Michael Foot, the BBC and the 39 Steps

Rather a loose link of ideas this time but the past week has caused me to reflect on how today's Britain is so different from that of only 20 years ago.



A very good childhood friend rang me in the week to talk about the death of Michael Foot. The gist of the conversation was the fact that for both of us, Foot was a hero of us both and ranked alongside similar heroes from music and sport. This caused me to ponder the fact that there doesn't seem to be room any more for real political giants. When one compares the present cabinet, shadow cabinet and Liberal front benchers there is a real dearth of politicians from all sides that have that strength of intellect that seemed to be de rigeur for politicians in the 70s and 80s.



Apart from Vince Cable and , though tainted by his association with the extremes of Thatcher's cabinet, Ken Clarke the intellectual might of Foot, Tony Benn, Dennis Healey and though I loathed him, Enoch Powell just don't seem to exist. Now I'm sure that somewhere on the back benches there are decent and hard working MPs that will have been unfairly tainted by the recent expenses scandals who also have been tucked away from the public eye by party spin doctors for the 'crime' of being too 'intellectual'. If they are there then they should throw off the shackles of their respective parties and do what politicians should do, intellectualise and encourage weighty debate. That's what Michael Foot did with intelligence, wit, gorm and humour.



For proof of this try and listen to an archive recording of the 1979 no confidence debate that Callaghan's govt. faced. In this speech Foot showed how to debate, how to argue and did so with majestic put downs of his opposition rivals. Try the BBC Today programme website for a snippet of this speech, it will remind you of what ideologically driven politicians, as opposed to career driven wannabes, are capable of and why we need them back in the House of Commons to restore a sense of pride and purpose to the place.



The fact that the BBC will still have archives of recordings of the proceedings of Parliament is yet another reason why its present management should steel itself for the political onslaught it will face in the election. Mark Thompson, the head of the Beeb has already tried to head off the expected knifing of the corporation that the Tories will unleash if they win by proposing to close 6 Music and the Asian Network.



The Tory attack, as with that of New Labour over the years, is a response to the support of Murdoch's Sun newspaper and the expected payback that Murdoch (Sky TV especially) will expect.



I believe that Thompson is misguided with his proposals for the following reasons.



Radio 1 is a commercial radio station by any other name. Therefore sell off Radio 1 to the commercial sector where the likes of Chris Moyles will be at home. Use this money to keep the excellent 6 Music and the very important Asian Network as well as supporting Radios 2 to 7.



The BBC should continue to make Eastenders but again, sell it to ITV or Sky who can then make money on advertising revenue gained from its high audiences. Use this money to continue to make high level dramas and use the timeslot to air important programmes such as Panorama and other high brow series.



The public service remit should be relaxed for the commercial companies thus allowing the BBC to continue with the licence fee in order to make programmes that don't directly compete with soaps and celebrity programming of its rivals.



Glastonbury, the Olympics and the Ashes should be jointly produced and available as shared enterprises with Channel 4 but remain as high quality broadcasts available on terrestrial television.



In short the licence fee should be concentrated on Radios 2 to 7, BBC1 to 4 for the purposes of unbiased and well researched journalism, current affairs and news, new comedy, new and high level drama, cutting edge documentaries, new music and outlets for the BBC's archives of music, drama and comedy. The BBC is also the best broadcaster of big events such as the Olympics and Glastonbury across its many channels and should be free to carry on with those.



The soap and celebrity type of programmes sit ill on the BBC anyway so get rid of them and Educate, Inform and Entertain us.



Went to see the stage production of The 39 Steps at the weekend. Absolutely brilliant and hilariously funny. However, I couldn't help laughing at the warning signs that were placed by the theatre entrances that warned the fragile viewing public of gunshots, strobe lighting, haze and, I pause at the shock of this, cigarette smoking!!!!



Now call me cynical but with a novel, 3 film versions and a BBC TV adaptation I wouldn't have thought that a warning of gunshots was totally necessary as there are gunshots present in all those versions. I understand the warning regarding strobes, fair enough. But warning an audience that they may see the awful sight of people smoking cigarettes, well I'm sorry but most of us can remember when every house had ashtrays laid out on arms of chairs and sideboards as a matter of course. Seeing an actor holding a cigarette holder is not going to bring on a cardiac infarction. It reminded me of the absurdity of censors now describing films using phrases such as 'contains mild peril' as though kids might have their lives ruined by unwittingly seeing the child in the film 'Up' actually, well, go up.