[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[clapham_gull]

Shareholders decide what it's output is?

Channel Four is worth less with a public service remit. If you remove it or water it down it's get swallowed up by foreign investors.

Allowing Channel Four to "own it's own intellectual property" is easily translated as this gives the ability to sell your programmes abroad and make more money.

That's fine but unfortunately it would be in competition with BBC and ITV which are miles ahead in being able to produce very "British" programmes that are marketable abroad.

I'm confused what the Government are trying to do. Effectively turn Channel Four into an independent producer, thus competing with the very market it supports. It's very crowded out there, BBC Studios are already making programmes for other broadcasters and the BBC have been taking ITV produced programmes (e.g. Graham Norton Show for years).

That's what makes C4 unique, it's a non profit publisher. Makes a surplus, re-invests it.

Leave it alone, it works. You may not like the news, but Channel 4 don't produce it.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

You've educated me about Channel 4. All the sources I have googled say that it is a government corporation, owned by the state. Assuming all those sources are wrong, who actually does own it?

https://inews.co.uk/culture/televis...how-much-nadine-dorries-privatisation-1557103
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...sation-how-would-it-work-and-who-would-buy-it

(There's a lot of dimwits about!)

Sorry, I was wrong, or rather I made the wrong point. It is owned by the government, but doesn’t receive public money, so it is not licence fee or taxpayer funded. That was the point that Nadine Dorries was picked up on by Damian Green when she was before a House of Commons Select Committee. She was saying that she wants to sell it off so it can raise its own finance, like Netflix as a comparison.

It is already self-funding, so she was very wrong on that.
And Netflix is in problems now as well because of serious drops in subscriptions.

So you’ve educated me too.

 

[Hugo Rune]

I think everything’s gonna be okay. Look, it says so here…


View attachment 147996

It was always going to be a three point slogan, that’s way more important to them than the detail of cutting and tax or raising benefits.

 

[WATFORD zero]

It was always going to be a three point slogan, that’s way more important to them than the detail of cutting and tax or raising benefits.

Well they wouldn't want to confuse their target audience and besides which, even his own supporters know that Johnson doesn't have the attention span to do detail. The Northern Ireland Protocol is proof of that

 

[Audax]

Just seen the opening to C4 news, inflation the highest since 1980, the highest inflation in the G7 and the country imminently tipping in to recession..

We're not (yet) in a dictionary-definition recession (2 successive quarters of decline), however the fact is the economy has already stalled and the trend towards recession is there. The only reason it's not been bigger news than it should be is because of quarterly reporting. Q1 2022 reports says the economy grew. But tucked away underneath that is that in March the economy went backwards.

If you look at the recent monthly trends, it's clear that the post-pandemic recovery has stalled (and, despite what the Tories would have us believe, has never actually got anywhere near back to where it would have been if the pre-pandemic growth rate had been sustained) and we're on the cusp of what could well be a nasty period of low growth (or, indeed, recession) coupled with super-high inflation.

3 of the last 4 months reported by ONS have not been good months for economic growth - December went backwards (but like March was hidden by better results in Oct and Nov), January was a good month, February barely broke even, and March went backwards. Will be very interesting to see what the April figures say when they are released in mid-June - if they continue the trend towards stagnation / negative growth, then it's time to get very worried about whether or not the current government has anything left up its sleeve beyond bluster.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

I think everything’s gonna be okay. Look, it says so here…


View attachment 147996

They boosted the amount of Tax (NI) I paid this month so let's hope any cuts cover this tax increase at least.

 

[vegster]

We're not (yet) in a dictionary-definition recession (2 successive quarters of decline), however the fact is the economy has already stalled and the trend towards recession is there. The only reason it's not been bigger news than it should be is because of quarterly reporting. Q1 2022 reports says the economy grew. But tucked away underneath that is that in March the economy went backwards.

If you look at the recent monthly trends, it's clear that the post-pandemic recovery has stalled (and, despite what the Tories would have us believe, has never actually got anywhere near back to where it would have been if the pre-pandemic growth rate had been sustained) and we're on the cusp of what could well be a nasty period of low growth (or, indeed, recession) coupled with super-high inflation.

