[Watchman]

There’s always Jim Davison and Mike Reid

[Andy McDandy]

Apparently there will be light shows, sculpture trails and a travelling circus. And an oil rig off Weston Super Mare. And - get this, kids - it's going to be DIGITAL and INTERACTIVE!

At that point I started flashing back to circa 1994, Gamesmaster, Bad Influence, and various Craig Charles presented things that were all about the exciting new internet.

[Boiler]

Whenever I hear a minister go on about "digital!" my mind casts back to this:

Micro Kid with mega thoughts
He is real, he is here, he is fashionable
Micro Kid speaks digitalk
If you hear what he says it's acceptable

That's the chorus from Level 42's "Micro Kid", 1983.

[Youngian]

Doubt Dorries came quietly on that decision. Either she was told some difficult home truths or the civil servants slipped it through with some silky Sir Humphrey subterfuge.

[Cyclist]

My post last Friday refers.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

When did Yoda sign up?

[Youngian]

Nadine Dorries crashes her ministerial car on the way to the Festival of Brexit

[Cyclist]

A proper Johnsonite, this one. There is no depth too deep to plumb.

Nadine Dorries briefing against Nick Robinson and the BBC is an attack on us all
We need the corporation’s journalists to be empowered, independent and free from political interference


Knowing the way politics works, we may well be safe to assume that Her Majesty’s Minister of Culture, Nadine Dorries, approved the release of comments she made “privately” to “allies” in which she expressed her displeasure at Nick Robinson’s recent interview with the Prime Minister on Radio 4.

During the Conservative Party conference, Boris Johnson made his first appearance on the Today programme for two years, and, on the subject of the UK’s shortage of HGV drivers, the PM invoked an unarguable point. “There’s no supply of young people in this country who frankly at this moment are thinking of becoming truck drivers,” he said. Robinson tried to talk over him. “You have made that point very clearly,” he said, attempting to halt his voluble interviewee’s line of verbiage. “I’m going to ask you to pause,” he added.

It didn’t work, so an exasperated Robinson said, carefully, and pausing for dramatic effect: “Prime Minister… stop talking.” It was a moment to take one’s breath away. Did a humble BBC presenter really just tell the Prime Minister to shut up? Robinson admitted afterwards that he may have gone too far, and out of the million or so people who were listening to the exchange (or heard it subsequently), 588 complained to the corporation...


https://inews.co.uk/opinion/nadine-dorr ... 267153/amp

Bye-bye independent BBC

...she can voice her objections more directly, either by getting the director-general on the blower, or by briefing friendly media outlets (The Sunday Times, which reported her “private” comments, is owned by Rupert Murdoch who has a commercial interest in the destabilisation of the BBC). We now know that, such was her distaste for the lack of courtesy shown to the PM on the Today programme, she told her colleagues: “Nick Robinson has cost the BBC a lot of money.”

This explicit threat, the personal nature of it and the fact that a presenter’s momentary misjudgement might jeopardise the entire negotiations over the BBC’s licence fee settlement, putting at risk everything from the Proms to the African Service, is monstrous...

[Oboogie]

Bye-bye independent BBC

Which will be celebrated by the hypocrites who are claiming Novara Media losing their YouTube channel is an undemocratic attack on freedom of speech. I'm looking at you, Owen Jones.

[Cyclist]

She just can't help herself. A typical Johnsonite Self-servative in all respects. Thick, stupid, ignorant, dogmatic, and hell-bent on ruining everything that doesn't create profit for her and her fellow walking bags of faecal matter.

Two days before interviews began for a new chair of the Charity Commission, the Government published an article on the Gov.uk website explaining that whoever they hired would be required to “rebalance” charities away from their so-called “woke” agenda.

In our view, that article fatally compromised the independence of the interview process – and threatened the way of life of the UK’s charities. We have now launched formal judicial review proceedings, seeking an order that the application process be re-run without the shadow of this article hanging over it.,,

https://goodlawproject.org/update/nadin ... ommission/

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I wonder if similar action will be undertaken when Dacre is appointed to chair Ofcom?

