fundamental to the mess kids are in, as are the negative effects of social media. .... I also want to suggest that you think of something else that is intrinsic to the problems we have and that is the "completely necessary" wrench we had to have to lead women out of bondage from the world structure you, and to some degree, I, miss. This movement we "had" to have for women's rights , though necessary, was misdirected from the beginning and there was the genesis for the weeds in the trends we see today. But, the need for "the" wrench was due to the world order so bordered by the "shaping of religion" through the "human and power driven" aspects that women were treated almost as slaves and subordinated to their husbands and which was then institutionalized in our governments. ....but I do thank God that Western women rebelled and the tragedy is that it was necessary to begin with and so much of that need was caused by religion as it was appropriated by males to cement their power! ....and, now, what Western women should be alert to, today, is the intrusion, through mass migration, of the elements that would water down and erode those hard won gains that have had such a beneficial effect on society as well as the negative effects of the penetration of our institutions by a hyper liberal group that is shaping society to the detriment of all and we are producing a generation divorced from reality as you described in your story as a young journalist exposed to the dirty, rough lives of some of the working class people. ...the threads are many and are in such a relentless tangle that we are, only now, seeing how we need to find the origins and get the knots out. ....I very much enjoyed your thoughtful and concerned comments!!!
I am not remotely concerned about pornography made by consenting adults for consenting adults. Monitoring what children have access to is the business of parents. I am very concerned at Orwellian Newspeak from Ofcom and the BBC.
Agreed, and it strikes me that Mr Aitken is of the samepuld of state intervention as the rest of the BBC he used to work for. Such censorship would never work without dragging up a whole host of forseen and unforseen consequences, which Mr Aitken hasn't given thought to. It's a parent's job to monitor what their child sees on the Internet, not the state, and it's none of anyone else's business if am adult watches something made by consenting adults.
This interview touches on a subject that is never seen on any news media over the past two decades that today is of major concern throughout the country. We often hear and see the problem of homelessness. Yet nobody ever investigates one of the main reasons for it. In 2000, the then government coerced councils to transfer their entire housing stock to so- called not for profit housing trusts. This ended the post- war policy of municipal housing, and the housing and maintenance departments that serviced them. People could walk in from the street to make an application for a tenancy. This also included emergency cases. Council managed housing even continued after the 1982 Right to Buy Scheme. Like all major policy changes the effects are often only seen many years later Ironically the 2010-15 government wrote off the hundreds of millions borrowed by the so- called housing trusts to purchase the housing stocks 20 years ago.
We have all known this to varying degrees for years, I guess now he's got his pension he has suddenly grown a pair and decided to start squeeking about it 🙄
They have had their chance to be reformed for years. They now need to be closed down. If the Tories don't do it the left wing Labour Party will certainly not do it. It would appear that the Tories have lost their chance.
The BBC will always exist in some form, all governments will continue to ensure it does. It's always been the favoured tool for propaganda dissemination.