THE WESTMINSTER CONSPIRACY

From medialens:

Former BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, On The Media-Political Opposition To Radical Change

Last month, Greg Dyke, who was the BBC's director general from 2000-2004, described the BBC as part of a "conspiracy" preventing the "radical changes" needed to UK democracy. Speaking at the Liberal Democrat party's conference, Dyke said:

"The evidence that our democracy is failing is overwhelming and yet those with the biggest interest in sustaining the current system - the Westminster village, the media and particularly the political parties, including this one - are the groups most in denial about what is really happening to our democracy." (Brian Wheeler, 'Dyke in BBC "conspiracy" claim,' BBC website, September 20, 2009; http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8265628.stm)

Dyke argued there had never been a greater separation between the "political class" and the public:

"I tried and failed to get the problem properly discussed when I was at the BBC and I was stopped, interestingly, by a combination of the politicos on the board of governors, one of whom [Baroness Sarah Hogg] was married to the man who claimed for cleaning his moat, the cabinet interestingly - the Labour cabinet - who decided to have a meeting, only about what we were trying to discuss, and the political journalists at the BBC.

"Why? Because, collectively, they are all part of the problem. They are part of one Westminster conspiracy. They don't want anything to change. It's not in their interests."

Dyke said the MPs' expenses scandal had been "British democracy's Berlin Wall moment" but the opportunity to change the system was fading. He added:

"It's time to be radical. Our current model was designed for the 18th Century. It doesn't fit 21st Century Britain."

Dyke was also candid about political interference with the BBC. He discussed an internal review of the BBC's political coverage carried out at the beginning of the decade, to which all political parties were asked to contribute. He said: "there was a lot of pressure from the government of the day not to change anything... A lot of the governors were what I call semi-politicians and they liked the present system and.... maybe they were right - it's not the job of the BBC to change the political system and to start questioning the political system. I happen to not agree with that but, you know, we didn't get anywhere."

. . . Continued.