Reply #5: this has to be put in the context of summer 03 ...

[bin.dare]

with the fight between Blair and the BBC and the subsequent death of David Kelly. Thompson was appointed around Dec 03 and is in the process of down-sizing the BBC. The news staff is greatly affected and pissed off by this. The cut-backs are actually bigger than seem because the BBC has also been given new mandates.

This is an out and out effort to de-fang the BBC as an independent group particularly as a news group. To understand what is happening, just remind yourself that Tony Blair is Maggie Thatcher's child; spiritually and politically. She was one of the first people he called when he was (first) elected, and she has said of him that her greatest legacy is Tony Blair and New Labour.