RIGHT you cheeky get, listen up, I’ve got an important announcement: Jim Royle is the saviour of the BBC.
That’s right cloth ears, Big Jim, king couch potato, ruler of the remote, the old nostril-mining, Bronx cheer champion himself.
King couch potato Jim Royle is the saviour of the BBC[/caption]
The BBC’s new chairman Samir Shah, a posh pampered southerner, has declared that the corporation has become a left-wing, woke-infested toffs’ club of posh[/caption]
It’s time for him to get off his fat arse and give those soft London types a piece of his bloody mind, the lazy sod.
Am I right, Barb?
Well, the BBC appears to think so.
Because its new chairman has declared that the corporation has become too much of a left-wing, woke-infested toffs’ club of posh, pampered southerners.
Dr Samir Shah CBE, a posh pampered southerner himself (West London private school, Oxford, millionaire), thinks it needs more working-class northerners on board.
He reckons the Beeb has sorted the whole ethnic mix thing — something Auntie used to regularly get her knickers in a twist about.
So it now requires “more diversity of thought . . . Frankly [it’s] the northern working class where we’re poor. That’s where the focus should be”.
In short, more Royles and fewer royals!
Wow. Talk about pennies dropping.
The BBC’s woeful lack of working-class insight has been a six-ton, flat-capped elephant in every room of Broadcasting House for donkey’s.
This is famously an organisation whose first ever “head of BBC North” commuted to his Salford office from . . . Richmond, West London.
It beggars belief that a body as vast and well-resourced as the BBC continues to have this blind spot for the 50 per cent of the country that thinks of itself as a working class.
And, of course, what little they do know, they really don’t like. Worried about immigration? You’re racist. Bit concerned about blokes in women’s bathrooms? You’re transphobic.
Not sure about self- appointed “community faith leaders” interfering in how your kids are taught? You’re Islamophobic.
Etc etc.
Shah’s recognition of this fact is also nothing new and amounts to the kind of re-spinning of an already stated position that sneaky politicians use to make them look busy.
Indeed, he said pretty much the same thing when he joined 12 months ago, and that was just after Ofcom had blasted the Beeb for stereotyping the working class as thick drunks.
So come on Samir Shah. That’s enough grand statements, it’s time to put your — sorry our — money where your mouth is.
The BBC’s £160,000-a-year chairman must not let this big strategy, like many that have come before it, wither on the vine.
There is a real danger that BBC departments will be all “yes boss”, invite Vernon Kay on to Question Time a couple of times, give Paddy McGuinness another show and then slip back into their old hardwired dismissive ways.
Box-ticking exercise
He must not let that happen. There is one area Shah could start with — somewhere the BBC could make a real difference to its representation of northern working-class people.
And that is in its comedy output.
If you were to compile a list of the best British TV comedies of all time it would likely be dominated by those depicting the lives of the northern working class.
The Royle Family, Bread, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Open All Hours, Last Of The Summer Wine, Making Out, The Likely Lads, Phoenix Nights, Early Doors.
What a gold-plated greatest hits that lot is — bona fide belly laffs served up with pathos by some of our most cherished northern actors: Ricky Tomlinson, Caroline Aherne, Jean Boht, James Bolam, Jimmy Nail, Margi Clarke.
I would happily junk all my streamer subscriptions for anything the BBC offered up that was even half as good.
The BBC’s woeful lack of working-class insight has been a six-ton, flat-capped elephant in every room of Broadcasting House for donkey’s
But where are their successors? There’s nowt much to laugh about now.
With the exception of some attempts at northern working-class comedy, like Alma’s Not Normal, BBC comedy these days is largely a box-ticking exercise aimed at a fantasy youth audience of mixed race, non-binary, woke warriors that simply does not exist.
It’s no wonder you never hear about these shows. Audiences are minuscule.
They have zero appeal to the majority of people forced to pay the licence fee.
They do not, unlike the great northern working-class comedies of old, tickle Britain’s collective funny bone.
