I don’t want news interpreted for me, I want honesty and integrity from the BBC - Carl Les
The drama that is the BBC’s attempt to portray President Trump in a worse light continues. Following resignations and apologies, the required compensation appears to have soared from $1bn to $5bn. I don’t know how successful the litigant`s lawsuit might be, but if it is, or if a compromise deal is done to settle out of court, or even if the BBC wins, there will be a cost, and the question is who pays?
Will it have to be covered by the licence payer? Has the Corporation indemnity insurance, but that is an expense out of its operating budget paid for by the licence surely?
What were they trying to do? Dishonestly paint the President in a worse light? Why not just ask how his much publicised Middle East ceasefire deal is working? Or how well his Ukrainian strategy is working, with Putin launching unprecedented strikes against civilian energy infrastructure targets ahead of a coming harsh winter? Or how well his tariff regime is working in regard to domestic inflation in the United States? We don’t need splicing of tapes, just the truth.
Some time ago the BBC, especially the news service, was The Truth. I remember being interviewed by the London-based correspondent of a German daily newspaper when I first became leader of the council. He was interested in the size of the council area, and particularly how Brexit might impact on us.
I took him on a whistlestop tour of north North Yorkshire, from the train station in the Vale of York, to the coast, then the Dales and back again. We had lunch in a small pub in Wensleydale. He had lived in London for 14 years. Professionally he told me he was surprised by the difference. “In Germany,” he said, “we report the news as it happens. In England your media interprets it.”
I have often wondered what I would pay for if the BBC was a subscription service like Sky. Sport, drama and movies most likely. With the dumbing down of quiz shows probably not entertainment, although the Monday night sequence of Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge is a regular event in our house, recorded whenever I’m out at a parish council meeting.
I do want the news, but not “interpreted” for me, and I do want it on radio as well, and on radio I do want local radio, Radio York in particular. I don’t like commercial breaks during programmes, but I wouldn`t object to a commercial sponsorship slot at the start and end of a programme, how the “soaps” started in 1950s America.
But above all, I want honesty and integrity.
This week the executive committee which I lead meets with our Overview & Scrutiny chair colleagues, and senior management, to look at the quarterly performance of the council. Of course performance management is a daily occurrence, operating over hundreds of thousands of individual transactions, but this gives us an opportunity to take a view of individual datasets, but especially any trends.
It is important that this occurs with honesty and integrity, and that it is open and transparent. It is always a meeting in public, livestreamed for convenience of travel as well as being held in a committee room in County Hall where the public are welcome to attend.
Because of subsequent questioning and reporting, we know it is observed by journalists, and some of our members. It is important to recognise the strong performance of the council, but equally identify any weaknesses, and put mitigation into place to address them. It serves no purpose to try to do a cover up, and our quest must always be continual improvement.
As a former mentor said to me years ago “today`s excellent is tomorrow`s acceptable”.
I spent a morning last week in my ward trying to get out a load of survey forms just ahead of Storm Claudia. No matter what positions of responsibility we hold in the council, we are all local members and must never forget it.
I remember William Hague telling a high-powered meeting of world leaders that he must leave the meeting in Strasbourg by a certain time on that Friday to get home for a public event in his constituency. They seemed amazed when he stated that “to be Foreign Secretary I must first be the MP for Richmond”.
So I was walking the streets, as many of us do, delivering addressed letters garnering the views of Catterick residents on potential housing sites and reflecting that if I were ever to become the Minister for the Little Things in Local Government I would insist that all letter boxes were the same, at the same height, all in working order without fierce hinges, with wire baskets behind them if snappy dogs lived there, and all house numbers were absolutely completely clearly visible.
We had a new potential candidate with us, but none of us had thought to tell him to bring a wooden kitchen spoon or spatula. He will do next time, given the nick he got at No 27!
Coun Carl Les is the leader of North Yorkshire Council.