Messing up centrally.(Going Local)(economic policy)

Town and Country Planning, January, 2006 by Boyle, David

SOME general elections ago, the former Times Editor Simon Jenkins had the temerity to mention one of those things which, he argued, we all know about but don't articulate: the BBC's economic policy.

It isn't generally acknowledged that they have one, he said--as far as I remember anyway. But it is implied in so much of the questions they ask politicians: it is more government spending. What he didn't say was that the BBC also appears to have a political policy: more centralisation, fewer local administrative peculiarities, fewer post-code lotteries. Listen to the tenor of the questions, and you will see what I mean.

I read Simon Jenkins's article, I remember, when I happened to be listening to a feature on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour about the...

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