Columnist Tony Porter on bias at the BBC, family issues and beautiful Wigan
This week columnist Tony Porter has the BBC in his sights and also touches on the tough decisions needed to be made about aging relatives
The BBC have, yet again, had a bad week.
It turns out there may have been interference from the government regarding its news output.
It seems that civil servants were involved in areas of the output of news on its output, including BBC Verify.
The BBC say that all output was decided by only the BBC’s editorial and journalistic workers but have still “paused” this interaction.
Many of us have thought that Auntie Beeb has long been a mouthpiece for Labour, but this revelation hammers that home.
Meanwhile, totally unrelated, our culture secretary is backing plans to expand even further the licence fee for the BBC to cover Netflix, YouTube and the like.
Even if you don’t have the BBC they may be able to get the licence fee anyway.
Add to that the report I read about a game for young children that rewarded answering complex questions, made in a simplistic way, to encourage support for non-UK residents into jobs, housing and the rest, deducting, for the most part, questions favouring British nationals.
Never mind expanding the licence fee payers, time to defund them. Let advertisers pay for it.
Mind you “normalisation” of what is British is being eroded by many companies in their advertisements online and TV.
How many mixed race families do you know? How many feature on adverts?
If you can watch BBC London news output and see what Wigan, and the country will look like in the near future, your kids and grandkids will be living in a completely different country.
In Wigan we have seen the scaffold come down from around Pier two with new skylights and what looks like solar panels on the “new” roof.
I went for a long walk at dusk on Sunday around the Haigh Plantations and grounds.
We are so lucky to have so much nature on our doorstep.
I saw countless squirrels getting ready to hibernate, foraging for nourishment to see them through, a heron and the most deer I have seen on one walk: at least seven.
Even Haigh Hall looked fantastic, despite the white wall surrounding it.
The sunset was epic and I walked to the Plantaion Gates to see up close the LED lighting, which in my humble opinion, looked absolutely stunning.
Add to that the autumnal colours and it really was a great way to clear my mind after a stressful few weeks.
As, on a personal note, I have spent the last few weeks talking to social workers, doctors and carers regarding my mother.
Aged 91 and bedridden, she has been moved to a 24-hour care residential home in Denton.
One of the hardest things I have had to agree to, but the situation has taken us to this point.
Everyone I have delt with has been from Tameside Council and the NHS and they have made this dreaded action easier than I had feared.
My mother always said that she never wanted to end up in such a place.
But it is homely and the staff feel like nice caring folk.
I can’t see her just yet to let her settle in. It makes sense as she always thinks through her confusion that I am there to “take me home.”
Family stuff can be so challenging at times.