Tony Benn on the BBC as a public service not a Brexit broadcaster
Julian Knight, Tory MP for Solihull has said that with Laura Kuenssberg signalling an intention to move on from the job, the next BBC political editor should be a Brexit supporter.
This of course is part of a wider Tory Culture War where the Government endeavours to make areas of public life into one-dimensional mouthpieces for its own prejudices. That is hardly healthy for democracy however conceived.
Tony Benn, who was often critical of the BBC’s coverage of a range of issues, nevertheless saw an important principle beyond that, and one which I support
Diary 21st July 2002
Breakfast with Frost
I believe in the public services. After all, the BBC is a public service..the Director General gets very well paid, and quite properly so
I know numbers on the left that see the BBC as simply a State broadcaster and would like it to be abolished. Its not usual for people on the left to demand job losses for workers, which is what this would mean. A workforce which btw is well organised in unions.
Moreover such a move would leave the field entirely free for Murdoch or, as GB News has demonstrated, even worse.
The argument at root is similar to one over the law. Again some on the left see the law as an instrument of bourgeois class rule(which it is) but, as E P Thompson argued, through contestation over the centuries, its one that can provide space for justice to occasionally prevail.
Hence with the next BBC Political Editor. Holders of the post have varied in their background. John Cole was a Manchester Guardian man and Andrew Marr despite present appearances came from the left. Nick Robinson certainly did not.
A Tory Culture War is a war and in such things outcomes are not guaranteed.
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