Things You May Not Know About the BBC

May 22, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Entertainingly over 50 “presenters” and “hosts” are paid more than Gordoom. Although to be fair this number would increase if the One Eyed Son Of The Manse received his justified salary of an abrupt dark-alleyway payoff only involving one of those silenced Humane Destroyers that they use on horses.

And to also be reasonable you can’t really accuse Jonathan Woss of stuffing up the economy of an entire country. Being paid millions to have a lisp and a silly haircut is about all you can justifiably pin on the bloke. Oh, and being an arse too. But that’s about it. Cameron will still get paid much less to sort out McBroon’s mess when the bottler finally drinks the whisky and takes the pearl-handled revolver to his study. And Cameron doesn’t even have a moat or a croquet lawn.

More interestingly, most parts of the BBC are specifically and deliberately excluded from the Freedom Of Information Act (FOI) despite the fact that us taxpayers pay their salaries. If a request goes in under the FOI then it can be turned down easily. Even Jacqui Smith isn’t allowed to blag that one but it is quite a catch-all for our state propaganda-trumpet.

This means that you can ask Gordoom which button he has Nick Robinson on speed-dial and get an FOI answer but you can’t ask Nick Robinson the reverse question.

Bold italics mine directly from the FOI Act. Bold brackets for personal emphasised rage.

“The Act recognises the different position of the BBC, as well as the other public service broadcasters covered by the Act (Channel 4 (taxpayer funded), S4C and the Gaelic Media Service (who on earth?)) by providing that it covers information “held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. This means that the Act does not apply to material held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output (TV, radio, online etc), or material which supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.”

Yep – so whatever we don’t want to tell you, Sunshine. Walk along. Nothing to notice here.

The sooner the telly-tax is abolished the better for democracy and fairness.