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The BBC Is Now In The Business Of Unsettling Managers, And We Shouldn’t Be Paying For It.

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They just aren’t getting it, are they?

Public disgust at the BBC is near peak levels at the moment; the broadcaster is a joke. Allegedly a taxpayer funded organisation which is meant to work in the national interest, it becomes ever more apparent than it is in thrall to certain interests whose agenda it pushes to the detriment of all else. No part of the UK has suffered as much from this as Scotland, as was ably and amply demonstrated during the independence referendum of 2014.

But their conduct in that campaign came as no surprise to those of us who had been listening to their radio shows. In fact, their MO was very predictable, and all too familiar. We’d been hearing it for years, on their sports programmes.

Back in the early 2000’s, their sports anchors included the insufferable Jim Traynor, Chick Young and arch-Rangers shill Gordon Smith.

Young has been there all the way through these long years.

Traynor is now a PR man who still has friends at the Corporation.

Smith has cycled through a run of mediocrity as the CEO of the SFA, where he disgraced his post on a routine basis, and then he took over the same job at Ibrox, a lamentable career decision which should have wrecked his credibility. Yet he has found his way back to a soft seat in their studio.

The latest addition to their “top team” is the abject Kris Boyd, an individual so profoundly ignorant and stupid that the Village Idiot Association has scrubbed him from its membership rolls. If you’ve ever listened to this muppet for longer than a few minutes without laughing you should be on the sublime hit comedy show Impractical Jokers, where the ability to keep a straight face whilst your co-hosts make idiots of themselves is a prized asset.

Boyd is almost unbelievably thick. Think Trigger from Only Fools and Horses, and add a couple of IQ points but subtract his impeccable manners and genuine warmth. What you’re left with is an arrogant snark, as dumb as a fence post but so in love with his own opinion that he could literally die in his arms. Two of him wouldn’t make a halfwit.

I listened, incredulously, as he ranted and raved on their radio show from last night, maintaining that Derek McInnes will not hesitate to move to Sevco if the two clubs can agree terms. To him, it’s a done deal. To him the lure of Ibrox will be too much, even if it means working under the current dysfunctional board run by the glib and shameless liar.

The rest of the panel was contemptuous of that suggestion. When Tom English asked him to explain it Boyd came out with the laugh out loud moment of the evening. “Rangers are on the way back,” he blurted out before he could contain his excitement at the idea.

“Back to where?” English asked, his voice dripping with scorn. I appreciated that, but thought he should have asked “Back from where? The dead?”

Boyd knew what he wanted to say, but his single brain cell fired up and he realised how ridiculous it would sound. Instead he said what he knew would sound more palatable. “To second,” he said, in a momentary acceptance of the world as it really is.

He argued that McInnes had taken Aberdeen as far as he could. Which was second in the league and contesting the occasional cup final, usually against us. But in admitting that McInnes’ only realistic goal at Ibrox will be … second and the occasional cup final … well, he’s not really making a case for the manager advancing his career all that much, is he?

It is a moment of shock-and-awe embarrassment for everyone involved, from the other people in the studio to those who gave the clapped out striker the gig.

And yet, it’s Boyd’s portion of the show and his ridiculous assertions that are splattered all over Newsnow right now, and what’s the BBC’s own headline?

“McInnes Needs To Get Out Of Aberdeen.”

Talk about sending a message. To the casual observer that’s the national broadcaster editorialising. There’s no context to it whatsoever. It looks like the taxpayer funded central organisation in the Scottish media urging the Aberdeen manager to take the first bus to Glasgow, for his own good. And that is scandalous, and the Pittodrie club should be livid.

The BBC is now openly promoting this move. They are openly calling for it. It doesn’t matter that the words themselves were spoken by a brainless dolt; that headline is a shocker. Whoever approved it is no longer working for the taxpayer, they are working for Ibrox.

The BBC complaints procedure is pretty straightforward.

I am sick and tired of this kind of “journalism” from an organisation I’m paying for.

I’m filling that form in, and you should all do the same.

You can get it by clicking on this link.

 

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