Ofcom Director denies Collusive Corruption

Ofcom’s Collusive Corruption

Ofcom Director of Communications Chris Wynn got in touch over Monday’s blogpost.

I just assumed this was spam. Later that day I got a reminder: Not wanting to seem rude, I sent Chris a reply:

The next morning Chris took things up a notch:

Chris was now doing to me precisely what he was accusing me of doing to Lord Adonis. Ascribing a meaning that simply wasn’t there.

We were arguing over the use of the word “over”. At least that’s what I thought.

I was still hoping things could stay friendly.

Getting a bit repetitive.

 

And finally:

I managed a reply:

 

Can we finish this?

And back to square one:

Let me reiterate:

Chris Wynn has been at Ofcom for over ten years and used to be a journalist. Can’t think why he feels the need to play games.

As Ofcom regulation of the BBC only started in 2017,  there might still be teething issues.

Still doesn’t explain why Ofcom are turning a tiny blogpost into such a big deal.

It’s common knowledge that the BBC is biased and that Ofcom is a toothless regulator.

And Fake News is now part of the lexicon.

Corporatist  voices and organised silence of Carbon Bubble, Clean Air and Climate Change are all classic symptoms of a captured media regulator.

How can Ofcom’s Director of Communications, Chris Wynn, deny that Ofcom, the BBC’s regulator, has a problem with collusive corruption?

The perception of bribery and corruption in UK business has been getting much worse over the last six years according to Big Four Audit firm Ernst and Young’s latest fraud survey.

E&Y Fraud Survey

Screenshot of the Executive Summary

OFCOM ruling on Climate Change

BBC News – BBC climate change interview breached broadcasting standards https://t.co/ydBL8kfCoD

— Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) May 2, 2018

It is the first time Ofcom has found the BBC in breach since taking over regulation of the corporation in 2017.

 

So Ofcom took more than 7 months to find the BBC had breached their own broadcasting rules. From August 2017 to April 2018

That’s a long time to correct climate denier Brexiteer Nigel Lawson. Why so long?

And what have Ofcom got to say about the way the BBC legitimise deregulation, fracking and war?

BBC silence about the merging of corporate and state interests is consistent with collusive corruption and the dehumanising corporatist dismantling of public services.

BBC’s political presenters attack anyone with an ecological worldview even though it is widely understood our air is not clean and that pollution kills.

Ofcom is ok with Andrew Neil presenting BBC politics programmes while speaking at antisemitic Hungarian think tanks and chairing the Spectator whose assistant editor is racist Rod Liddle and whose culture critic is the openly fascist James Delingpole.

David Goodhart and several BBC commentators dismiss Windrush deportation cases as mere bureaucratic oversights. Imagine saying that about Nazi deportations? It was called a hostile environment. And Ofcom and the BBC did nothing to help report the illegal deportations as they happened

I wonder why.

Some of Ofcom’s top brass are very much on the gravy train. They are mainly ex-Treasury and audit people.  The ones policing the content are mainly ex-BBC. So conformity is scripted. The type of culture change we need to get a progressive agenda at the BBC and other Public Broadcasters just doesn’t exist. There is too much co-operation with the old way of doing things.

This is Lord Burns. Crossbencher in the Lords but obviously a Tory.

Terry Burns aka Teflon Terry, Lord Ubiquity, Lord Fixer (I’m not making this up) is on the Ofcom Board.

 

Talk about safe pair of hands!

He’s not on the Gravy Train. He is the Gravy Train.

There’ll be no interesting decisions under him.

Then there’s Baroness Noakes.

Jim Waterson of Guardian Media says that though Noakes is a card-carrying Tory, like others on the Ofcom Board,  she can’t be done for bias because there is no business decision that she has taken that can be seen to be influenced by her political position.

This is because Noakes deals with finance and not content. But funnily enough, I can’t find any minutes of what she has actually said in any meeting. So it looks like we can’t know.

Do she, or the other Tory directors,  have any say in choosing who regulates the BBC? .

It’s still altogether wrong that Noakes retweets Brexiteers, Privatisers, the Israeli Ambassador and Climate Deniers while chairing top committees at Ofcom and RBS. She’s also on an EU Lords Subcommittee.

It’s plain wrong to act as though she has no authority. She has. How is she using it? We deserve to know.

It’s a common perception that the BBC is super biased.

How can Noakes get away with being at the top of Ofcom and voting with the Government, but never get questioned over conflict of interest?

 

Noakes was contacted over 50 times regarding market abuse, file falsification, abuse of death certificates etc etc all ignored on her watch. Now that is some risk committee 🙈🙈. It seems Nelson is now making the same grave mistake #DejaVu #RBS #GRG

— InTheKnow (@Nat_Worst) February 25, 2018

Sheila Noakes is also a non-executive director of RBS and was part of the failed whitewash of the GRG scandal https://t.co/y0m51I4Dzz

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) April 29, 2018

Fat cat RBS non-executive directors — Brendan Nelson, Sir Sandy Crombie, Robert Gillespie, Baroness Noakes, Penny Hughes — are being paid up to £30,000-a-year EXTRA to “review” GRG scandal for which they’ve been blamed. My Scottish MoS piece w/ @laneyk91 pic.twitter.com/GSKuWr2zo8

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) February 25, 2018

Same Execs who were central to the biggest cover up in recent banking history, perpetrated by Chris Sullivan of @santanderuk when he was the @RBS puppet master. Noakes & Nelson are a disgrace to the banking profession and @BankConfidenti1 has the evidence to prove so! @Ian_Fraser

— stephen middleton (@stevemiddi1) February 25, 2018

RBS non-execs handed up to £78,000 extra since May’15 to “oversee” GRG (= limit payouts to customers; water down S166 report?!): Brendan Nelson & Sheila Noakes (ex KPMG), Sandy Crombie (ex Standard Life), Robert Gillespie (ex UBS), Penny Hughes (ex Coke) https://t.co/2NQiJuacgJ

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) February 26, 2018

What can I say as far as Noakes and Nelson are concerned, the @RBS whistleblowers are coming for you, as the movie saying goes; ‘be afraid, be very afraid…!’ @BankConfidenti1 @efgbricklayer @HeenanGray @laneyk91

— stephen middleton (@stevemiddi1) February 27, 2018

Ian the information we have & evidence of the most substantial cover up at RBS involving Nelson, Noakes, Hester, Hampton etc. will stun you. We just can’t expose this yet, every tweet we put out is monitored by @TheFCA and we need to give them the opportunity to come clean first!

— stephen middleton (@stevemiddi1) February 25, 2018

And when this government goes?

Ofcom will still be staffed by Lords and Baronesses on the Boards of several other firms.

IT’S NOT RIGHT.

I question Ofcom’s impartiality.
UK media regulators are as corrupt as UK banking regulators. http://t.co/nz62LjYlxn

— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) March 2, 2015

In 2016 former Minister for Culture, Karen Bradley kicked former editor of the Economist Bill Emmott, off the Ofcom content and main board for being too pro-EU.

But Noakes is allowed to stay because her politics don’t actually affect her ability to be on the board.

What does the rest of the country think? Most people will never know as our media keeps this type of thing quiet.

 

 

Makes sense of @Ofcom‘s ‘fit and proper’ shambles over Murdoch’s Sky bid. Baroness Noakes still tweeting #BrexitCentral Darren Grimes despite all the parliamentary evidence. And eminent Economist editor @bill_emmott gets sacked for supporting Remain.

She should step down too. https://t.co/X8E9PRuoHP

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) May 1, 2018

Even former staff say it’s corrupt at the highest levels.