BY PAUL T HORGAN Well, it’s not exactly a George Floyd moment. This isn’t the case of a Minneapolis cop blocking the airway of a repeat serious felon caught passing counterfeit dollar bills, the last minutes of Floyd’s life captured from the single perspective of a smartphone camera. The public outcry over the recent shooting in the same city has been limited to the ideologically … Continue reading A Tragedy Not An Outrage
BY JOHN MUSGRAVE The final act of growing up, psychiatrists tell us, is to take responsibility for yourself. Children who never grow up, including sociopaths and the intellectually enfeebled will always blame circumstances and events. Never do they accept that what has happened is down to them. It’s always someone else’s fault. Two examples prove this point. Look at the government and the BBC. Far … Continue reading Persons Responsible
BY PAUL T HORGAN In all the furore following the revelation that senior BBC executives can’t get away with slandering the President of the USA without being forced to resign their jobs, it does seem as though people have forgotten that the BBC is stuffed to the gills with media professionals skilled at spinning a news story to their advantage. People may be excused this … Continue reading BBC DARVO
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN It is a peculiar truth of our age that the most ancient of threats now wears the mask of progress. The air, once thick with the honest grime of industry, now carries a new and more insidious smog, a vapour of ideas which, if inhaled for long enough, breeds a profound and willing blindness. One detects its presence in the lecture halls, … Continue reading The Spectre in the Fields
BY ROGER WATSON I have almost given up on late-night comedy on BBC Radio 4. In fact, I have almost given up on the station entirely. The news is biased, and the comedy—studiously avoiding the tripwires of the woke and hypersensitive—is rarely funny. One of my favourite programmes used to be Dead Ringers, the topical satirical impressions show fronted by Jon Culshaw. Some of the impressions … Continue reading Comedy in a Time of Compliance
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN One notices, if one pays attention at all, that we have entered an era where the superlative has murdered the substantive. Where once we measured statements by their truth, we now appraise them by their capacity to startle. A headline declaring ‘Tax Policy Revised’ gathers dust; ‘Minister Claims Eating Cold Beans ‘Worse Than Welfare Cuts’ in Tone-Deaf LBC Interview’ goes viral. It is against this … Continue reading Why I Am Cutting Off My Penis
BY PAUL T HORGAN By late April 1945, there was no hope for the relief of Berlin by German forces. The irony was that the Nazi capital held little strategic significance in the war, with one obvious exception. The fall of Berlin would not alter Germany’s fortunes, apart from the fact that this fall would eliminate Germany’s current leadership, a leadership that refused to bring … Continue reading End Times Orgy at the BBC
BY PAUL T HORGAN The annual number of murders in the UK appears to always be between 500 and 600 these days. What can be said with a degree of certainty is that the overwhelming majority of the murderers will be male. Female murderers are exceptional. Females lack the strength and the aggression to kill another adult human being, especially if that adult is a … Continue reading Why The Public Can No Longer Trust BBC News
BY JOHN NASH Recently, under the somewhat misleading banner of BBC News “Inside Science” (I kid you not, Dear Reader), we were treated to another pokey finger of hypocrisy courtesy of some Bash Britain Corporation (BBC) Radio 4 presenter or other. It was a piece about that much decorated monkey wench, Dame Jane Goodall, warning us that “The sixth great extinction is happening.” Will someone … Continue reading Monkey Business – The Real Jane Goodall
BY ALEXIA JAMES Gary Lineker’s departure from BBC’s Match of the Day at the end of the 2024-2025 Premier League season marks the close of a defining chapter in the history of the iconic football show. After 26 years at the helm, Lineker, who has hosted the flagship programme since 1999, will step down from his role but will continue to lead the BBC’s coverage … Continue reading Laters, Gary
BY ALEXIA JAMES The BBC’s latest offering, Ludwig, found on BBC iPlayer, featuring the inimitable David Mitchell, is an enchanting blend of humour, heart, and intrigue. This six-part comedy-drama revolves around John Taylor, a puzzle setter whose wonderfully awkward disposition mirrors that of Mitchell’s beloved character, Mark Corrigan from Peep Show. Much like Mark, John navigates the complexities of social interaction with a delightful mix … Continue reading The Triumph of Ludwig
BY ALEXIA JAMES The conservative meme “Go Woke, Go Broke” has always been somewhat misleading. What conservatives wilfully fail to understand is that people are diverse, and you sell more products if you appeal to a broader demographic. Companies that have “gone woke”—if they were truly woke—would stop using slave labour and toxic materials. Corporations are, by nature, highly conservative. Their so-called “woke” campaigns are … Continue reading Go Woke, Go Broke?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Imagine if BBC’s Countryfile became a programme, like Clarkson’s Farm, about what actually happens in the UK Countryside, rather than a show that appeals more to the four in five Brits who live in towns and cities who tend to prefer to coo at the British Countryside, or tut-tut at rural folk who are just trying to earn a crust. Imagine if … Continue reading Landline or Lifeline?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Since appearing live for an hour on a BBC Radio 4 programme where I was asked to defend the British Countryside against preposterous accusations of being systemically racist, I (and the magazine) received around seventy communications – from members of the public and regular readers. You can listen to that Radio 4 show, Antisocial, hosted by Adam Fleming, here. Out of the … Continue reading Critical Points of View
CSM STAFF WRITER Our Editor Dominic Wightman was on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon for an hour before World at One. He was invited onto a show hosted by Adam Fleming called Antisocial, described as: ‘Peace talks for the culture wars. In an era of polarisation, propaganda and pile-ons, Adam Fleming helps you work out what the arguments are really about’ Today’s debate was focused … Continue reading Dominic Wightman: The Countryside Not Racist
BY STEWART SLATER The 1970’s version of Death on the Nile is one of my favourite comfort films. There is something infectious about the good time Peter Ustinov and David Niven are so obviously having while Angela Lansbury is never less than joyous as she chews the scenery and much of the cast in her portrayal of Salome Otterbourne, the fictional Jilly Cooper of the … Continue reading Just Entertain Us!
BY PAUL T HORGAN It is one of life’s small fortunes that Russell Brand did not overly intrude on my television-watching up to the point I ditched my TV licence over two years ago. It was actually the increasingly dominant televisual culture of the kind that Brand represented (and that I was paying the BBC to watch) that prompted me to restrict myself to catch-up … Continue reading Brand X
BY PAUL T HORGAN Surely one of the most cloyingly cringeworthy sights on British Television this year has to be the BBC’s Newsnight hosting a children’s choir marking the 75th anniversary of the creation of the NHS. All the young singers were clad in identical t-shirts as if they were part of some staatsjugend organisation. Some bureaucrat must have seen the 1980s music act St … Continue reading The NHS & BBC Are Falling
BY DANIEL JUPP Once again the BBC finds itself mired in a sex scandal. This time it’s that paragon of virtue, Huw Edwards. That’s going to hurt a lot. Someone with an agenda against the BBC, like Murdoch, could not have chosen a better target. Squeaky clean Edwards was the safest pair of hands in the building. Now the public are asking, ‘if Huw Edwards … Continue reading Anyone at the BBC Not a Pervert?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Just imagine if We Brits had a broadcaster across TV, the Web and Radio that was free to access, funded by adverts, therefore reflecting the market, Our Nation. One that backed everything British rather than cocking a snook at it. A service that delivered factual news and illuminating documentaries that boosted British Democracy and, by shining an investigative light, held those in … Continue reading Just Imagine
