Jim Hancock

IS GOVERNMENT BACKING OFF BBC?

SPEAK UP FOR AUNTIE.

You currently have a chance to give your views on the future of the BBC. I hope you will take the opportunity to say that it is one of this country’s best assets and, free from those endless advertising breaks, offers great value for money compared to the expensive Sky and BT packages which line the pockets of Premier League footballers.

I am not a naïve fan of the BBC. I worked for them for thirteen years under managers of varying quality. It was over managed and paid its top staff too much. Most of the pooh-bahs have gone now, apart from Creative Director Alan Yentob. He should be on his way soon after his handling of the Kid’s Company affair. In 2010 the BBC were wrong to fight plans for Ofcom or a new OfBBC to replace the discredited governors system. The BBC Trust that was set up has failed to provide an independent overview of the executive.

So the Corporation isn’t without its faults but in the run up to Charter renewal in 2017, it has been subjected to continuous vilification in many newspapers. More worryingly the government have trampled all over the proper procedures regarding its future funding for the second time, the new Culture Secretary has hinted the BBC should compete less in popular programming and Tory backbenchers have maintained their tired campaign against the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation.

The press attacks on the BBC are motivated by falling newspaper sales, a loss of advertising revenue to the internet and a jealousy about the Corporation’s excellent news coverage. They should get their house in order. Shrinking the BBC is not the answer. We know what that leads too. Some years ago local papers managed to get BBC plans to improve their regional web pages scrapped claiming unfair competition. It did nothing to halt circulation slides and impoverished a part of the BBC’s service to the public.

Some parts of the Tory Party have always had a problem with the BBC, thinking it is biased against it.

In my thirteen years as a BBC journalist nobody remotely indicated I should favour the left. No such editorial policy has ever existed and it is essential that the publicly funded BBC should remain free of government pressure. That independence has been sorely tested with the recent overnight imposition on the BBC of funding free TV licences for the elderly.

THE LICENCE FEE.

Finally we come to the £145.50 compulsory licence fee. In an age when there are so many ways to access BBC services, why does the BBC have to be funded by TV licences? My answer is that at 40p a day it is very good value compared to Sky packages which are often £70 a month. People kid themselves if they say they never use BBC services as an article in next week’s Radio Times shows. Finally what is the alternative? Please not advertising which is making commercial channels unwatchable. The BBC should make much more of this. Would people really want subscription with the BBC begging on air for money to fund its programmes as happens with public broadcasting in America? A state levy like they have in Germany seems the only possible alternative.

GOVERNMENT BACKDOWN.

After a summer where the government and BBC got in their trenches, a more conciliatory mood broke out at this week’s TV festival in Edinburgh. Perhaps the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, has already picked up the public’s bewilderment that with all the problems we’ve got, that time should be wasted fixing a problem that does not exist.

GOVERNMENT DECEPTION OVER RAIL PLANS

WHEN DID MINISTERS KNOW?

Questions remain unanswered about the decision to “pause” the electrification of the rail line from Leeds to Manchester. Passengers facing the prospect of overcrowded and slow trains between these major cities well into the next decade deserve to know how they were deceived in the run up to the election. We all deserve to know because connectivity is meant to be at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse.

The people who should be answering the questions have gone to ground. I listened to an excellent report on our rail problems recently. It was BBC Radio Four’s File On Four produced in Salford. They were investigating the Leeds-Manchester fiasco along with the recent chaos at London Bridge and the fact that new trains can’t be used at Bristol Temple Meads because the carriages are too long not to scrape on the curved platform. About ten times the reporter, Allan Urry, had to say nobody had been prepared to face his questions.

In relation to the decision not to go ahead with the electrification of the Leeds to Manchester rail line, some interesting facts are emerging which appear to show that Ministers and rail chiefs knew fine well before the General Election that the project wasn’t going ahead.

There has been a long running war of words between Network Rail (NR) and the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) which approves all NR’s investment plans. Before he moved to head up HS2 in the spring of last year, NR’s Chief Executive David Higgins was scathing about ORR’s approach of requiring him to do far more for far less money. Last year Higgins claimed NR was being asked “to deliver too much, too quickly” and the prospect of achieving ORR’s targets was “unrealistic.” So I doubt if David Higgins was surprised when the Transport Secretary paused the electrification.

We now move forward to last September when NR’s inability to deliver became clearer. Transport for Greater Manchester have told a source of mine that the franchise invitation to tenders were delayed by two months once the Department for Transport and Rail North (a body of councils and MPs) became aware of NR’s difficulty. Bidders were instructed to assume that TransPennine electrification would not be completed during the franchise term of TransPennine Express and Northern Rail. This indicates that a year ago Network Rail were saying that the train companies should assume that rail electrification would not take place until around 2024 when bidding for their franchise renewals.

Now can I introduce you to the little known MP for Harrogate, Andrew Jones. He used to chair the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin’s Electrification Task Force which has now had a spectacular power failure. Its purpose was to advise McLoughlin on how schemes could be accelerated. Andrew Jones biography on the Department of Transport website says he provided “advice on the next steps for electrification of railways in the North of England”.

So are we to assume that Mr Jones didn’t advise McLoughlin in March that electrification wasn’t going to happen when he was chairing a task force with the specific purpose of advising on electrification? Mr Jones has now been promoted to a junior ministerial position in the Department of Transport.

