Gobsh1te.

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This social media company is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN X Corp!

"The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee," it said.

Which the British public are forced to pay for to watch broadcast television, even if they never consume BBC content, and have zero say on who governs the BBC or what it broadcasts. That's left to the government and appointed staff.

Even today there's a Tory politician who's been recorded saying that there's nothing wrong with skin colour, but that black people are inferior to whites. Where's that on the BBC? And all through COVID, countless Tory MP's being wheeled on and allowed to spout inaccurate bullshit to the masses without being questioned. How is that independent?

It simply isn't, and long may the "government-funded media" tag last on their Twitter accounts.

Any chance of a link to that bit of news about a Tory polititian?

From a personal point of view, the BBC does seem to annoy the Daily Mail some of the time, so it must be doing something right, although speaking for myself, I perceive BBC news as having a slight conservative bias... The thing is, if we didn't have the Beeb, whatever we had instead would almost certainly be worse, even if it was a privatised BBC.

Sure, this is where I saw it: [1]Instagram

If it were more honest about what it actually is then I wouldn't have a problem with the BBC. They do annoy the Daily Fail lot, but then most of us breathing tend to annoy them.

[1] https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cq8EAxIIUJC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65246336

Thank you.

Well I'm struggling to find this story on the beeb: [1]Essex pub landlady replaces golliwog doll collection that was seized by police , which includes this paragraph:

Ryley denied that she or her husband were racist. “I’m not a racist in any form.” She confirmed that her husband had been photographed in a T-shirt from the far-right group Britain First. She said: “I don’t think Chris is a supporter of Britain First, he was just wearing that shirt because it was convenient at the time.”

But perhaps a story that targets a key section of the British electorate who are sympathetic, lets say, to this Conservative government is just an oversight.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/essex-pub-landlady-benice-ryley-replaces-golliwog-doll-collection-that-was-seized-by-police

>he was just wearing that shirt because it was convenient at the time

I just went to the Bar Mitzvah dressed as a Nazi cos all my other suits were in the wash

'long may the "government-funded media" tag '

Yeah, sorry but that's just not the case. They may have gone along with everything that the government did re: Covid, apart from asking "Why didn't you lock down sooner prime minister?"... for which I think I will never forgive them.

However, they also played a large part in bringing down Boris (who was sort of running the government at the time) by banging on about bottles of wine and crisps at "parties" every day for 5 months or more. So, hardly "government-funded media" in the sense that they go along with everything the government does.

I think when Labour get in next year (shudder), the label will be a bit more appropriate as they are more ideologically aligned most of the time. (although I wonder how long that honeymoon will last)

However, I think the BBC does what the BBC likes. Which is kind of a good thing, except that most of the BBC employees are lefty liberal elite types who don't give a fig about normal working class people. So, we should all freeze in our homes with inefficient heat pumps and get rid of gas boilers, and we should all turn vegan and use public transport (which outside of London is mostly shite).

The BBC is not government funded, it's just government run. Until the government removes its cronies from the management of the BBC, and stops pushing for people critical of the government to be fired from the BBC, or allows non-party members to become Politics Editor, I think the label 'Government affiliated media' is most apt.

I have, at times, thought it would actually make a lot more sense to have the BBC management appointed by the biggest opposition party instead of by the government. Just to make them critical and independent. The downside, however, would be that the BBC would still be run by the Conservative Party after the next elections.

* shook up the finance industry, by letting you use small payments on the Internet[1] when all the big boys said it couldn't be done, as they couldn't make massive amounts of money.

* pissed off those large corps like Boeing and Mcdonall Douglas, who were annoyed that he could do what they do, but cheaper, better AND faster.

* made the enormous global car industry collectively shit itself, because some startup could come along and offer something quite amazing and have enormous public demand.

* MAY shake up local transport if his ideas about the Boring Company work out.

Now he's set his sights on Twitter. He may fail, but at least he's trying. I for one are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's made so many other industries shit themselves. He may be unconventional, but he's clearly not an idiot.

[1] The Internet needs a capital I. It is a proper noun. (Or do you know of another Internet?)

"* shook up the finance industry, by letting you use small payments on the Internet[1] when all the big boys said it couldn't be done, as they couldn't make massive amounts of money."

By all accounts he was failing at it VERY hard and it wasn't until they kicked Musk OUT, stopped working on his X.com idea and limited Paypal to doing only those small payments that it became succesful. Paypal worked DESPITE Musk trying to create X the first time, not because of him.

"* pissed off those large corps like Boeing and Mcdonall Douglas, who were annoyed that he could do what they do, but cheaper, better AND faster.". Again, Musk mostly seems to be the big wallet making it work, not so much the brains. SpaceX has/had an entire team dedicated solely to handling him when he was there. Also, McD-D doesn't exist, it's wholly owned by Boeing since 1997 (more accurately it's the other way around for some reason, but they stuck with the name Boeing). And so far this is limited only to space launch vehicles/capsules. Most of Boeings income is still passenger jets.

"* made the enormous global car industry collectively shit itself, because some startup could come along and offer something quite amazing and have enormous public demand."

offer something quite shit and of poor quality but showing a public demand that car makers had been hesitant to step into. It remains to be seen how well Tesla can do in the long term because quite frankly they're kinda shit and the "old boys" are fast catching up.

"* MAY shake up local transport if his ideas about the Boring Company work out." They won't. The Boring Company and Musks ideas on such can't work out. Geology fights it in every way, tunnels with cars running in them with no easy access aren't efficient and the one tunnel that they've made is AT BEST a novelty.

Musk has failed at making X.com before, but got lucky and made billions because other people made Paypal work after they kicked him out with a golden parachute of lots and lots of shares.

Musk isn't an idiot, but he's not NEARLY as smart as he thinks he is and far less smart than some people make him out to be.

Musk was fired from paypal. Peter Thiel (spit) made it profitable. Musk got his first fortune by selling out of paypal after Thiel (vommit) did all the real work.

McDonnell Douglas died before SpaceX was born. They had some excellent money men with no clue how to run an engineering company. They sold out to Boeing and became their management team, sending Boeing in the same direction that they had taken McDonnell Douglas. Long before SpaceX reached orbit, Boeing got caught cheating on government tenders. The "solution" was to merge Boeing's and Lockheed Martin's rocket businesses into a single company: United Launch Alliance. The US government got completely screwed with monopoly launch pricing. They went out of their way to fund competitors (and they still do). Musk was in the right place at the right time. Space is hard as demonstrated by Rocketplane Kistler and Blue Origin. SpaceX succeeded because they had far more money the Kistler and more than Blue got in its early years. ULA and SpaceX measured success very differently: by ULA standards ULA were the obvious winners because they charged far more for doing far less. ULA still have lucrative US government contracts because the US government wants to assure access to space by having two independent suppliers. They know the end is near and are looking for a buyer because they know they cannot survive in a competitive market. Boeing is the lead contractor for SLS. The are very happy with that business: cost plus, $4B/launch and protected by politicians from both sides of the country. With Musk busy with Twitter for the last 6 months SpaceX has made excellent progress on Starship.

Tesla looks amazing when you look at the share price but if you look deeper their business is a tiny fraction of what that price would suggest. Musk has demonstrated exceptional ability at being found not guilty of securities fraud and when found guilty, of convincing the jury to award damages of $0. The law suits are piling up (at the glacial pace of the legal system). Even Musk has spotted the problem and has responded by hiring a hard core legal team team of streetfighters. Tesla is on its way to becoming a litigation company while the old motor industry are finally pulling their fingers out of their arses and setting up to build electric vehicles in quantity. When they do, they will stop paying Tesla for EV credits. Tesla is already reaping the rewards of lousy fit and finish, actively hostile customer support, broken FSD, and becoming the status symbol equivalent of a MAGA hat.

Boring company looks good on Musk's tunnelling rate figures. When you actually start comparing prices, Musk quotes for narrower tunnels and does not include lighting, ventilation or fire suppression in the costing. Digging the hole is only one part of the problem. Site surveys and permitting are sufficiently expensive to smother the cost benefits of a reusable tunnelling machine that makes fragile bricks.

Demanding to pay $44B for Twitter without doing due diligence demonstrates his business ability. Twitter was marginally profitable until he gave it $13B of debt. Any of his talk about making Twitter profitable can be thrown in the bin where it belongs because of the litigation building up from non-payment of bills. By all means, give him all your money in return for a promise of the highest interest rates in the world. Watch us laugh at you when you find you cannot withdraw your cash.

No, the reason you bought it is because you voluntarily signed a takeover agreement that you yourself had negotiated, because you wanted to own it. The court was only ever going to hold you to the contract you signed, which is why you didn't back out of the deal, preferring instead to whinge and act like some kind of victim to try and save face with your fanbois.

The only "hard hitting" question he should be facing is "You lost 10s of billions of dollars on this because you behaved like an asshole - how does this make you any kind of genius at all?".

I don't know about the current stance of the beeb leaning toward the conservatives, but they certainly were quite pro remain during the whole cluster fsck that was Brexit. And considering Brexit was dreamed up by the Tories as a way to stop voters voting for that bell end Farrage, id say the beeb were not conservative leaning back then.

Wasn't bell-end Farrage the one pushing FOR Brexit? How would the Tories dreaming up Brexit stop people voting for him?? That theory makes no sense.

That's not too difficult. If you're worried about losing votes to an adjacent party you copy the policies of the adjacent party so your voters stay with you (and perhaps some of their voters move to you). It even works that way in systems that aren't two party systems, though it's slightly more complicated and risky.

The Brexiters inside the Conservative Party managed to convince the party that Farage could steal all their votes and presto, Ukip ideology took over the Conservative Party.

Honestly, I can't think of anyone I know who uses Twitter, so who cares.

This is how it works.

Musk and twitter tell you the BBC is government funded.

BBC complains. No we aren't. We are independent even when the government forces our funding through taxation.

Que all the clowns with the "without the BBC what would we have?", "Where would our news be?" without looking at all the articles attacking striking workers who want fair pay like every other news outlet. Where is the independence from government on that one? When does the BBC go against other news outlets? If it was independent then why does it only report the same news in the same way every single day like every other news channel?

Musk has a sit down with the BBC totally unscripted, last minute after their announcement and not planned at all. The people rejoice. The BBC really is independent because some shithole social media website said it was.

Why am I the only one that sees this? We do not have real news anymore. The main stream media is fully controlled and geared up to tell you migrants are coming in their thousands while making sure you don't look at the people getting extremely rich off Covid or the cost of living crisis. Where are the BBC articles about what the real price of petrol and utilities should be? I don't drive so I don't care in part. You get the point though.

> "The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee,"

Although you cannot be jailed for not paying the licence fee, you can be jailed for not paying the fine for not paying the licence fee.

So while the BBC is not (technically) state funded, it is certainly funded with the power of the state behind it (and a state that sets the Ts & Cs of the licence fee, and the BBCs operating conditions too)

And if the BBC is so independent, why are they so scared spitless worried about public opinion?

Hey, genius, if you had read the terms you could have avoided signing a contract that locked you in.

Instead, you just signed it and then tried to use your name as an excuse when it all went pear-shaped. At the rarified level of your circle, that is simply not excusable.

No pity here. Pay attention next time.

If there is a next time.