Post by Teddy Bear on Nov 21, 2010 2:03:42 GMT
Despite the head of the army pleading with the BBC to drop the programme referred to below, the BBC has refused. One day, the BBC may depend on the armed services to protect them, I hope the soldiers will remember how the BBC have treated them, and endangered their lives for their own selfish pursuits.
Our Armed Forces through the BBC's red-tinted glasses
By Mail On Sunday Comment
Last updated at 1:47 AM on 21st November 2010
Television drama does not just happen by accident. Commissioning editors and channel controllers know what they want. Writers know what will sell and what will not. If the public turns out to like it, then all well and good.
But if not – and you are the BBC – too bad for the public and for anyone else who might not like it. The licence money, extracted under the threat of court action, will arrive all the same.
So who exactly wanted a prime-time play set in Afghanistan and portraying the British Army as a seething pit of bullying and mutiny? And why was its script entrusted to Jimmy McGovern, a crudely Left-wing former teacher who could be relied on to view the Armed Forces through red-tinted spectacles?
Plainly it was the BBC, institutionally Left-wing, which desired it. The rest of us were expected to put up with it.
Except that in this case the Army itself has been provoked into a justified roar of rage at a stupid slur which will upset and alarm the parents, spouses and children of serving soldiers.
Once again, trapped in its closed world, the BBC has utterly misjudged the country, as it memorably did over the Queen Mother’s funeral.
Britain has recently learned to appreciate the Army as one of the few bodies in Britain which continues to function as it ought. Unlike the BBC, it is efficient, loyal and stoical. And that is in spite of Government meanness and a succession of absurd, unwinnable missions.
No doubt the Army is far from perfect but it is hard to reject the view of General Sir Peter Wall and other senior, experienced officers that tomorrow night’s broadcast is misleading and inaccurate
It is also impossible to ignore the fact that hardly a week goes by without another procession of soldiers’ coffins passing through Wootton Bassett on their sad way home, emphasising that the risks and demands of Army life, for soldiers and their families, are rather greater than those faced by BBC executives or noisy, opinionated scriptwriters.
If the BBC insists on using public money to screen this piece of unworthy adolescent agitprop, then it ought to be ashamed of itself.
Mr McGovern, meanwhile, might try putting his effort on the provincial stage to see if any normal human beings are ready to pay their own money to see it.
By Mail On Sunday Comment
Last updated at 1:47 AM on 21st November 2010
Television drama does not just happen by accident. Commissioning editors and channel controllers know what they want. Writers know what will sell and what will not. If the public turns out to like it, then all well and good.
But if not – and you are the BBC – too bad for the public and for anyone else who might not like it. The licence money, extracted under the threat of court action, will arrive all the same.
So who exactly wanted a prime-time play set in Afghanistan and portraying the British Army as a seething pit of bullying and mutiny? And why was its script entrusted to Jimmy McGovern, a crudely Left-wing former teacher who could be relied on to view the Armed Forces through red-tinted spectacles?
Plainly it was the BBC, institutionally Left-wing, which desired it. The rest of us were expected to put up with it.
Except that in this case the Army itself has been provoked into a justified roar of rage at a stupid slur which will upset and alarm the parents, spouses and children of serving soldiers.
Once again, trapped in its closed world, the BBC has utterly misjudged the country, as it memorably did over the Queen Mother’s funeral.
Britain has recently learned to appreciate the Army as one of the few bodies in Britain which continues to function as it ought. Unlike the BBC, it is efficient, loyal and stoical. And that is in spite of Government meanness and a succession of absurd, unwinnable missions.
No doubt the Army is far from perfect but it is hard to reject the view of General Sir Peter Wall and other senior, experienced officers that tomorrow night’s broadcast is misleading and inaccurate
It is also impossible to ignore the fact that hardly a week goes by without another procession of soldiers’ coffins passing through Wootton Bassett on their sad way home, emphasising that the risks and demands of Army life, for soldiers and their families, are rather greater than those faced by BBC executives or noisy, opinionated scriptwriters.
If the BBC insists on using public money to screen this piece of unworthy adolescent agitprop, then it ought to be ashamed of itself.
Mr McGovern, meanwhile, might try putting his effort on the provincial stage to see if any normal human beings are ready to pay their own money to see it.
