ME and Ophelia

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BBC'S CURRENT ROYAL CHARTER EXPIRES IN 2006
Beyond the Charter - The BBC after 2006

Via Abolish the TV Licence: "In 2006, the Royal Charter under which the BBC operates will expire, and new arrangements will have to replace it. The form these will take must be decided at a time of both change and controversy. As channels proliferate, the corporation's once unchallenged role in the broadcasting firmament is being transformed. At the same time, the scale of its activities, the character of its output and the way it is run and funded are being questioned as never before, while the Hutton verdict has called into question its journalism, management and governance.

During May 2003, the Conservative Party asked a group of broadcasting experts to analyse the issues raised and to propose a path through them. The group were entirely independent of the party, which is not bound to accept their conclusions. This report sets out their proposals."
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BBC INTERNAL ENQUIRY
Clears its Editors May 10 2004

Stephen Pollard writes "Quelle surprise:

Who'd have believed it, eh? The BBC's internal enquiry has has found that its senior managers and editors all behaved impeccably.

That's OK then. Much ado about nothing then. Phew."
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BBC INTERNAL ENQUIRY
Public Disservice Broadcasting

Melanie Phillips's Diary

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STEPHEN POLLARD
Biography

Stephen Pollard is a political columnist who writes for most British newspapers, and regularly in the Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Wall Street Journal Europe. He is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels-based think tank, where he directs the health policy programme; and at Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, in London.

He is currently writing the biography of the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, which will be published in the spring of 2005. From 1998-2000 he was a columnist and Chief Leader Writer on the Daily Express. From 1995-98 he was Head of Research at the Social Market Foundation, and from 1992-95 Research Director at the Fabian Society. He is the author of numerous pamphlets and books on health and education policy, and is co-author with Andrew Adonis of the best-selling A Class Act – the Myth of Britain’s Classless Society (Penguin, 1998).

He was recently described by the BBC as 'Britain's most prolific columnist'; has been called a 'Labour guru' on the front page of the Sunday Times; and is, according to the Guardian, the man who showed Tony Blair how to reform the NHS - an accusation for which he made the paper make a grovelling apology.