Dear Tim Davie, here are 10 easy ways to get Reform voters to watch the BBC
Yikes! Panic stations at Broadcasting House as it occurs to the BBC high-ups that those ghastly, knuckle-dragging Farage fans might be more popular than in their worst nightmares. So sealed off from mainstream opinion is the BBC Bubble that, until now, the rise of Reform UK has been dismissed as some kind of unfortunate smell which can safely be dispersed if presenters just keep treating Reform spokespeople as if they are enemy spies brought in for interrogation, not democratically elected men and women who speak for millions.
The corporation's lofty condescension to those uppity plebs was summed up by a BBC Politics tweet which described the newly-elected Reform UK Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, as 'the former Greggs worker and Miss UK finalist'. Never mind that she'd also been a Conservative MP and minister. Mind you, give me a Greggs worker and beauty queen over the coldly supercilious Naga Munchetty any day.
BBC staff are quick to complain about 'misogyny' unless the target is someone they consider to be 'far-Right' and almost certainly Brexity (Eeuw!) in which case all feminist sensitivities are off. That snobbish, snide remark about the force that is Dame Andrea provoked a huge backlash, quite rightly, and the BBC hastily removed the tweet saying, 'We acknowledge the tone of the post was wrong, and it has been taken down'. Still, they had revealed their true colours – Rayner Red and Lib Dem Yellow – and they weren't pretty.
Now – oh, joy! – we are told the BBC is holding talks about how to win over Reform-voting viewers amid fears their views are 'under-represented by the broadcaster'. You don't say! I reckon many Reform supporters have already cancelled their licence fees in disgust. Still, to appeal to any that remain, senior executives including director-general Tim Davie and chair Samir Shah are said to have discussed plans to overhaul the BBC's news and drama output to tackle 'low-trust issues' among Reform voters.
Deborah Turness, BBC News boss, apparently briefed the broadcaster's board on how to ensure the views of Reformers were being given enough airtime. The BBC is understood to be keen to ensure it represents all audiences and their concerns, suggesting the broadcaster may seek to boost its coverage of issues such as immigration.
Well, that's a first. I can count on the fingers of one hand the occasions when the BBC has suggested that immigration is anything other than an unmitigated joy or treated anyone arguing to cut numbers as anything other than some racist pariah. I still remember the pained wince of Laura Kuenssberg when Kemi Badenoch confirmed that she did indeed believe that not all cultures are equally valid – 'cultures that believe in child marriage?' quipped the Tory leader devastatingly.
A number of key BBC presenters may need to be sedated before being required to challenge their own faith in open borders and slavish loyalty to the EU.
Why, you might ask, has it taken the prospect (um, threat) of a Reform government to make our supposedly national broadcaster feel it has to make sure that all viewers' experiences and backgrounds are portrayed on screen? Well, while Reform has not said it would scrap the BBC licence fee, it believes it is 'not sustainable' in its current form. Playing nice with a future prime minister Farage may stick in the craw, but the Beeb don't have much choice but to swallow hard.
If the BBC is serious, here are my top 10 tips for Reform-friendly programming:
1. Bring back Jeremy Clarkson
In anything. Literally anything and everything. Call The Midwife, Springwatch, sewing contests, anchoring News at Ten, chairing Question Time. Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime is rightly adored for its host's no-nonsense style and contempt for fashionable pieties. Peak Reform! Best of all for attracting Nigel fans, restore Top Gear with the original, irrepressible cast of petrolheads. Clarkson once said the most British saying of all was, 'Oh, for God's sake.' He speaks directly to Reform voters.
2. Broadcast all England Test matches
No need to sack Gary Lineker (a Reform imperative if Mr Gaza hadn't already stepped down!), but the BBC could help restore national pride and joy by buying the rights to broadcast all England Test matches. Many Reform voters are older and may struggle to afford a Sky subscription just to watch the game they love. The national broadcaster should be broadcasting our nation's sports.
3. Make Laurence Fox Doctor Who
After the woke ratings disaster of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor Who, this cult show is on death row. Former doctor's companion Billie Piper is rumoured to be lined up to be the second female Doctor. A better idea would be to cast Piper's former husband Laurence Fox. As well as possessing the ideal hectic energy, dancing wit and sonorous delivery for the role, Fox was cancelled and lost his acting career after appearing on Question Time, where he said that Britain was not racist. It was, he insisted, the warmest, most welcoming and tolerant country on Earth. A belief which is pretty much universally shared by Reform voters. Uncancelling Fox would be proof of the BBC's new openness to views it finds uncomfortable as well as giving that endangered acting species – the posh white male – a role he would undoubtedly make his own.
4. No more diversity pandering
While you're at it, drop the relentless diversity casting of BBC drama. It's patronising and silly. This may come as a shock, but there are actually some police officers in the UK who are not married to a spouse from an ethnic minority – not that you'd know it from watching every single thriller or police procedural. Viewers – both Reform voters and others – would occasionally like to see the country they live in accurately represented, not as it is viewed by a producer who lives in on-trend east London.
5. Report on what voters actually care about
BBC News bulletins to feature subjects discussed down the pub not by non-binary Marxist postgraduates called Umberto in Broadcasting House, e.g. our energy bills are horrendous and net zero is clearly madness. Maybe occasionally suggest that it's 'green taxes' not the 'war in Ukraine' which is giving Britain the highest energy bills in the developed world. It's what Reform voters believe after all.
6. Call out the far-Left
Every time a journalist uses the term 'far-Right' they must also use 'far-Left' (which, mysteriously, we never hear on the BBC). ie the 'far-Left' Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.
7. 'Hamas are terrorists'
To be stated every time the war with Israel is mentioned, and no equivocation.
8. 'Things That Make You Proud to be British'
An ambitious new factual history series which travels back into our nation's past and discovers, astonishingly, that Britons weren't always the biggest bastards imaginable.
10. Did I mention Jeremy Clarkson?
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