Was not to cull the BBC on day two of the new government.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance said as much in a speech a few years ago:

“Have no doubt that we are engaged in a cultural battle for the soul of Britain. Failure to defeat the ‘last bastion of  Fabianism’ will lead to the return of  a Labour lead Government within three years, most probably propped up by the former Social and Liberal Democrats.”

In my opinion they should have dropped the ‘Liberal’ not the ‘Social’ word, as they are an avowedly interventionist, Fabian Social Democratic Party.

If you thought the Brown/Blair years were bad for Civil Liberties, the much further left leaning Ed Milliband Labour Party, backed by UNITE will be far worse. The Stalinist Balls will be offered a significant role, possibly Chancellor, and we will see a State directed siege economy favouring the Nationalisation of the remaining two major High Street Banks not under State ownership, Barclays and HSBC, and the public sector and large corporations being the major employers. The Kulaks of the private sector will be forced to the wall, or reduced to servants of the public sector.

In Cultural Revolution, Culture War – Hampden 2003 now in reprint, Gabb shows how the Conservatives lost Britain:

An Anglican Bishop nearly arrested for stating Church doctrine. Villagers actually arrested for making fun of gypsies. Museums stripped of “imperialist” symbols. This is life in the England of today. “Political correctness gone mad” some will say.

Not so, says Sean Gabb. In this book, he explains how England in particular, and the English-speaking world in general, have been conquered from within. We face a new ruling class made up of the student radicals of the 1960s and 70s. Now in power, they are creating in their own behaviour all the corruption and bigotry and hypocrisy that they falsely alleged against the liberal democratic rulers they have replaced.

This being so, the leading writers of the “New Left” Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault become highly relevant for conservatives and libertarians. They are relevant not because their analysis of liberal democracy was correct, but because it explains what their disciples are trying to do. Before we can change the world, we need to understand it. This book helps towards that understanding, and suggests what needs to be done to give England back to its people.

This is a largely rewritten and much expanded version of a book first brought out in 2003. It went through five reprints, and is now rewritten by popular demand.

I was a mature student of twenty six when I was first exposed to the Italian Marxist Gramsci, and Althusser by over excited messianic left leaning university lecturers. It has formed the basis of our cultural life in this country in the intervening quarter century, much in the way that the French left bank Agrarian Socialists influenced Pol Pot in Cambodia in the seventies.

The idea being that the ‘people’ were truly happy and contented living as pre capitalist peasants. The result being that millions died. Notice how National Socialism and Communist Socialism and the recent agrarian Socialism always ends up with a mass body count?

Therefore Culture Wars do count, and the left has been hugely successful in winning these cultural wars.

Back to the BBC.  In the aftermath of the Kelly affair the BBC got rid of its Chairman and CEO in a coup organised by Alistair Campbell, since then it has been the obedient mouthpiece of Fabianism.

Despite a state of near national bankruptcy and political corruption, the nightly fare of the BBC at both national and local level has been the ‘ devastating cuts’ and the special pleading of essential public services.

Last night, for regional viewers in the West, it was the RSPB  (I thought they were a Charity, not a quango). They were saying that if Government subsidies were not maintained, all the birds in this or that particular marshland habitat would perish and die.

The Insolvency Service has promised Vince Cable an 11% cut in costs but no redundancies !! So the default position is that it has been run in an incompetent manner for the last ten years if they can come up with 11% cuts overnight. Most private business have already cut costs to the bone and have had to make redundancies.

Government spending is always justified by saying it is protecting us; it is not, it is a vast job creation scheme.

Dave – there is no point going to India promoting Britain, when the bulk of our population is now working for the State in some form or other. You cannot export paper pushing and call centres, the Indians do this far cheaper than we do.

I suspect that most of the captains of industry on this trip will be thinking ‘ Blimey we need to export more of our back office staff functions out here’.

It baffles me why the British Taxpayer is still giving financial aid to India, a country with its own space program and nuclear weapons.

Dave, you are not a businessman, just stop it and come home and start fighting the Culture Wars. The Left has lost the election, but is fighting a rear guard action every night on our TV screens.

The State is currently only slowing down its rate of growth, not cutting back despite the nightly broadcasts by the Gramsci BBC, propounding cultural hegemony that the cuts are ‘devastating ‘ for essential services.

