SUBMISSION TO CONSULTATION ON BBC

AUSTIN MITCHELL,former MP Grimsby Former presenter 24 Hours and Midweek.Former Chair All Party Parliamentary Media Group 

This submission is made on a priori grounds rather than answers for the specific questions posed .These  are for more expert evaluation by audience researchers programme makers and viewers.. The  issue should be decided on grounds of principle rather than niggling quibbles on side issues.

The central purpose of both the financial arrangements for the BBC and the charter renewal decisions  must be to defend and maintain the public service role of the corporation That public service role is defined in the charter.It should not  be  viewed as a requirement to do only serious public service and minority programmes. There is an important audience for these and the BBC provides more of them than any other organisation but if it becomes the only or main form of provision by the BBC audiences will fall This will then become an argument for reducing the licence fee on the grounds that the corporation is not serving all the people.

So let us be clear.The duty of the BBC is quality. That means the provision of  quality programmes of all kinds and the maintenance of high standards at all levels of provision and in all areas of competition.It follows therefore that the B BC should compete at every level whether it be news,current affairs,drama ,entertainment,24 hour news and political coverage  right down to internet news and information for mobile phones.

The basis of quality  is money  The basis of diversity is a wide pool  of funding from public revenues through advertising to subscription.There is a public responsibility to provide public money as we do through the licence fee for the following reasons:-

1) Pigs which swill in the same trough produce the same shit.Total dependence on commercial provision drives standards down to lowest common denominator level unless there is both effective regulation and  quality competition from a provider which is not commercially funded .

2) The pool of advertising revenues is not big enough to support the BBC or parts of the BBC like Radios 1 and 2 and BBC One as well as commercial television newspapers etc. .It is already being drained by Google and the internet taking more advertising revenue than ITV but producing little in Britain in return. If the pool had to carry the BBC as well it would lead to cheap jack telly all round 

3) It is surely the responsibility of the state to ensure that for the three or four hours all of us spend watching television in the day  we get the best quality not a deluge of  mindless rubbish  and tatty entertainment. 

4) Public funding, the root of the difference between the BBC and commercial competitors, must be at a level which allows quality to be maintained in all the areas of competition The best judge of the level of funding required has to be the BBC itself and not self appointed experts, outsiders who feel that the BBC should be restricted to narrower fields of provision and certainly not commercial competitors who want the field to be left free for them to boost their profits and audiences. By the same token the decision on what areas competition is most necessary an d where the BBC can provide quality competition to maintain  or improve standards is best left to the Corporation itself.That means the BBC must be more open and honest about how it spends its money and how much each service costs

To this end it is worrying that the enquiry team appointed to advise the minister is heavily loaded by representatives of vested interests,and critics of the BBC but does not include representatives of the Universities, the media studies field or actual viewers and that the minister himself has a history of  supporting Murdoch interests .No one ca have faith in media judgements made by anyone who could be portrayed as Murdoch's man

None of this is to argue that the BBC should be to indulge in imperialistic impulses and expand into areas where it cannot provide quality competition.Nor should it have have free licence  to waste public money. The big pay-offs for retiring executives  and the excessive fees paid to many presenters are a scandal which the BBC should never have sanctioned Yet the latter are also a product of competition particularly for talent witness the departure of Peston to ITV. Here we have a pattern of the BBC breeding talent only too have it lured away by ITV or Prime which indicates that the corporation is being responsible.

.The same holds true of football rights but unless the government is prepared to lay down pay guidelines and require a wider range of access to "national treasures" the only safeguard is a requirement to publish all top payments.By the same token the BBC should be fully open to the national audit office and the Public Accounts Committee. This is public money which should be safeguarded.

The licence fee is a clumsy (and now expensive)way of funding the BBC thiugh it compares well with the high subscriptions for Sky or Prime.It can hardly be made voluntary like them because subscriptions would be fall and the burden needs to be spread over the widest possible population. Yet it could be made easier by monthly payments through standing order or direct debits for those with bank accounts and  monthly stamps for those without

The only alternative I could envisage is a proposal made by the Fabian Society in the early eighties that the fee should be levied like the rats on all households and business premises. This is however a political decision but it is neither honest nor reasonable  to lump financing of free licences to the over 75s (which is properly a social security charge)and the costs of World Service (formerly paid by the Foreign Office) on to the BBC and then argue that the licence fee is too high.

Nor is it legitimate  to argue that parts of the licence fee should be creamed off for other purposes whether they be supporting our ailing local television stations, providing revenue for Channel Four  or any other purposes each of which should its own agreed funding rather than draining off money meant for the BBC and nothing b ut the BBC We should learn lessons from New Zealand where the licence fee was frozen, quality deteriorated and fewer specialised or public concern programmes were done and this was then used as an excuse for abolishing the ,licence fee altogether

Assuming that the licence fee continues, as it probably will, the base figure should be agreed in open and unpressured negociations with government and the  cases on each side published in advance for public debater rather than by the bullying approach adopted in 2010 and 2015. Once the basic fee is agreed it should also be increased in line with inflation on an annual basis for as ten year period to give the BBC predictable budgets. 

In these negociations the government must be required to publish its objections to the fee and BBC provision and the BBC must publish an honest analysis of the scale of cuts which would be made necessary by each level of the licence fee.so that the consequences of the agreed decision are made absolutely clear.  The most worrying part of the present debate is the unstructured slinging off at various parts of the BBC, the generalised complaints and the benefits of each service threatened.

