Common Purpose and the BBC

Subject: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 07:58 AM

I'm starting this one here as one of our major outlets is the BBC Radio.

Some years since, the BBC was infiltrated by a lobby group called Common Purpose. This body often behaves in a way not massively differently from a religious cult, being intolerant of criticism and opposition to its agenda.

We now see the Government's preferred candidate for the post of the BBC Trust chair, Rona Fairhead, in Parliament before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Those interviews focused on incoherence in the domain of impartiality, which is hardly surprising when read this about Ms Fairhead: the Orwell Trust is a Common purpose front body, and for some time had Robert Peston as one of its more significant members, at the time when his BBC blog was prominent in the pricking of the 2007 economic bubble.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Musket
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:09 AM

I got as far as the bit about a reporter rather than global fiscal policies causing the pricking of the bubble and my eyes glazed over.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Howard Jones
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:14 AM

What's the issue here? All I can see is an anonymous website which links to some incoherent allegations from one individual. I'd like to see more than just conspiracy theories.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Tootler
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 08:21 AM

Surely this is BS and belongs below the line.

I agree with Howard Jones, otherwise. A series of unsubstantiated allegations against a number of otherwise respected individuals.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 03:54 PM

Common Purpose wears quite a number of faces, of which this is one: if you look down that page, you will find the good lady's profile listed as part of their structure. The giveaway is that the body'd headed by one of CP's supremos, Sir David Bell, the good Rona's colleague as Chairman of the FT (she was Chief Exec).
Now, someone can be a member of anything they like, as long as they don't start to claim neutrality, as the good Rona did in this Committee today: I see it as an exceedingly bad sign that someone with such a background should be given the responsibility of the moral guidance of such a major propaganda machine by our supposedly democratic masters.
Time will tell, of course, and let us be optimistic: but let us also be aware of what is happening. If Common Purpose is all they claim to be, why don't they stand for election and obtain a democratic mandate? I feel as if we are in 1933 Germany, coming out of a painful recession only to find the political system ain't quite the same.

The reason not to have put this below the line is that if all the media are to be "filtered" for a particular alignment, then it affects us as performers. At least the question has been asked, and the answer will be seen over time.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 05:15 PM

If that website told me David Cameron was a Tory I'd want his pockets searched for a Communist Party membership card.

Delusional twaddle.

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Sep 14 - 10:06 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Purpose_UK

Subject: RE: Common Purpose and the BBC
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 14 - 07:04 PM

Anyone from another country or any private organisation (and I should like to include the Tory party in that) who knocks the Beeb is just jealous. Just bugger off.