The BBC boat is not about to be rocked by its newly appointed Chairman; but the blame for which lies with a blustering, but backsliding & bottling Boris Johnson.
My latest for

"The BBC needs a chairman committed to demolishing its institutional groupthink. . . . . . .it isn't going to get one, thanks solely to the timidity & duplicity of Johnson and his flaccid government"
As pretty much confirmed by @Madz_Grant's perceptive sketch of the new BBC chairman's not so much grilling as gentle warming by an unthreatening DCMS Select Ctte.
https://t.co/LRmRlaJFpk
"He fluently deployed trendy corporate jargon and phrases like 'matrix of diversity'. The licence fee, he added, was the 'least-worst' model, although 'when we next get a chance to review ... it may be worth reassessing'."
Doesn't exactly suggest a radical reformer, does it?
Already clear from Maitlis' continued blatant editorialising, despite new #BBC CEO's instruction to curb it, that Davie's executive writ barely runs to his own office door.
Sadly, BBC's new chairman looks unlikely to change that.
#DefundTheBBC
https://t.co/IkYKDZqFf1
New BBC chair to DCMS Select Ctte: "Question Time seemed to have more Remainers than Brexiteers".
No 'seemed' about it. News-Watch survey established it was skewed 2:1 or more pro-Remain.
Oh, but it was still "incredibly balanced", apparently.
Judging by his first Commons 'grilling' (gentle thawing, more like) the new #BBC Chairman sees no reason to change anything in an organisation in dire need of reform:
ex-BBC journo and trenchant critic Robin Aitken.
https://t.co/ugZ0wkXD5w
Ex-BBC journo Robin Aitken knows whereof he speaks.
Anyone who hasn't read his "The Noble Liar: How and Why the BBC Distorts the News to Promote a Liberal Agenda" needs to, pronto.
#DefundTheBBC
https://t.co/qX3Kx3SBIS
‘In choosing Mr Sharp, a walking caricature of the Establishment, the Johnson government is signalling that it’s opting for a quiet life rather than conflict with the BBC.’
Spot-on, Robin Aitken at @spectator.
https://t.co/OfZwD94hWY>
Precisely. Blame for this is Johnson's alone
Have to wonder about @Telegraph leader writers.
On #BBC loss of trust & audience it says: 'papered over by the generosity of the licence fee payer'.
'Generosity'? FFS, it's an illiberal, regressive tax, levied by coercion on pain of fine or imprisonment.
https://t.co/3i7FMT8vf7

More from Government

This is a good piece on fissures within the GOP but I think it mischaracterizes the Trump presidency as “populist” & repeats a story about how conservatives & the GOP expelled the far-right in the mid-1960s that is actually far more complicated. /1

I don’t think the sharp opposition between “hard-edge populism” & “conservative orthodoxy” holds. Many of the Trump administration’s achievements were boilerplate conservatism. Its own website trumpets things like “massive deregulation,” tax cuts, etc. /2

https://t.co/N97v85Bb79


The claim that Buckley and “key GOP politicians banded together to marginalize anti-Communist extremism and conspiracy-mongering” of the JBS has been widely repeated lately but the history is more complicated. /3


This tweet by @ThePlumLineGS citing a paper by @sam_rosenfeld and @daschloz on the "porous" boundary between conservatives, the GOP and the far-right is relevant in this context.


This is a separate point but I find it interesting that Gaetz, like Roy Moore did In his failed Senate campaign, disses McConnell. What are their actual policy differences? MM supported taking health care away from millions, a tax cut for the rich, conservative judges, etc. /5

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