3 of the last 4 months reported by ONS have not been good months for economic growth - December went backwards (but like March was hidden by better results in Oct and Nov), January was a good month, February barely broke even, and March went backwards. Will be very interesting to see what the April figures say when they are released in mid-June - if they continue the trend towards stagnation / negative growth, then it's time to get very worried about whether or not the current government has anything left up its sleeve beyond bluster.

Bojo has utterly no idea and really does not care, I get the impression he's hanging on in the job just to win a bet. " Look Darius , I'll be utterly useless but I will last 4 years " " here's a Fiver on it "

 

[nicko31]

Johnson the naughty schoolboy taken apart

https://twitter.com/RayStallwood/st...n-ireland-protocol-has-just-gone-viral-again/

Starmer should be doing this

 

[Thunder Bolt]

[tweet]1527223906351910912[/tweet]

 

[pb21]

[tweet]1527223906351910912[/tweet]

Great, no we can get the Sue Gray report, if they can find it...

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Great, no we can get the Sue Gray report, if they can find it...

Not sure it really matters now fines have been handed out, they were breaking the rules.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The Channel Four privatisation plan really does expose this administration for what they are.

The only company it will advantage is whoever they sell it off to, whilst damaging the myriad of small independent production companies it supports.

Nobody asked for it and the industry doesn't want it.

It's a token privatisation a bit like the railways sell off under Major when there wasn't anything left to sell off. Even Thatcher would disagree as she created it.

The whole point of Channel Four was to create an independent production sector in competition to the "monopolies" of ITV and the BBC. Channel Four doesn't make any programmes, it's commissions them and is effectively a publisher.

This in turn then led to those old established TV broadcasters being forced to use same independents.

By using the excuse that it "frees" Channel Four to make it's own programmes completely misses the point. It doesn't need to compete with Netflix (which is billions in debt) and makes a small surplus.

You might as well go down your local butchers and tell them they need to sell their business to compete with the American streaming giants.

Inevitably it just converts Channel Four into a "super indie" that will muscle out a number of smaller independents.

It's anti Thatcherite by nature but being sold as a great sell off in the spirit of Thatcherism.

[tweet]1527230850558984192[/tweet]

 

[pb21]

Not sure it really matters now fines have been handed out, they were breaking the rules.

Maybe. Although the limited Sue Gray report indicated a culture of complete disregard for the rules, rather than just an inadvertent technical breaking of which the they are all completely (not) sorry about, and all round mick taking that you shouldn't expect from the PM's office.

That would be quite damning IMO.

 

[vegster]

[tweet]1527230850558984192[/tweet]

Fully expected this, when the man at the top of government has built a career around llying, its pretty obvious it green lights lying for the faithfull.

 

[pb21]

Fully expected this, when the man at the top of government has built a career around llying, its pretty obvious it green lights lying for the faithfull.

Don't forget incompetency and sycophancy.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Maybe. Although the limited Sue Gray report indicated a culture of complete disregard for the rules, rather than just an inadvertent technical breaking of which the they are all completely (not) sorry about, and all round mick taking that you shouldn't expect from the PM's office.

That would be quite damning IMO.

True, it’s no harm to have more pressure on him

But I can just seen them turning around and saying - we have been fined once, so didn’t break the law on those cases mentioned.

 

[beorhthelm]

if there's no more fines for PM, thats going to be disappointing, unlikely a Tory meltdown and revolt may be off the table.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

if there's no more fines for PM, thats going to be disappointing, unlikely a Tory meltdown and revolt may be off the table.

126 fines for his address, makes his lies about there being no parties fairly straightforward.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

if there's no more fines for PM, thats going to be disappointing, unlikely a Tory meltdown and revolt may be off the table.

Pushing for police action will have backfired if there’s no more fines for Johnson and Starmer ends up with the same amount.

 

[rippleman]

Great, no we can get the Sue Gray report, if they can find it...

It will be buried underneath the Russia Report. The question is also "where is the Russia Report?"