Quote: Rood Eye @ 10th May 2019, 11:37 PM
Danny's Baker's departure from the BBC means, of course, that they and we have lost a presenter of spectacular talent.
There is however another problem in terms of loss to the nation: if the BBC's entire stable of presenters were divided into groups based upon race, nationality, gender and social class, the scarcity of white, English, working-class, male presenters working for the diversity-conscious corporation might surprise you.
The reason is almost certainly that the posh folk running the BBC although preferring other posh folk above all others nevertheless see "minority" types as quaint and amusing (as well as being the politically correct choice of employee, of course) whereas they see white, English, working-class men as the scum of the earth.
I think you are right.
I identify two strands underpinning this:
1. There was a time when white male working class upward mobility was welcomed on the basis of intelligence. Galton and Simpson, John Sullivan - these sorts of writers followed on from novel writers like Barstow and Sillitoe, all wonderful in my opinion, and then you had the likes of Baker and Kelly and Elms and Ross as front men : not all quite my types of broadcaster tbh although I like Kelly and Elms isn't too bad who were there, among other things, as they had an exceptional range of interests so as to be interesting to other people as well as drive. You could call it all a bit "grammar school" although most of these did not go to a grammar school. Often posh types to their credit backed them.
That all went and to the extent that they have been replaced, the emphasis is on money/bling and an aw-gawd-blimey caricature. It is not that the people I have listed are without money. Far from it but it isn't the emphasis. Now you get Harry Redknapp, Lord Sugar, and a couple of others. Vinnie Jones. Good at what they have done which in many ways is accumulating wealth. None are fools. But they are stereotypes to be laughed at or laughed with where people say "oh well, if they are millionaires good luck to them". What they aren't is highly individual or artistic/inventive/rangy. For that now speaks too much of brain power and is almost an intellectual class threat to the moneyed establishment.
2. The dominant narrative from almost every group other than older white males is that white males were the ones who were all powerful in history and everyone else was oppressed because of them. It is totally warped because actually the vast majority of working class white males and even what we would call middle class males today were manual workers in the most atrocious working and housing environments long into the 20th Century, that is, when they weren't killed off fighting wars. Far from being all dominant and powerful, they were effectively slaves and other than perhaps for the period 1945-1979 that was how they were destined to be forever more. I say "they". I mean "we" of course. You will get many liberal white media men vehemently disagreeing but they are among the new wealth barons of the current age.
