BBC AT ITS BEST
for a change, some first-class public service broadcasting
JOURNALISTS who do the political rounds cast a critical eye over Blackpool, which they are obliged to visit once a year. The town is notorious for containing some of the worst hotels in Europe. Indeed one of them, the subject of a famous story — it concerns the Political Editor of the Daily Mirror and a George Formby window- cleaner — is probably the most unwelcom- ing hostelry since Joseph of Nazareth and his pregnant wife were refused room at the inn. But I had better say no more: the late James Cameron, the mildest of men, was once railroaded out of 'the Nice of the North' for venturing some gentle criticism. Moreover, there is a lot to be said for Blackpool. After London, it has more live entertainment than any other place in Britain, headed at the moment by a scintil- lating piece at the Grand called Who Goes Bare? It has, in the Grundy Art Gallery, exactly the kind of provincial museum I relish, full of superbly detailed landscapes of Norwegian fjords, circa 1880, and problem-pictures by Charles Spencelayh with titles like 'Will They Never Learn?' It also has, in Roberts's Oyster Bar, the best seafront dive I know. True, I enter it with apprehension, at any rate during a Labour Party Conference, since I am liable to be glared at by Michael Foot, one of its habitués, for deserting socialism in 1975. But where else in Britain can you get a dozen succulent oysters, plus brown bread- and-butter, for a fiver?
Blackpool, however, is notorious for bossiness. It is one of the few resorts where the landladies come from a higher social category, or at any rate income-group, than their customers. Sharp on nine a.m. — nine-thirty in the classier joints — the inmates, laughingly described as 'guests', are driven onto 'the front' and not readmit- ted, except in cases of serious injury, until high tea at five. Something of this author- itarian attitude rubs off on the female stewards who take possession of the Win- ter Gardens when Labour holds its confer- ence there. At all the other party gather- ings the press is simply issued with a pass. But Labour is incorrigibly attached to the class system, its prime raison d'être, and divides what it calls the meeja into two groups, first and second class. I am always second-class, which means I get a bilious- green card instead of a concentration- camp-grey one. This distinction is rigorous- ly enforced. On the first day of the conference last week I found it almost impossible to get into what is still called the Empress Ballroom, where the ranting takes place. A large lady not only barred my way but told me why: 'You can't come in here — you're the wrong colour.' As someone born red-haired, left-handed and Roman Catholic, I am used to discrimina- tion, but I couldn't help reflecting what might have happened if I had been repre- senting not the Daily Mail but the Times of Ghana, say, or the Petit Journal de Brazza- ville.
Once inside the 'security area', moreov- er, it was not easy to get a seat. Labour lumps in second-class media persons like me with 'international' and 'visitors'. The internationals, mainly diplomats, cause no trouble but visitors are another matter. They regard getting entrance to the annual rodomontade as even better than a free pass to Who Goes Bare? They arrive early and stay late. Moreover they tend to be broad in the beam and there are an awful lot of them. They regard people like me as the Enemy. I overheard one enormous gent, whose equally expansive spouse said she was 'going to spend a penny', remark: I'll guard tha place, there's pushy media folk about.'
For this and other reasons I retired bruised and went back to my hotel to watch it all on the telly. There are some pundits, led by Mr Alan Watkins of the Observer, who argue that this is the best strategy in the first place. They may well be right, provided the only television set is not sited in what is termed the 'communal lounge', in which case your chances of keeping the set tuned to BBC-2 and the Labour Party Conference would be, I imagine, slim. But this year I had been put in the Pembroke Hotel, the Blackpool equivalent of the Ritz (it even has a swimming pool), and I was able to watch in my room in unchallenged solitary splendour.
So what did I see? I saw, or rather heard, Mr David Dimbleby. He compered the
Labour Party show and gradually, as I watched and listened, I was transfixed by the sheer professionalism of the way he did it. I am old enough to remember his father, Richard Dimbleby, covering events. Peo- ple used to sniff that he knew the names of all the horses pulling the royal coach. But why not? There are a lot of viewers in this country who regard horses, especially royal ones, as at least as important as people and want to know their names. In any case, Dimbleby believed that mastering such detail was part of his job and he was surely right. He was a pioneer in the new world of television journalism, and I am not saying that his elder son is quite in the same class. But let me put it this way: I doubt if there is any television journalist today, anywhere in the world, who does his job with such unwavering skill. His voice, which is quiet but absolutely clear, is just right. He is always calm and unflurried, especially when, as frequently happens at Labour Party conferences, peculiar things occur. He knows all the names and provenances. He is instinctively impartial and introduces each speaker at the rostrum as though he or she were a distinguished visitor to a first-class London club. His comments on their arguments, good, bad or plain luna- tic, are always objective. His interviews are sympathetic and fair. One of the things I particularly like about him is that there is never the trace of a sneer in his voice. Everyone gets a fair crack of the whip and I can write this in complete confidence that the most inveterate Labour supporter will agree with me.
In short, David Dimbleby is public service broadcasting at its best. If we must have monopoly on the air, then the Dimb- leby approach is the true one. I am often reproached for my criticism of the BBC and accused of being hostile to public service broadcasting as such. But I do not necessarily reject the principle. What dis- turbs and sometimes angers me is the practice. It seems to me morally wrong to exploit a privileged position on the air- waves constantly to put forward a particu- lar political viewpoint. The objections to television bias — especially its hatred of authority in any shape — come by no means exclusively from the Right of the spectrum. I notice that my complaints are echoed strongly in Tony Benn's new and fascinating volume of diaries, Office With- out Power, 1968-72. What strikes one about David Dimbleby's performance is not just that it is wonderfully professional but that it is so rare. It should be standard. I recommend that it should be studied, not just by John Birt, who is making a serious and sincere effort to re-establish the BBC's reputation for objectivity, not just by Dukey Hussey, who is rightly, as BBC chairman, giving Birt his full backing, but by those people in government who are still haggling over the White Paper and will shortly be framing the most important Bill in our broadcasting history.
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