Everyman For Himself

‘IF the intention of the striking BBC staff was to show how the corporation could not do without them, the protest was an utter failure.

”Lovely Jubbly”

Surely the truest test of whether a strike by state employees works is if the great unwashed notice - we didn’t.

Granted, a few sadomasochists and horse fanciers lamented the absence of brother Jeremy Paxman from the magic box, but the industrial action against the Beeb’s proposed staff cull passed by unnoticed to most of us.

Indeed, the 48-hour walkout the Telegraph says protestors are planning for next week might be just the move Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, needs to further prove his case for mass redundancies.

And he might not be the only one who enjoys the last laugh. Hands up who had heard of Stephen Cole last week.

Today we know him to be the silver-haired, nice looking chap who read the 10 o’clock news on Monday night. You can see his picture on the Telegraph’s cover and again in the Times.

And so good was Cole at replacing the highly paid Huw Edwards, the broadcast attracted 200,000 more viewers than it had the week before.

The Times ups that figure, and says that Cole’s performance drew a crowd of 400,000 more viewers than usual.

We do not know how much Cole earns in his job of presenting the technology gadget show Click Online for the BBC World satellite channel, but we wager it’s less than stay-at-home Edwards’s salary.

The remedy seems clear: sack them all and replace the entire BBC staff with Cole.

He’s cheap. He’s cheerful. He can do a passable impression of Del Boy. He knows how to decorate. He’s the BBC’s very own Everyman…’

Posted: 25th, May 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink