A victory has been achieved in the fight against the disgracefully threatening letters sent by the BBC's TV Licensing arm. The company responsible for sending the letters, Proximity London, was fired by the BBC on Friday after it was found that millions of letters contained false statistics.
This newspaper's investigation also found that all of TV Licensing's mass mailings, which were 'signed' at the bottom with the preprinted signatures of named officials, in fact bore fake versions of the individuals' signatures which varied over time.The BBC initially refused to explain the discrepancy, but has now said that fake signatures were routinely used "to prevent fraud".John Whittingdale, the chairman of the all-party Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee, accused TV Licensing of behaving "like the Gestapo", employing "tactics that are outrageous".
He said that TV Licensing should use real signatures and criticised the wording of its letters, which wrongly implied that its employees have police-style legal powers to enter homes and interview suspects.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/seb.hunt/
A parody with more than a grain of truth in it:
ttp://www.sodall.co.uk/BBC/parody/index.htm
The BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it "invented" a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture.
Emin's Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, was announcing big cost cuts.
Internal e-mails revealed serious doubts within the organisation about spending so much on a sculpture that had no links to the corporation.
An e-mail dated February 22 from senior BBC publicist Janet Morrow to Vanda Rumney, head of communications, gave warning that the commission could create a "sticky situation on the public art front which could blow up".
Morrow noted that the sculpture "is not connected to a BBC building, nor is it linked in any way to a BBC broadcast or BBC activity — the BBC has purely used licence fee money to create a public sculpture".
She then said she had "invented" a "plausible line" to justify the commission.
Then we have this from the Times :
THE BBC last night faced accusations of pro-Brussels bias as it was revealed that the corporation had taken out £141m in “soft” loans from the European Union.
The broadcaster has taken out three separate low interest loans from the EU-backed European Investment Bank (EIB) to fund the expansion of its growing commercial empire.
It also emerged that the BBC has received grants from the EU worth £1.4m over the past five years.The Brussels deals raise awkward questions for the corporation about its coverage of European affairs and its burgeoning profit-making arm whose interests extend to property, publishing and the internet.
The details of the loans and grants stretching back six years emerged in a letter written by Zarin Patel, the BBC’s finance director, to Bob Spink, a Conservative MP.
The first £66m loan in 2003 was used to fund “the fit-out” of a new building in the BBC’s Media Village development in west London, which was later sold for a profit. The second loan for £25m and the third for £50m were made to BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s profit-making arm, to pay for the acquisition of overseas rights to programmes made by the BBC in the UK.
The EIB has described itself as “an autonomous body set up to finance capital investment furthering European integration by promoting EU policies”.
Right so they take loans off of the EU so quite how can they report impartially on the EU when the EIB has described itself as:"an autonomous body set up to finance capital investment furthering European integration by promoting EU policies”
So there's another reason to sign THIS.
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