As long as the debate is based on generalised grumbles,and sneers, the anxieties of competitors and the desire to cut public spending of all kinds on one side and exaggerated  fears about the undermining or even destruction of BBC local radio and TV (areas where competition is particularly valuable which are  of particular interest to MPs) the loss of BBC 4 (important for quality provision and minority programmes) or the slashing of internet news (invaluable to mobile  phone users )it is neither honest nor useful. This decision has to be rational and its consequences must be clear if the public is to have  confidence in either the proceedings or the final decision. 

  Austin Mitchell, Grimsby 5 October 2015

Classifying class

The prevailing mythology, aimed at taking the teeth out of the Labour Party is that class is dead. Evidently we're all classless now even if many of us don't know it. Society is more fragmented and pluralistic,jobs more diverse,class feelings dead. All that counts is economic differences of wealth and income and those who describe themselves as working or middle class are stuck in the past when both Labour and the Conservatives pose as one nation parties.

Reality is different.You'd have to be blind or David Cameron to think that a society which has become less and less equal and generated such extremes of wealth and poverty is one nation and classless. The simplest division is the best.There are in fact three broad classes namely:-

The toppers, A small arborial  group at the top of every tree This includes the famous one percent plus the top professionals, executives and politicians all characterised by wealth and or incomes much greater than they need,by power an d in some cases privilege

The stake holders who have through job, property education and income a stake in society,large in some cases, small in others

The Deprived. Those at the bottom who struggle financially from day to day and week to weak, who have no real stake,live in rented property and, when employed low paid casual employment with no security.

The boundaries between the three are blurred but the differences are clear Stakeholders have  control over their own destinies, the deprived very little.The toppers can leave the country and take their money with them The stakeholders enjoy a better and more settled life and the deprived sit on the fringe of everything.The toppers are few, the stakeholders far more numerous and the deprived  perhaps as numerous as a fifth or a third of society.They're poor,most relatively ,some absolutely.

That's the new sociology Q.E.D

.

The great change of recent decades has been that the differences, once eroding have grown sharper the distances greater , the deprived more numerous and rising out of depravation more difficult.Globalisation  threatens the   jobs  of the deprived with immigration outshoreing and mechanisation.This means that we are no longer one nation felling and acting together but groups pulled apart mainly by the fact that the stakeholders who once felt confident and secure now feel threatened and interpret the deprived as a threat, different people from them who have failed through their own inadequacies. Indeed some even see them as to be blamed for their state because they've lost the will to work and become conditioned to a life of idleness by benefits and welfare. Idleness is a choice not an imposition So cutting benefits is an altruistic gesture to he,p them.

Which is Labour's problem. It has the support of the deprived but they are also more demoralised less political and less likely to either organise or vote because they don't see politics as a way of alleviating their condition. Labour can reach to the stakeholders  but only by appealing to a diminishing sense of altruism and concern and its efforts to do this are hampered by the identification many stakeholders have come to feel with the Toppers.

It's an illusion for there is a wide gap of wealth and power between them but many have come to see the prospect of more progressive taxation and higher top rates as a threat to them ,a competitive exchange rate as a threat to their holidays and  their accumulation of  possessions ,a big building programme as a threat to their house prices and help for the deprived as a tax on them. 

That's Labour's problem.  The new society  makes it far harder for the party to reach up than it is for the Tories to reach down It's harder to sell policies of national regeneration and equality (as distinct from fighting poverty)because they inconvenience the stakeholders.Much easier to sell populist policies like rising house prices,an overvalued pound and cuts in benefits and public spending which impose the pain on someone else even if they perpetuate the long decline. 

CORBYN: THE HORRORSCOPE

The pundittieri aren't sure what to make of Jeremy. After the worst receptioon given to any leader since Aethelred the Unready they had to  give his conference speech a grudging thumbs half way up while quibbling that part of it was written in the eighties. Having to accept that he's installed and hasn't put his prick in a passing pig's head for two weeks they now have to turn their attacks to the future and claim that there'll be a revolt led by Tristram Hunt's hair stylist in weeks, then chaos as the PLP votes against his every policy  and support's Cameron's crazy plan to bomb more Syrians (preferably in Calais to save drone time) as well as the most expensive nuclear plant in the world. Finally they assure us he won't last until the election while hedging their bets by saying if he does he can't win.

Labour Party members wondering if they should commit suicide now or take a pick axe to Corbyn's head shouting "No to Trotsky and Junker" should wait because the lads are only writing what their bosses want them to.They don't really mean it 

They assume that Osborne economics are going to work and lead to the steady growth necessary to pay off the deficit and cut taxes. They won't unless Osborne steals some of Labour's programme  like a big build of social housing  and a national investment bank. By their failure to regulate the banks and finance Osbornomics could  lead to another crisis like 2008

They assume that Corbyn won't grow to the job when in fact he's already making the transfer from permanent oppositionist to leader compromising on policies to hold the party together.

They assume that the refuseniks will either go into a permanent sulk and alienation  or opt for wrecking when in fact the threat to their careers will lead them to comp[romise and Labour won't tolerate disruption

They assume that an alternative leader is available Yet those who stood against him then sulked have busted their own flushes and the new electoral system is unlikely to elect a Brutus if Caesar is assassinated. Labour isn't an Australian party which likes regular spills. We tend to be loyal to our leaders.

They assume that if the rank and file get more power over policy it will be too extreme for the voters. In fact the rank and file want to be heard not to control. It's still up to the PLP to moderate policy to suit the electorate though they will have to be less cowardly conformist and deferential to Tory policies in the vain efforts to make themselves respectable

Conclusion;-the pundits and the media should bide their time and stop hatching their chickens before they've even laid the eggs.Wait and see is better than shout and hope