Or as one famous telly addict would have it: “The BBC? Comedy? My arse!”
SHOTS A DEAD CERT
Double murderer Brad Sigmon was executed by a firing squad in the US last week after he said he didn’t fancy being ‘burned and cooked alive’[/caption]
THE SAS call it the “double tap”. Two shots fired in quick succession, ideally at the heart or the head.
Get them on target and it’s goodnight Vienna.
Special forces like a double tap as it is a very effective way of killing.
So when three prison employees fired at a bullseye placed over double murderer Brad Sigmon’s heart in the US last week, they knew they had a pretty good chance of quickly ending his life.
And so they did.
Sigmon was allowed to choose the firing squad after he said he didn’t fancy being “burned and cooked alive” in the electric chair or dying in agony by lethal injection.
Of course, as with all executions, many decided this method was “barbaric”.
But is it?
The problem with the death penalty is once you’ve decided who gets it, you then have to actually do it.
And most methods are flawed, as Sigmon, who in 2001 beat his then-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat, knew only too well.
Hanging, outlawed in Britain in 1965, is also problematic, often resulting in a long, slow strangulation.
It is for this reason that while I, along with 55 per cent of Brits, agree with the death penalty in theory – and only for the most calculating villains such as Southport killer Axel Rudakubana – I disagree in practice.
But what if Death Row only ever ended with the firing squad?
Unnecessary suffering is not pretty, so the condemned should be executed as quickly and painlessly as possible.
And a bullet – or three – through the heart does seem to be the best way of ensuring that.
The Circus of Nightmares
AS a regular visitor to Old Trafford, I was pleased to see Man United’s plans to flatten the current urine-drenched stadium and build a new one.
Fans were quick to spot its vast umbrella design made it look like a giant big top.
And if our clown-ish form doesn’t improve by the time it’s opened in 2030, the fabled Theatre of Dreams could soon turn into . . . The Circus of Nightmares.
NICE TRY, INFLUENCER, BUT YOU’VE BOOBED
SOCIAL media is an even bigger minefield of lies these days.
I’m forever trying to work out what’s real and what’s been created by the now ubiquitous AI.
Thankfully, some scams are easier than others to spot.
I stumbled on this eye-popping account on Instagram and it didn’t take me long to work out that this “digital influencer” was just a cynical computer creation.
There was, as you can tell, an obvious giveaway – no woman I’ve ever met has had skin that flawless.
SAVE A BUCK, HOYLE
Pompous ‘Speaker of the House’ Sir Lindsay Hoyle has been blowing Lottery-winnings sums on extravagant trips[/caption]
I HAVE a simple rule in life: Never trust anyone who loves the sound of their own voice.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle is the latest pillock to confirm my theory. The pompous “Speaker of the House” – not half! – has been revealed as a serial abuser of the public purse after jetting around the world on business-class flights.
“Long-haul Lindsay”, as he is now known, blew Lottery-winnings sums on his extravagant trips.
But why on Earth does a bloke whose sole job – beyond being MP for a small town in Lancashire – is to oversee the rabble in Parliament have to travel the globe so frequently?
Well, according to his spokesman, he “has a responsibility to explain and promote the work of the House”.
OK, well if he must, but how about this for a cheaper solution . . .
Just send every country that needs to catch up a copy of this comprehensive book, recently updated and currently on sale in the Houses Of Parliament shop for just £35.99.
FLIGHT STRIPES
White Stripes frontman Jack White has been saying nice things about our country as he tours Britain with his band, how refreshing[/caption]
CELEBRITY Instagram accounts are eminently avoidable – typically a blizzard of ads for things they never use or general boasting about their unattainable lifestyles.
But I’ve been enjoying the recent snaps from White Stripes frontman Jack White as he tours Britain with his latest band.
So far we’ve had observations from a train travelling from Birmingham to Glasgow and a plane nerd selfie, from the RAF Museum.
How refreshing to have an American say nice things about our wonderful country for a change.
More, please.