The ConDem may have lost the battle before it started. Why ? because Dave was a policy free zone from day one.

Friends of Libertarianism have literally months to start turning the tide, before the ‘endarkening’ of Fabianism becomes ‘Millibandism’  a welding of trade union money, and Hampstead Millionaire Socialism.

Deal with the BBC now because in a year it will be far too late to break up this expensive monolith.

Dennis July 31, 2010 at 15:34

It seems Mr Withers and Dr Gabb often share a carriage travelling the
Mail’s Arch Enemy line.

This comment is not inspired by, “…..by over excited messianic left leaning
university lecturers,” and Politics and the English Language. I know, of
course, that Orwell was probably a socialist.

faulksd July 30, 2010 at 13:32

Great article – and right on the money. Sean Gabb’s book has for me been
most influential and helpful, as it has helped to set the cultural changes
that have blighted this country in an ideological framework. I owe him a huge
debt of gratitude.
Unless there’s a groundswell of popular opinion against
the communitarian agenda (from a public which currently is either ignorant
indifferent, propagandised or both), I see no hope for this country, since
those who purport to be Conservatives are what Gabb refers to as ‘the Quisling
Right,” who are as much a part of the problem as the neo-communist Labourites
and their country cousins in the LibDem ranks.
And while my rant is still
in turbo mode – I’m also sick to the back teeth of the BBC’s patent Fabian
bias. Their campaigning on local news against the cuts is relentless. If there
ever is a grave for the Beeb, I’ll gladly dance on it.

Richard
Baron July 30, 2010 at 12:43

The solution is obvious. Sell the BBC to the highest bidder or bidders,
with all of its copyrights (and its pension fund liabilities – no backstop
taxpayer guarantees), but without any future licence fee or other subsidies.
Go on Cameron, do it now! (You might be wary of doing it when the BBC is
covering the run-up to the next election.)

The BBC Charter runs until 2016, but that is not an obstacle to taking
action now. Under article 53, the members of the Trust can decide to wind up
the BBC. Under article 16(c), a member can have his appointment terminated by
Order in Council. So if the existing members of the Trust won’t co-operate,
chuck them out and put new ones in. If anyone thinks that sounds Stalinist,
then (a) it would be in accordance with the terms of the Charter, and (b) it
is the idea of a state broadcaster, funded by a compulsory levy on all viewers
of any channel, that is Stalinist.

Daedalus
Parrot July 31, 2010 at 18:19

Very well put.

We (most of us I suspect) have in the past come to regard the TV Licence
fee as being an endearing, traditional little payment given to a treasured
“Aunty”, and we gratefully administered this stipend in the knowledge that
we would receive golden nuggets of culture and entertainment and in return
we had the warm feeling that we were supporting a loved relative.

I think I supported this attituide for many years, especially in my youth
in the 70s and 80s when I soaked up so much good culture from the Beeb such
as classical music, art, cinema, science and politics. TV progs like
Chronicle, Horizon, Arena, Panorama, Michael Wood, Ascent of Man, Tomorrow’s
World, themed film seasons of noted film makers, operas, etc come to mind as
being the peak of their genres, I’m sure there are many others that I have
forgotten.

I was aware of a slight luvvie/media/lefty bias in the BBC’s output in
those days but this was far outweighed by their excellent output.

This attitude of mine fast disappeared in the 1990s, when quality started
plummeting and political biasedness increased.

I think it can be symbolised by comparing Paxman’s infamous grilling of
then Home Office minister Michael Howard where he was asked the same
question over and over again with great vigour. Then conrast that with
Paxo’s rather comic-book, lame caricature of a Spanish inquisitioner who
often allowed NuLabour politicians to get away with unchallenged lies about
much more serious national issues.

Beeboid supporters will mention BBC4 as being the dedicated supporter of
quality output. I challenge anyone to watch BBC4 for two months and find
anything that is better than the programmes I have mentioned above. True,
they have some occasional, decent arts programmes and some reasonable
science documentaries but these are dumbed down compared to their
superlative 1960s, 1970s and 1980s predecessors.

Another pro-BBC argument is that we would lose huge chunks of protected
high culture without BBC (public funded) support.

