Sir, 

I can still recall the time Lord Mountbatten spoke about the sinking of HMS Kelly when he was the captain and the ship was bombed and sunk in 1941 with the loss of half its crew. He jumped overboard and as his head popped back up he was greeted by a naval rating who said: “at times like this sir the scum always comes to the top”.

Perhaps that was a bit disrespectful to his senior officer but at least it was a justified reaction at the time. As we move along by 80 years it seems the word is still used but not in isolation. 

The recipient of the word this time was also accused of being misogynistic, homophobic and racist which surprised me as I had never imagined the accuser knew the meaning of such expressions.

Now we know from the several definitions of “scum” the normal one is the result of having a boil-up and the detritus accumulates on the top ready to be discarded.

More to my surprise was the accuser whom I recall calling for a more gentle style of politics, a more well-mannered debating tone far removed from what “you boys” get up to if left to your devices. You see, Parliament is such a male-dominated place and some women feel so oppressed by masculinity.

But alas – now the girls are so much better represented and can smell the domination where the tide is turning and some “ladies” are beginning to adopt some of the lad’s bad manners.  Well, why not, as diversity is all around us and woe betide anyone that doesn’t abide by it.

Such freedom of expression seems endless as even a discussion about those with or without a cervix is more important than addressing the national debt or a shortage of HGV drivers.

I must be old-fashioned as the differences between the sexes has always been easy to understand but then I’m just an old, racist, homophobic misogynist – so what do I know?

Well if it’s any consolation we have come to discover that when the Labour Party has a good boil-up in Brighton the scum comes to the top and its name is Angela Rayner who is not just any old MP but the deputy party leader and governmental hopeful in the near future. What a lady! We used to laugh at Diane Abbott and Anna Soubry but this one takes the biscuit. There’s nothing to laugh at here, move along, please.

Perhaps if political events take a turn and Labour wins a majority in 2023 I shall be pressing for Ms Rayner to be our Foreign Secretary. I can see her now talking to President Kamala Harris as they exchange their ideas for the next move towards population control using ever more, not yet devised, restrictions on our freedoms. But the thing that will stand out most will be the choice of words that will re-write the book of diplomatic expressions because by then we should have progressed from “scum” to “sod that”.  Well, you can’t beat a bit of the vernacular.

Mr Speaker, or should that be Mr Starmer, it’s time you had a word in someone’s ear before one or two MPs give many more a bad name.

Labour unelectable?  Well it won’t be for not trying.

Respectfully, Geoffrey Bastin

~~~   OOO   ~~~

Sir,

Tim Davie, after a year as director-general of the BBC, has been awarded a whopping £75,000 pay rise – 16.6 per cent – taking his wages to £525,000 a year. The pay rise was called an ‘“absolute scandal’” by pensioners’ groups campaigning against having to pay the statutory £159 licence fee, after ‘the free licence was cut last summer to save £400million a year’, affecting around 4.2 million people, and with ‘£65million spent to generate payments from over-75s’. But the highly-paid Mr Davie is not alone: TV presenter Gary Lineker, of Match Of The Day, ‘is at the top of the talent pay list, with between £1,360,000 and £1,364,999 a year, while radio host Zoe Ball is the second-biggest earner, with £1,330,000 to £1,334,999.’ 

According to a BBC spokesman, the ‘“current salary”’ of Mr Davie, who supported ‘axing’ the free licences, “remains lower than what he earned at BBC Studios and is well below other UK broadcasting chief’s pay” (Daily Express).

So that’s all right then – except his rival broadcasting bosses are not paid out of the public purse. To earn as much as Mr Davie does he must have to work all day and all night, but if he does, there is no discernible effect on programme quality – although he must be rushed off his feet, since he also has a chauffeur-driven car.

It ill behoves the BBC hierarchy to award themselves massive pay rises while continuing to demand that pensioners pay the licence fee – the most ill-served of the population by a public broadcaster that bangs on about ‘yoof’ and diversity while those who most depend on TV for information, news and entertainment have to rely on the ‘repeats’ shown on other channels if they want real entertainment which does not consist in being entertained to a woke lecture. 

The only good thing about the elderly paying the licence fee is that without it the BBC would have no incentive at all to please its older audience; they are already seen as ‘cheerleaders for assisted suicide’ (link) and getting the licence fee for nothing would make us even more expensive old nuisances.

The Corporation, which seems to think it their job to propagandise on behalf of the Remain (now Rejoiner) faction, to promote Covid Lockdown and green zealotry, now has to deal with around ‘260,000 older viewers’ who have not paid their licence fee; these ‘face so-called customer care visits from TV Licensing officials.’ What will these sinisterly named ‘visitors’ say to old folk on their doorsteps? ‘Give us your money and we’ll tell you what to think’?

Perhaps it is time to rename the BBC the Bullying Broadcasters Collective.

 

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