I’ve given Patrick McLoughlin a lot of stick in this blog so I leave you with a suggestion that has been made to me. The government may be looking at a vastly more ambitious tunnel option instead of electrifying the existing line. If so, why don’t they level with us?

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

TOM WATSON:CORBYN TAMER ?

DEPUTY’S ROLE COULD BE CRUCIAL

The extraordinary last minute surge in people wanting to join, affiliate to or support the Labour Party ahead of the leadership election deadline, makes a Jeremy Corbyn victory very possible

Corbyn is an outlet for frustration after years of top down leadership where activists were told what the policy of the party was to be. But if Corbyn wins, what happens then? Well the first thing that will happen is the election of a Deputy Leader. The last two Deputy Leaders of the Labour Party have had important roles in a post that can often be pretty low profile. John Prescott was the party’s link with the working class and trade unions when middle class New Labour was all the rage. Since 2007 Harriet Harman has held the post being loyal to the leader and party and championing the cause of women.

Next month the deputy’s star is almost certainly going to be pinned on Tom Watson. I think it is an unimaginative choice and will leave the party with two men at the top. I discuss the other candidates below, but for the moment let us consider a Corbyn/Watson leadership because Corbyn’s opponents are already discussing how the left winger can be contained and many see Watson as the man to do it.

Watson is certainly a party bruiser with a background in the old Amalgamated Engineering Union. He called for Tony Blair to quit in 2006 and was forced to resign as Labour’s election coordinator in 2013 when he became embroiled in a row over the role of Unite in the Falkirk Labour selection contest.

One journalist has written that a Corbyn/Watson pairing would be like Trotsky and Stalin, a reference to the perception that Corbyn is an ideologue whilst Watson is a party fixer. The thought is that Watson will try and keep the party together organisationally during the expected mayhem of a Corbyn leadership.

Watson is certainly to the right of the potential leader. He wants a tougher line on immigration and Russia, and wants bigger Armed Forces. He probably has the toughness to stand up to Corbyn but it says much about the state of the party that some are looking for a deputy with the potential determination to remove his leader.

OTHER CANDIDATES.

My choice for Deputy would have been Ben Bradshaw the MP for Exeter. One of the biggest challenges facing Labour is how to win in the South. In May Bradshaw’s big increase in the party’s vote in Exeter was in sharp contrast to its general failure in southern England. Bradshaw is a winner in a tough part of the country for Labour, and deserves a senior position in the party.

Liz Kendall is not going to become Labour leader and if Yvette Cooper fails too, the party will have two men in the leadership positions. This despite the fact that three credible women have put themselves forward for Deputy Leader, Stella Creasy, former minister and Don Valley MP Caroline Flint, and Wallasey’s Angela Eagle.

Eagle has been a voice of calm in recent days when many of her Labour MP colleagues have been calling for the election to be stopped or for candidates to stand down to stop Corbyn. There seems little prospect her voice will be heeded.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

BEWARE OF ARROGANT TORY GOVERNMENT

WE ARE THE MASTERS NOW

The surprise victory of the Conservatives in May and the Labour implosion since has led to an arrogant style of government this summer.

Election promises have been abandoned and proper procedures bypassed by Ministers who see their time in government stretching into the mid 2020s. It is essential that judges, the media and voters keep this government under scrutiny in the absence of effective political opposition.

The list of examples of arrogance in power is quite long considering this government has only been in power for three months.

Take the crash of Kids Company. Only last week Ministers overruled civil service advice to give the organisation three million quid. Civil servants insisted on the rare procedure of a direct written order to do it. We need more of that from the Sir Humphreys.

Take the National Living Wage announced in the Summer Budget. The Low Pay Commission which gives independent advice to the government in this area, appears to have been by passed. At the very least its policy of making recommendations that keep job losses to a minimum has been seriously compromised according to many business organisations now deeply worried by the implications for their wage bills of paying £9 an hour by 2020.

Another example is the funding of the BBC. This is meant to be decided after a lengthy period of public consultation. In 2010 this requirement was ignored as the BBC was forced overnight to accept a TV licence freeze, funding the World Service and paying towards broadband roll out. The excuse then was the financial crisis prevailing at the time. What’s the excuse now? The decision to make the BBC pay for free TV for over 75s is an important one with many implications. However the BBC has once again been forced to accept the deal in return for getting the licence fee tied to inflation increases with no reference to us.

Government promises have been torn up left right and centre. More is yet to come out about when Ministers knew they were going to “pause” the electrification of the Manchester-Leeds rail line. And remember that promise to the elderly that there would be a £72,000 cap on their contribution to their care. That’s now been put back to 2020.

Then there is the political trickery that all politicians get up to but it leads to cynicism amongst the public. The demand by Tory backbenchers that we spend 2% of gross domestic product on defence has been met. Hurrah! But wait a minute, that’s only because intelligence spending has now been included. Then there are the British pilots flying bombing missions in Syria without parliament’s permission.

The one thing these arrogant Tories haven’t done is announce forty new Conservative peers. That sort of move is usually announced on a quiet Friday afternoon in early August. But Lord Sewell’s political discussions with ladies of the night focussed attention on the failed structure of the House of Lords and the preferment of a load of time servers and party donors is being delayed.