[Cyclist]

One would hope so.

[Cyclist]

A long read, and one which, to me at least, explains exactly why she shouldn't be allowed anywhere near positions of authority.

‘She often speaks without thinking’: Nadine Dorries, our new minister for culture wars

Her appearance on I’m A Celebrity sealed her headline-grabbing reputation. Now all eyes are on the former nurse and novelist as she is appointed the new culture secretary. Her fellow MPs and political insiders have plenty to say

Andrew Anthony

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... lture-wars

[Youngian]

Don’t be surprised if Dorries doesn’t become a controversial culture secretary. She’s a hard working snobbish social climber beneath her chippy veneer who’ll crave to be accepted by the luvvies and cool kids on the South Bank. She’s probably already started listening to Classic FM and reading GCSE bluffers guides to Shakespeare.

[Boiler]

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has said people have become afraid to say what they think for fear of being "cancelled", and that left-wing activists have "hijacked" social media.

In her first TV interview since taking the job, she said she does not plan "to charge out on a culture war battle".

<insert photo of Jimmy Hill here>

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59305080

After her appointment in September, comedian Dom Joly said it was "like the result of some drunk bet" while fellow comic Mark Thomas said Dorries, who is also a successful author, had "written more books" than she had read.

[Rosvanian]

With the Dorries and Dacre dream team in place, the future looks bleak for the BBC.

[Oboogie]

I see that Andrew Marr has announced his "resignation" from the BBC.

[Oboogie]

Mad Nad's vendetta against media which fails her genuflection test is longstanding and not confined to to the BBC.

[Boiler]

Dorries up before the DCMS Select Committee today. Highlights from the Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... st-updates:

Dorries defends past offensive tweets about LBC journalist, saying she had to respond 'assertively' to aggressive criticism

Dorries says the tweet she addressed to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg saying a comment she reported was ridiculous was not an attack on her. She says Kuenssberg is one of the best journalists in the business.

Q: You called working for the Daily Mirror “bottom-feeding scum”.

Dorries says that was many years ago.

Nicolson asks about abusive things Dorries has tweeted about James O’Brien, the LBC presenter.

Dorries says she will not answer these questions.

Julian Knight (Con), the committee chair, says the online harms bill could give her huge power over journalists. He says he is allowing the questions on this basis.

Dorries says the tweet about the Mirror was prompted by a journalist harassing her daughter. It was the mother sending those tweets, she says.

Nicolson asks about some of the tweets Dorries has sent about O’Brien.

Dorries says, like other female politicians, she has had to put up with with men tweeting about her obsessively.

Nicolson quotes another tweet that Dorries retweeted about O’Brien, calling him a liar and a hate preacher. That’s actionable, he says.

Dorries says she is not here to answer questions about tweets she sent in the past. But female politicians criticised on Twitter need to respond “assertively”, she says.

Dorries says she is confident BBC will survive another 10 years - contrary to what she told Tory conference fringe

John Nicolson (SNP) goes next.

Q: You said you did not know if the BBC will be going in 10 years’ time? That’s extraordinary.

Dorries says she was asked about the licence fee.

Nicolson reads back the quote to her. She said she did not know if the BBC would still be there in 10 years’ time.

Well, I don’t, says Dorries. And neither do you.

Q: The Times reported that you said the Nick Robinson interview with the PM would cost the BBC a lot of money.

Dorries says she did not hear the interview, and she did not say that.

She says she is “very sure the BBC will be here in 10 years’ time”. The point she was making was that you cannot predict the future, she says.

Q: You said BBC broadcasting was like what you would see in a Soviet country. Have you ever visited a Soviet country?

Dorries says she will not comment on tweets she posted 12 years ago.

Nicolson says it was not 12 years ago. It was in the Daily Mail last month.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Long form: