The news that more than half of the council chief execs are paid more than the PM has caused a fair flurry of chatter today. It made it out on to the wires and was picked up by almost all of the news outlets. Except the BBC. A quick look over at the website and it seems large publicly funded salaries are not something they wish to talk about.

Funny that.

He is the 41 year old controller of BBC Global News.  A TV guy, as Guido recommended a week ago…

UPDATE : Lucy Manning points out Oliver has worked for ITV, Channel 4, 5 and the BBC. Up yours Rupert.

UPDATE :

Dear Colleagues,

As you will have seen from Peter’s email, I have decided to take the role of Government Director of Communications. It involves working in Number 10, co-ordinating the message for the Coalition Government. I’m sad to be leaving the BBC after a fascinating few years. It’s been a privilege to edit some of its key output, from BBC News at Six and Ten, to last year’s General Election. More recently I have enjoyed working at Global News. The commitment, passion and expertise in the World Service, World News and bbc.com/news has been truly inspiring. I wish everyone the best, particularly the World Service after the difficult announcements last week. I was approached about the role over the weekend, the first time I had been considered for it, and came to the conclusion that it will be an exciting and challenging opportunity.

I hope we won’t be strangers, though I am closing this chapter in my career.

Best wishes,

Craig
(Former Controller, Global News (English))

After last night’s documentary Guido has been doing some digging around the Oxford days of our ruling elite. With a little help from a studious co-conspirator, some of the clippings from the 80s editions of the Cherwell make for a fascinating read. There is no doubt that the star of last night’s Posh and Posher had to be “man of the people” Jacob Rees Mogg. It seems he hasn’t changed much from his dreamy spires days:

(click to enlarge)

Guido will save the notorious tales of a certain “Eight minute Eddie” for another day.

Brillo’s “Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys Run Britain“ documentary broadcast last night made a powerful case that the dominance of British politics by the privately educated and the products of Oxbridge results from the abolition of grammar schools.

The ability of those from modest backgrounds to progress on merit has been undermined by a failing state education system. The ending of the grammar school system means that bright children from modest backgrounds don’t have a well-trodden route to follow to the top, hence the dominance of politics once again by the privileged.

Old friend of the blog Gary Elsby made an appearance, blaming the selection of Tristram Hunt rather than him as the local Labour Party candidate on Peter Mandelson. Others may beg to differ…

The BBC’s Robert Peston is, as ever, pleased with himself. He will be pleased that his News International source gave him the inside story on Ian Edmonson going. He tweets about breaking the news :

Best #Davos moment today – breaking off chat with bank chair to break News Int sacking of Edmondson on BBC News via mob.—
Robert Peston (@Peston) January 26, 2011

Guido merely notes that Pesto is mates with his Muswell Hill neighbour Will Lewis. Will, the former Telegraph editor, who is the newly appointed group manager in Wapping. Watch Pesto’s line on developments from Wapping. Don’t be surprised if he undermines Rebekah Brooks and bolsters the prospects of Will Lewis. No one really thinks Will Lewis is content to remain general manager under Rebekah…

Peter Sissons has launched a huge broadside against the built-in left-wing bias at the BBC. Yesterday there was a comment that was actually funny and newsworthy for once:

Thursday.
BBC interviewer: Is Alan Johnson resigning today in an attempt to distract attention away from Tony Blair’s attendance at Iraq inquiry?
Labour Spin Doctor Lance Price: No of course he’s not.
BBC interviewer: Thank you.

Friday:
BBC interviewer: Is Andy Coulson making a statement today in an attempt to bury bad news on the day that Tony Blair’s attends thet Iraq inquiry?
Labour Spin Doctor Lance Price: Yes of course he is.
BBC interviewer: Thank you.

Guido thought he would highlight this rarity with a full post. Get in touch and there’ll be a T-shirt heading Desperate Dan’s way…

Peter Sissons writes…

“…is the BBC biased? In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the ­pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.”

The Guardianista campaign against Murdoch, Coulson and all their works is spearheaded by Dan Sabbagh, a former Labour councillor and campaign manager for Oona King, who now covers media and technology for the Guardian. He produced a chart yesterday based on industry data showing that the Sky/News Corp. group controls 22% of our news consumption.

This is a threat to something called “media plurality”. This is, we are told by Dan Sabbagh and all their less successful media rivals, a bad thing. Look down that list and you’ll notice that the BBC controls 39.3% of our news consumption.

The BBC must therefore be an even worse threat to “media plurality”, particularly when one considers that it is protected from fair competition by a state subsidy via taxation. Somehow this doesn’t worry the Guardian, which is hardly surprising because BBC News often feels like the broadcast arm of that paper. When one considers that the BBC overwhelmingly recruits from its pages the Guardian-BBC axis is abundantly clear.

The monolithic BBC is too big and the news weltanschauung is only one of many inherent problems. The Beeb’s size is a result of the massive over-funding that we’re forced to provide for it, it is as if we had to pay a state detergent manufacturer a tax on owning a washing machine.

One example problem out of many is that the BBC undermines regional competitors, we would have a thriving local commercial TV/radio culture if the BBC didn’t crowd out competitors and make them unfeasible – it is hard to compete with a business that doesn’t have to make a commercial return.

The BBC should not have a monopoly on public service broadcasting – if the licence fee has to continue funding public service broadcasting it should be distributed to other providers besides the BBC.

The decentralisation of our broadcasting culture would really create a more plural media.

Sir Terry Wogan sees the light:

“I think the problem with the BBC frankly is that its got too big and unwieldy and there are too many people employed to keep this big machine going and it might be better if there was a bit of slimming down… It seems as if it is the British Building Corporation.”

Brillo was on form earlier, making Ed Balls squirm:

Balls went on to admit he had lent Alan Johnson “a few of my text books”. He also managed to successfully play up the economic divisions on the Labour frontbench and chastise his leader’s choice of PMQs questions. It’s almost as if he were up to his old tricks…