In today’s Daily Mail Stephen Glover has penned an excellent piece on the flagrant bias of BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today show. I cannot argue with a word he says on that matter. Glover is prompted by Labour luvvie Lord Melvyn Bragg saying that more or less everything is wonderful about the State Funded fake news channel. Glover says that Bragg himself producs excellent objective material on his “In Our Time” programme. Funnily enough I listened to its Christmas show on Scrooge.
As is normal, Bragg gathered three experts to discuss the Dickens classic. Three lecturers in liberal arts departments on Britain’s Marxist Madrassas were, predictably, singing from the same hymn sheet on certain matters but it was interesting enough and rather than shouting Bah Humbug and switching to Greatest Hits Radio, I listened to the very end. And so, the great Bragg summed up and concluded that this was Dickens grappling with what was wrong about capitalism.
That rather shows where Bragg is coming from. For most of the book Scrooge is clearly a bad man, what we might term the unacceptable face of capitalism, exploiting his workers and simply accumulating wealth for himself. But that is Scrooge being a bad man, not proof that capitalism itself is, as Bragg believes, bad.
Finally, Scrooge sees the light and he starts to treat his employee, Bob Cratchit, well. It is clear indeed that he is treating other stakeholders well, not ripping off customers or suppliers ( of coal to the office). And he uses the money he makes from business, from risking his own capital, to support not just the Cratchit family but charities across London. Were Scrooge merely to work in a dull State regulated corporation he would not be in a position to help the poor. Only capitalism allows that. If you are in any doubt ask anyone who lived behind the iron curtain how many philanthropists the alternative system threw up. The answer, of course, is none though it did create vast numbers who could not afford or, even find to purchase, a whole turkey, or carp, for their Christmas meal.
The progress driven by capitalism means that whereas London in 1843 was teeming with Tiny Tim’s, life expectancy was actually rising and today there are far fewer Tiny Tim’s. Indeed, even those without work in London today are among the top 2.5% of global earners.
Capitalism, is good. Only folks with a cushy state funded existence such as Lord Bragg could fail to see that. But within the BBC, or on campuses across this country, Bragg’s view, that capitalism, or rather, all capitalists, are evil, exploitative fat cats is just part of the DNA. Ignoring all evidence and data,they blindly believe that capitalists are the cause of poverty not, in real terms, the solution to it.