BBC
Corporation facts
The BBC must ask itself if Nadine Dorries has a point
Is this the BBC’s best defence?
Proposals by Nadine Dorries to scrap the BBC licence fee have produced something of a meltdown over at Broadcasting House.…
The BBC is killing cricket
Full homage to the nail-biting cricketing miracle in Sydney, while bearing in mind that miracles, like lightning, rarely strike twice…
Around the World In Eighty Days is the worst TV this Christmas
‘In many ways, Phileas Fogg represents everything that’s alarming and peculiar about that old sense of British Empire. Potentially, it’s…
The BBC’s mysterious missing Xinjiang evidence
Parliament has packed up for the holidays, with MPs and peers spending their final days in SW1 desperately dodging the…
How the BBC lost its way on Covid
I have been a BBC journalist for many years, and in that time I have been committed to impartiality and…
Best of the Blob
Who would be picked for its 1st XV?
John Cleese’s cancel culture hypocrisy
‘Always look on the bright side of life’ sang Monty Python. But it seems that for at least one of the…
Gender is contentious. The BBC is pretending it isn’t
The BBC has produced its annual 100 Women list, a showcase for women who have done interesting, important things. There’s…
Priti Patel and the progressive language police
There was an exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon that ought to be a scandal but won’t.…
It’s Harry, not Meghan, who’s the real problem
Who or what drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royal bosom for the land of slebs on the other…
Sent to Coventry
The story is likely apocryphal — and so disgraceful I almost hesitate to tell it — but it goes like…
Diary
The rhythm of the big party conference leader interviews is a strange one. First come days of slow, repetitive, detailed…
Lights, camera, traction
There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind…
The BBC is being left behind in blockbuster Britain
There’s a great revival under way inthe British TV and film industry,but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it.Netflix is…
Darkness visible
Translating the story of Jimmy Savile to stage or screen is a creative minefield, says Jonathan Maitland, who knows from first-hand experience
The human condition
Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…
Men and sheds
The interview podcast is a genre immoderately drawn to gimmicks, as the logical space of possible formats is gradually exhausted.…
Revealed: the BBC guide for covering climate change
Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if…
Marathon man
I’ve not been allowed anywhere near the TV remote control this week because of some kind of infernal sporting event…
The Spectator’s Notes
On Monday 2 August, the BBC Today programme offered its ‘Countdown to COP26’. For the rest of the month, Amol…
Serial offenders
Modern soap operas have lost the plot
The Spectator’s Notes
If it is true, as Lords Hall and Birt told a Commons committee this week, that Martin Bashir succeeded in…
A breath of fresh airwaves
A couple of decades back the Radio Society asked me to moderate a debate for its summer festival. ‘Between who?’…
How the BBC can save itself
All those esteemed generals of hindsight screeching ‘more governance’ as the cure to BBC’s cover-up of the Martin Bashir’s dishonesty…
