In the context of the announcement a couple of days ago that from 2015 BBC3 will be an online service, with all the questions about funding that decision raised, John Humphrys' remarks in the papers today about the BBC's alleged bias can't have made welcome reading for Director General Tony Hall.
Humphrys told the Radio Times the BBC wasn't "sufficiently sceptical" in its coverage of the immgration debate because it had "bought into the European ideal . . . We didn't look at the potential negatives with sufficient rigour . . . the BBC has tended over the years to be broadly liberal as opposed to broadly conservative for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons. The sort of people we've recruited - the best and the brightest - tended to come from universities and backgrounds where they're more likely to hold broadly liberal views than conservative".
Humphrys continued, "If an organisation recruits from a fairly narrow - in educational and class terms - band of people, it will tend to get people with a fairly similar outlook. To be specific, the BBC tends to recruit intelligent, well-educated middle-class people with a Humanities degree from a good University. Who could possibly have thought that they would tend to be Left of centre?"
Actually I'm being mischievous. Humphrys didn't say that last bit. It's from a post I wrote in February 2013 entitled "James Purnell - liberal humanities graduate".
The thrust of that post was that the BBC's ethos, like that of any organisation, was the predictable consequence of its recruitment policy. I'm glad Humphrys agrees.
"I think we're out of that now", said Humphrys. "I think we have changed". That's interesting. If as he says the BBC has a broadly anti-conservative outlook, and if that outlook is a consequence of its recruitment policy, the Corporation could only have changed if recruitment policy has changed. And of course sufficient time would have to elapse for the effect of any changes to work through the system.
I must have missed their announcement.
People are fond of saying how much they love the BBC and what a great institution it is. My take is slightly different. I think the BBC is an over-managed, borderline corrupt (at senior executive level) and anti-conservative organisation, funded in an indefensible manner, in which devoted and creative staff somehow manage to make some absolutely terrific programmes.
The idea that such an institution can - without reform - to carry on being funded by a broadcasting poll tax, protected from future inflation, or by a new tax on computers and mobile phones, is absolutely ludicrous.
Of course by the time the licence fee is up for renewal at the end of 2016 we may well have a Labour government. For Labour a broadly liberal BBC would be politically convenient. And there's no reason why the BBC and a new Labour government can't climb into the bed where "politically convenient" sleeps comfortably with "absolutely ludicrous".
