Rethinking Democracy by Leo Panitch Greg Albo

Author:Leo Panitch,Greg Albo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2017-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

THE POST-WAR BBC

The decidedly conservative BBC of the 1930s underwent some significant cultural shifts in subsequent decades. During the Second World War the BBC strengthened its place in British society through its role as an instrument of public information and propaganda, deepening its relationship with the state. Under the tutelage of the Ministry of Information, it also adopted a more egalitarian nationalism with appeals to ‘ordinary’ culture, a trend exemplified by the recruitment of left-wing intellectuals like J.B. Priestley and George Orwell. As a public institution modelled on the civil service, the BBC was well suited to the statist politics of the post-war period, and though it lost ‘the brute force of monopoly’ in 1955, it adapted relatively quickly to the challenge of commercial competition. Over the course of the 1960s, there was a further move away from the elitist and austere culture of the interwar period. As Stuart Hood, who was Controller of Programmes, Television, in that decade, recalled, BBC programmes for the first time attacked ‘some of the sacred cows of the establishment – the monarchy, the church, leading politicians and other previously taboo targets’.29 Hugh Greene, Director-General from 1959 to 1969, considered that the BBC under his leadership was no longer a ‘pillar of the Establishment’: a ‘new and younger generation was in control’.30 Greene was certainly no radical. A liberal anti-communist, he not only had family connections in intelligence and a background in military propaganda (he had been seconded by the BBC to the Colonial Office during the ‘Malayan Emergency’), but as Director-General urged MI5 to extend its secret political vetting of BBC staff.31 Greene’s BBC, though, certainly reflected some of the creative and egalitarian spirit of the sixties, producing celebrated comedies, irreverent satire, and dramas and documentaries more reflective of working-class life. For this Greene was attacked by conservatives, including in the right-wing press and the Conservative Party, and most notably by Mary Whitehouse’s National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVLA), a populist conservative movement that blamed the BBC in particular for the shifts in social mores.

After Greene’s departure, the BBC took a more conservative turn. The watershed moment was the appointment of Lord Hill, a former Conservative Minister, as BBC chair in July 1967 by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Hill’s appointment was a shock to the BBC management and brought about a definite shift in the BBC’s corporate identity – even a ‘redefinition of the overall purpose of the BBC’.32 During his tenure as BBC chair, Hill strengthened the powers of the politically appointed Board of Governors vis-à-vis the Board of Management. He also placed greater emphasis on financial and managerial control, commissioning a series of reports from the influential consultancy firm McKinsey before imposing a top down reorganisation with little consultation.33 His successor, Michael Swann, though less belligerent was a decidedly conservative figure who actively sought to curtail the influence of sixties liberalism at the BBC. Swann lunched at the neoliberal think-tank the Institute of Economic Affairs and corresponded with its leading figures, Arthur Seldon and Ralph Harris,34 as well as with Mary Whitehouse.

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