Strange BBC standards: Be obscene and offensive on air and that is fine. But comment in private on a coloured person's appearance and you are dead
The BBC has fired Carol Thatcher over her tennis golliwog 'joke' (though, unlike Jonathan Ross, it wasn't said on air). Background: The Ross segment was pre-approved by the BBC before broadcast and it took huge pressure on them before they took any action against him.
"Carol Thatcher has been axed from the BBC after she referred to a tennis player as a 'golliwog'. The daughter of Baroness Thatcher was dropped from her role as 'roving reporter' for The One Show on BBC1 yesterday. Corporation chiefs told her that unless she acknowledged that using the word golliwog was unacceptable, she could not work on the show again.
Those close to Miss Thatcher, who has worked on the One Show for three years, claimed she had 'bent over backwards' to say sorry for comments made in jest - and in private. But last night the BBC issued a statement confirming she had been dropped after she refused to admit that her comments had been 'completely unacceptable'. The corporation was accused of 'double-standards'.
Critics compared Miss Thatcher's rapid dismissal with the treatment of Jonathan Ross after he left obscene messages on the answerphone of Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs. The former prime minister's daughter, 55, who is believed to earn a few thousand year for her One Show role, was dealt with quickly and sternly. However Ross, 48, who earns 6 million pounds a year, was given a three-month suspension without pay and has since returned to work. In addition, the BBC took 11 days to suspend him.
Miss Thatcher used the word golliwog while in the green room with comedian Jo Brand and One Show presenter Adrian Chiles last Thursday. The green room is TV jargon for the lounge where guests and presenters relax before and after they go in front of the cameras. Chiles and Brand are understood to have been the only two others in the room. They are said to have challenged her about the comment which then filtered out to the rest of the production team.
The three were talking about the Australian Open tennis tournament, which ended in Melbourne at the weekend. Miss Thatcher is said to have referred to a black tennis player, understood to be Jo-Wilfried Tsonga [pic above], noted for his physical resemblance to Muhammed Ali, as a 'golliwog'
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6 comments:
the "Green Room" predates TV studios by centuries and had its origins in the theater!
Anon 2 - The Brits were quite capable of resisting Hitler's attempts at invasion with or without help from the US! The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe in 1940, and without air and naval superiority the Germans couldn't invade successfully and gave up - long before the US was forced into the War. Britain had other allies besides the US, and tho' it could not have mounted a counter invasion of the Continent on its own to defeat Hitler, it could keep him out of their island fortress. War loans to the US took to the 1980s to be paid off - but the help was appreciated I'm sure!
Anon #3
"The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe in 1940, and without air and naval superiority the Germans couldn't invade successfully and gave up - long before the US was forced into the War."
The U.S. was in the war long before it was officially declared. The Brits would have run out of food & supplies before the defeat of the Luftwaffe if not for lend-lease.
It was in the US's own interests to help the Brits resist Hitler.
Unlike continental countries Britain had had time to make contingency plans to undermine and sabotage any attempted occupation by the Germans in the event of an invasion. Knowing this and the logistics of a feasible occupation of the entire UK the Germans with all their other commitments would probably have been glad to negotiate an armistice so they could concentrate on the Russians.
If Herr Hitler had postponed his bellicose behaviour for 5 or 6 years the whole world would be Deutch sprecken
AND,
The current Middle east debacle wouldn't exist.
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