My counter argument is: BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.

Radio 3 often broadcasts the worst suicide-inducing, strident, tuneless
string quartets or mass-murder-inducing atonal “works” from the likes of
Alban Berg and Stockhausen. It is very rarely that I, with a wide taste in
classical music, find anything on radio 3 worth listening to. Classic FM on
the other hand often have many good concerts in the evenings uninterrupted
by adverts. I will admit that some of their output is “poppy” but this is a
small price for the much better output.

If the private sector can give the punters what they want better than the
BBC, then what is the point of the BBC?

Commercial operators please note: I will happily pay a pound a month to
listen to Radio3′s Eartly Music Show, Michael Berkely, some Proms concerts
and a few others. But I steadfastly object to paying

2Mac July 30, 2010 at 11:47

I have written to the BBC on many occasions to express my outrage and have
been pleasantly surprised to not be visited by anyone from the plod for my
colourful use of language and suggestions to the senior management of the beeb
what they could do with a rope and a tall sturdy strucuture.

As Billy above states the BBC in Scotland are beyond anything we see on the
UK wide BBC. As the only major broadcaster they have total control of the
airways and control the media agenda. The hero worship of the previous Labour
government and the Labour party in Scotland is as shocking as it is
misguided.

The Labour party that took us to ruin during the most affulent period in UK
history. They ruined us during the good times and yet the BBC seem continue to
spout out daily support for them.

The internet is documenting all this activity and it will be oneday a
subject for critical historical review.

As for the unions who fund new Labour and then complain about them. Only on
the idealist left would an organisation such as a trade union paid for by
workers fund a government that is killing employment, the economy and any
chance of having a job.

As for D.Camerons comments about Pakistan being a terrorist supporter.
About time we mentioned this and stoppped giving money to these people.

Stop Common
Purpose July 30, 2010 at 11:45

“interventionist, Fabian Social Democratic Party”

They are communitarians.

http://www.nikiraapana.blogspot.com/

Heather July 30, 2010 at 11:29

This is the best article I have read in a long while, even though it does
make for depressing reading. Keep up the good work!

Nick2 July 30, 2010 at 11:16

Thanks for the enjoyable article, and for publicising the “Cultural
Revolution, Culture War” book. Unfortunately the latter is once again
unavailable at Amazon, but downloadable in full from the author’s website at
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/culturewar2.pdf.

As far as the BBC is concerned – it’s FUBAR. I can’t watch it myself, and
the only people whom I know that do all seem to parrot the watermelon
political, social & ecological agenda uncritically (and passionately). Any
description of (specific) BBC TV as ‘gutter channels’ is taken as a personal
affront by at least one of them!

Woman on a
Raft July 30, 2010 at 11:02

A good place to mention the monitoring and critique offered by Biased BBC
blogspot.

http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

The blog particularly welcome examples of bias which may have slipped past
them.

backwoodsman
July 30, 2010 at 11:27

WOAR , nothing slips past us, we are ever vigilant !
Joking apart, it
is good to see bbc bias at last emerging as a msm topic . The problem is,
the beeboids now know they are fighting for their lives and as discussed in
the excellent article, unless killed off quickly , will insidiously
undermine any non-labour government.

Woman on
a Raft July 30, 2010 at 11:34

I’m very reassured to hear that. The BBC puts out such an enormous
amount of rubbish that going through it is an uncommonly public-spirited
act on your part.

billy July 30, 2010 at 10:47

Good article. The BBC in Scotland doesn’t even bother to try and hide it’s
pro Labour bias with reporters writing for Labour newspapers and going on
holidays with labour politicians. Impossible to watch the sneering BBC
Scotland news anymore.
Cameron won’t change anything as he just follows
what he’s told. He’s never had a job apart from PR so doesn’t know anything
better.
He sees nothing wrong with future Turkish police in the EU visiting
the UK to arrest our citizens.
And building 2,500 windmills while the
lights go out.
Or calling Gaza a prison and blaming Israel despite a long
border between Gaza and Egypt also closed.

Gildas July 30, 2010 at 08:50

Bits totally I agree with, bits I don’t quite agree with (but I’m open to
persuasion) – but an excellent articulate post!
Will ponder on it
further
Thanks Andrew
Gildas the Monk