As sections of the media talk up the prospects of a Conservative general election victory, the carefully-crafted “nice” Tory image is beginning to slip.
For those who care about democratic and accountable media, let alone the rights of working people, the prospects are chilling.
The BBC has already begun its ritual self-harming in preparation for axe-wielding Tory public service slashers. “If we cut off a finger now, they might not chop off our head”, is the BBC Trust’s thinking.
So a review being carried out by the Trust could back the privatisation of parts of the corporation, could lead to the closure of digital television or radio services and will almost certainly lead to job cuts – not just among highly-paid managers, but among journalists and production workers.
It won’t work. The Tory desire to cut the BBC down to size at the behest of their cheerleaders in the right-wing media under the cover of offering value for money knows no bounds.
As if to prove the point, the Tories have lined up a new executioner – a former BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, who, it is reported, is to recommend scrapping the licence fee in favour of a government grant. This would remove any vestige of independence of the BBC from the vagaries of the government of the day.
Add to that Tory plans to scrap the broadcasters’ obligations to impartiality and calls by Jeremy Hunt, the Tories’ culture spokesman, for the BBC to employ more Conservatives and we are only a whisker away from a bizarre American-style world of ranting right-wing presenters denouncing the supposed death panels deciding who can and can’t have treatment on the National Health Service.
In addition to proposing to tear up the BBC Charter and calling for the corporation to employ more Tories, Jeremy Hunt is also promoting the thinking (and I use the term loosely) of Roger Parry, chair of the employers’ consortium, the Local Media Alliance, with regard to how the crisis faced by local media might be solved. In brief, it amounts to low cost, low quality local TV relying heavily on volunteers, low budgets and poor wages.
It’s a microcosm of Tory thinking on a range of issues. It hides behind the mantra
of choice while in reality narrowing real alternatives,
Not content with slashing and burning the BBC and axing the BBC Trust, the Conservatives have plans to scrap broadcasting regulator Ofcom, too. Yes, Ofcom has been a disaster – allowing ITV to ditch commitments to public service broadcasting and failing in its remit to maintain and strengthen public service broadcasting. There is certainly a case for scrapping it and putting in place tougher regulation.
Unsurprisingly that’s not part of the Tories’ plan. They want less regulation, not more.
For media workers, the chilling prospects of a Tory government are enhanced by news that the Conservatives are considering plans to set new minimum turnout thresholds for strike ballots. So much for human rights.
The unions might accept such a daft proposal if, in return, an MP could only be elected if a majority of the total electorate voted for them – but otherwise it’s yet another case of one law for the greedy fat cats in Parliament and another for working people.
With reports that the Tories are busy filing dozens of Freedom of Information requests about time off granted for union reps, it’s clear they are preparing another huge assault on trade union rights.
Gareth Ellis, a Tory councillor in Carlisle, let the cat out of the bag in boasting the Tory government would be more right wing and more Thatcherite then ever before. “Thatcherism is not dead. It isn’t even resting. It is preparing to lift off and go to levels it has never gone before”.
So, straight from the ass’ mouth: a deregulatory, low-wage economy, backed by attacks on the unions. Tempted?
Jeremy Dear is general secretary of the National Union of Journalists
