BBC CONTINUES TO FALL APART.

What is it about politicians that makes them unable to be honest and forthright about just about anything ?

 

Today, an admittedly ex-politician though a very senior one, tried his damnedest to avoid answering questions about the disgusting behaviour of a former BBC presenter, Stuart Hall. We know, because he's admitted it, that Hall was a serial abuser of young girls in days gone by and it's now suggested, not unreasonably, that other BBC staff must have known what was going on; it's even been suggested that some may have helped to facilitate Hall's behaviour.

 

Under questioning from Jeremy Vine, not exactly a rotweiler at the job, Patten looked so uncomfortable that one has to wonder how he's ever held down a 'top job'. As chairman of the Beeb, his standard response was that the claims were appalling and and would be addressed by Dame Janet Smith's ongoing enquiry; Dame Janet is, apparently, reviewing the BBC's culture and practices following the Saville scandal.

 

Patten played the typical politician, saying nothing that could be used against him; he said nothing definite about anything, leaving everything to Dame Janet and her enquiry. This is what used to be referred to as 'kicking a problem into the long grass'; when Dame Janet's enquiry will eventually report is anyone's guess and to what extent it will have considered, or even been able to consider, the historic issues of abuse at the BBC is in the air.

 

The BBC is an organisation which was once the true envy of the world, being the one great broadcaster which spread news around the globe in an entirely apolitical way. Today it's an inward looking, left-leaning organisation which has been found to have fallen very short of any standards of decency over a protracted period. The manner in which it embraced the culture of the 1960s and 1970s has caused it to become a hotbed of the most shocking and disgusting excesses of those periods, with so many involved that the behaviour of a few was simply ignored by everyone else. Today, its one priority is to try to rescue itself from its failings and it will obfuscate and dissemble for all it's worth to that end.

 

Saville and Hall are almost certainly the tip of a very large iceberg. Remembering the way in which various presenters of programmes such as 'Top of the Pops' habitually surrounded themselves with hordes of young girls is, itself, worrying; that Hall was not connected with this programme suggests that the evil was spread much more widely, and independent television is unlikely to be innocent either.

 

How many more revelations will there be ?

STUART HALL ADMITS OFFENCES; ROACHE CHARGED.

Stuart Hall's admission that he committed sexual assaults against 13 young girls, aged 9 to 17, while working at the BBC must raise yet more concern about the appalling culture which existed at the corporation over a period of several decades. Following on from the revelations about the behaviour of Jimmy Saville and allegations against several other well-known figures, Hall's admission provides definitive evidence that something was seriously wrong in an organisation in which it seems that many knew of this type of activity but no one acted.

 

Additionally, Bill Roache, a man whose entire acting life seems to have been devoted to playing one character in a 'soap' has now been charged with 2 counts of rape, both offences being committed at the same 15 year old in 1967. Whether or not these charges are eventually proven, the CPS clearly believes that there is sufficient evidence to ask a jury to consider it and the old adage 'there's no smoke without fire' may well be relevant.

 

Both Hall and Saville were, apparently, well respected figures at the BBC where they both worked for many years; others who've been implicated have also had connections to the BBC though not exclusively so, as is demonstrated by the case of Roache. What is common to all is that they were 'celebrities' and people with a degree of power over their victims; after all, who would have believed some silly teenager's cry of 'Rape !' against Saville ? He was too well known to be thought of as a sex-offender, as was Hall and as, no doubt, are at least some of the others.

 

The culture at the BBC was clearly shocking, but so it probably was at other media organisations. Drink, drugs and sex were the name of the game and order of the day and, in the permissive years that sprang from the 1960s, there have always been hordes of naive young people queuing up to get involved. That there were also hordes of older men queuing up to exploit them, with no one bothering to find out out what was going on, is the real disgrace.

 

Hall, who is 83 and, perhaps, unlucky to have been caught before he died, ought to spend his remaining days behind bars, however many they are. If Roache, who's 81, is found guilty his sentence should be the same. As for the rest of those already arrested and / or questioned by the police, they are mostly older men of the same ilk and, if offences are proven, none of them should ever see the light of day again.

 

All that remains is to find out who were the people who knew, but did nothing. They have a great deal to answer for.