Farewell BBC you’ve lost credibility not to mention your audience

The BBC has lost its way (Image: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty)Yes, as it happens, it was, but that wasn’t the point. This issue is that the BBC has completely lost its reputation for impartiality, to the point where you find yourself wondering whether the programme that was once essential listening for politicians, businessmen and women and movers and shakers everywhere, could now be putting its own interpretation on events rather than reporting the news straightforwardly.For it is pretty obvious that the BBC generally, and its presenters specifically, are pretty anti-Republican, especially as the spectre of you-know-who continues to lurk in the background, just as they are woke, anti-Tory and totally out of touch with their listeners.Those listeners once extended across the world.Just over a week ago, it was reported that Today’s listening figures had fallen by over half a million from 6½ million to 5.9 million.But is anyone surprised? It is not only the abysmal quality of the presenters that is at fault (they have one decent one left, Justin Webb, who ironically was doing much of the US election coverage) but the fact that the BBC has lost its reputation for being trustworthy. It is biased and that affects everything it touches.Nearly 30 years ago I was lucky enough to visit Czechoslovakia, as it then was, and I was told that the BBC was held in such reverence that people helped the corporation to smuggle people in – and smuggle information out – to report on the 1968 Prague uprising. The Today programme when it was good (Image: Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty)That reputation has been shattered for the simple reason that the BBC now has its own agenda and you cannot always tell if it is reporting on what has actually happened or what it has wanted to happen.Perhaps it is absolutely rigid in its standards of reporting the news – I’m sure it thinks it is – but its worldview is now so obvious and so widely known that you simply cannot be sure.The BBC is clearly a busted flush now anyway: the rise of streaming channels, social media and the rest of it means that a national broadcaster funded by a levy is simply not feasible any more. But there are, or were, parts of it that were worth preserving had its own employees not destroyed it from within.Who would fight to hear those direly unfunny ‘comedians’ on what passes for comedy shows and news quizzes which are nothing but Left-wing propaganda masquerading as entertainment?Who in their right mind would put Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson up with the broadcasting greats of yesteryear?And the saddest element of it all is that Auntie herself, with the possible exception of the Director General, is so completely unaware of the mistakes it has made and the wrong paths it has chosen.RIP BBC: you were great, but you’re yesterday’s hero. Bring on the new.Ding dong – we won’t see the like of Leslie Phillips again Leslie Phillips 1924-2022 (Image: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty)And so farewell then, Leslie Phillips, charmer and gentleman extraordinaire. Despite all the flirting and innuendo, Leslie belonged to a gentler, kinder and more innocent age.It is my proudest boast that my godmother’s cousin was another man of the same ilk – Terry-Thomas.Ding dong, as both men were wont to say.The eco lunatics have taken over the asylumI got caught up in the M25 chaos earlier this week: a journey that should have taken just over an hour was two hours and 40 minutes, although I suppose I should count myself lucky I got there at all.As my colleague Leo McKinstry writes, why are these people allowed to get away with it?Why can’t we just leave them glued to the spot and let the cold and nature take its course?Meanwhile, our absurd fracking ban means we are importing liquified gas from America, gas that was obtained by fracking, needless to say.Go figure. The words asylum, taken over and lunatics come to mind.I bow to no one on nurses but they should not go on strikeI take my hat off to the nursing profession: I couldn’t do that job for love nor money and I have also been the recipient of great kindness from more than one person in that noble trade.Which makes me wonder: how can any dedicated nurse consider going on strike?I don’t doubt that they have justified grievances, but how will any of them feel if they end up with a dead patient?They should think again before it’s too late.Pigs are intelligent, peace makers and deliciousPigs have an undeserved bad press: not only are they among the most intelligent of animals but now it has been reported that they are nature’s peacemakers.When a fight breaks out in a sty between two of them, a third steps in to calm things down.Couldn’t we send a few into the House of Commons? They could start with ‘Sir’ Gavin Williamson and take it on from there.An open marriage ends up shutThe author Neil Gaiman and his American singer wife Amanda Palmer made a real song and dance about the fact they had an open marriage.It has now been announced that they are going to divorce.What a surprise.Fishy business in the kitchen The über-chef Angela Hartnett has said that we Britons make too much of a song and dance about cooking fish, overdoing it so much it comes out dry and tasteless and that’s if we eat the stuff at all.As a dedicated pescatarian, allow me to share a simple and delicious way of preparing our piscine friends: heat up a dry frying pan, plonk your supper in it scales side down, squirt on some fresh lemon juice and cook for five to 10 minutes.Utterly lovely and low on calories. And makes quite a splash.