The Cross of St George forum has this excellent and thought provoking article:-
The BBC has form as a national censor
Many of us who support the creation of a separate parliament for the people of England are very conscious of the BBC’s practice of ensuring that it is never properly discussed, and least of all by those who regard themselves as being English. Indeed, the BBC has ‘form’ as a censor of important (we would maintain vital) issues.
Some seventy five years ago, during the second half of the 1930s, the BBC deliberately prevented Mr Winston Churchill MP (as he was then) from broadcasting his concerns about the threat posed by the Nazi regime in Germany which, under Hitler, was rapidly re-arming. This was in marked contrast with the ‘appeasement’, money-saving policies being pursued by the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin with Neville Chamberlain as Chancellor of the Exchequer during a period of economic and social depression.
Many readers here will recognise similarities with the current scenario.
The shabby, undemocratic treatment of Churchill is recorded by William Manchester in his book “The Caged Lion” [first published in 1988 by Michael Joseph Ltd]. Mr Manchester recorded:”Public issues had been discussed over the BBC [then it was radio only] , and earlier in the decade Winston had managed to get a word in now and then, but as the crises mounted on the Continent and tensions increased, Reith screened participants in debates approving only those who presented bland views, offending no listeners, particularly those occupying the front bench in the House of Commons.” This then was the state of British democracy! We now know the extent that factual information was manipulated (largely by important facts being omitted) in the matter of the Abdication where, by reason of his unwise positioning, Churchill had lost much credibility in the eyes of the British political establishment. [A similar charge may be levelled at Churchill about the question of India’s self-determination.]
As already mentioned, another similarity with the present is the BBC’s deliberate but undeclared policy of suppressing proper debate of a fair constitutional settlement for England and her people no less than that enjoyed in Scotland. Indeed, England with her population accounting for 84% [and increasing] of the UK’s population has a much greater claim to increased self-determination than any other part of the UK.
As someone taking a keen interest in this subject, I am not aware of a single occasion, either on radio or television, in which even parity of openly declared English patriots were present in debates or discussions about England or the UK’s constitutional issues. Too often, Scottish and other non-English participants have predominated. Too often, such discussions have been diverted into questions about English or British identity, neither of which were in evidence when the Blair Government was bent on granting devolved powers to Scotland and, to a much lesser extent, Wales.
Just as that great Englishman Churchill was able to prevail over the BBC (and Hitler), all true English people must persist with their demands for an English Parliament and, with it, create a refreshed and resurgent English nationhood and sense of national identity which prevails over the BBC and which extracts itself from the cloying tentacles of the European Union. The case for an English Parliament and with it the creation of an English Broadcasting Corporation becomes increasingly powerful. A UK which refuses to recognise England and English identity seems doomed.
There are some of us who believe that, had a more conscious awareness of English national identity been nurtured (rather than suppressed under an imposed Britishness), far fewer would have participated in the recent riots in England’s cities which are now being unjustly attributed to the English.
