David Craig, on November 14th, 2020(weekend blog)
Here’s BBC’s Pudsey from the BBC’s Children in Need charity appeal:
Isn’t Pudsey cute? Doesn’t he make you want to send lots of your money to the BBC? That’s what the over-paid, over-pensioned BBC bureaucrats hope.
Let’s have a quick look at where millions of pounds of your Children in Need donations go
Why does the BBC pay so much more than Oxfam?
Let’s start by comparing income and salaries at the BBC’s Children in Need with those at a well-known charity like Oxfam.
In 2018 Children in Need raised £67.7m. In 2019 this fell by 4% to £64.9m. In 2018, Oxfam raised £427.2m which rose by almost 2% to £434.1m in 2019.
So, Children in Need did slightly worse in 2019 compared to 2018, while Oxfam did slightly better.
But although the BBC’s Children in Need is much smaller than Oxfam – less than a sixth the size of Oxfam – and its performance declined slightly between 2018 and 2019, you wouldn’t know this from the salaries paid to the BBC Children in Need bureaucrats.
In 2018 the average salary at the BBC’s Children in Need was about £38,430 and this rose by almost 13% in 2019 to £43,300. This massive rise in salaries was in spite of a 4% drop in the BBC Children in Need’s income. As with everything linked to the BBC, the less work they do, the more they pay themselves. Ever fewer people actually watch the crap, lefty, multi-cultural, diverse, progressive, globalist propaganda drivel produced by the BBC, yet every few years the BBC demands the Government allow it to grab ever more of our money to squander on ever larger salaries for its employees.
In comparison, the average salary for UK-based employees at Oxfam in 2018 was £30,730 rising to £35,090 in 2019.
A cynic might wonder why BBC Children in Need employees were paid around 25% more than Oxfam employees in both 2018 and 2019. After all, the BBC Children in Need’s 137 employees (127 FTEs) just organise a few TV shows in which mostly third-rate supposed ‘celebs’ try to revive their flaccid careers by doing supposedly ‘hilarious’ things to show how charitable they are and then Children in Need penpushers divide the money taken among charities applying for grants. Oxfam’s more than 2,400 UK employees (2,083 FTEs), on the other hand, have to organise complex life-saving missions to some of the world’s worst hell-holes to help the populations there double every 20 or so years.
A cynic might also wonder why the pension costs for the BBC Children in Need employees shot up by a massive 43% between 2018 and 2019 from £311,000 to £444,000. In case you didn’t know, the BBC Children in Need employees are part of the BBC Pension Scheme which is fantastically generous with the money extorted from us through the compulsory license fee.
What about the big bosses?
The big boss at the BBC’s Children in Need was paid £131,358 in 2018, rising by 2.3% to £134,425 in 2019 in spite of a 4% drop in Children in Need’s income.
The big boss at Oxfam was paid £146,247 in 2018 and about £148,000 in 2019. So the BBC Children in Need boss pockets only about £10,000 a year less than the Oxfam boss, yet the Children in Need boss only manages about 137 employees all based in (presumably comfortable offices) in the UK while the Oxfam boss is responsible for 2,455 employees in the UK and another 2,646 (in possibly less comfortable work situations) overseas. Moreover, Oxfam raises and spends more than 6 times as much as the BBC’s Children in Need.
Don’t give to BBC bureaucrats – give to your local charities
The lesson for this weekend is please don’t waste your money on the over-paid, over-pensioned, self-serving, greedy bureaucrats at the BBC pretending to be working for charity when they’re really just filling their own pockets with your money. If you want to give to charity, choose small local charities without CEOs and Marketing Directors and Strategy Directors and Diversity Directors and all that other rubbish. Or else choose a charity with a clear purpose like Guide Dogs for the Blind.
BBC bureaucrats extort enough of your money from the license fee. Don’t give them any more!
Category: 
The compulsory charge (tax? fine?), currently almost £160 per annum and set to rise annually, imposed by the now flagrantly left-wing BBC in order to watch “live” (at time of transmission) ANY of the 100 or more Freeview TV channels or to use the wretched, increasingly user-unfriendly, IPlayer at all, is deplorable and extortionate. Having, in view of my age, benefitted from some years of non-payment of the TV licence fee, I have just received the second demand from the BBC’s collection agency – the infamous Capta I believe – to pay up, on pain of criminal prosecution, a large fine and ultimately imprisonment. Rather than hand over a sizeable lump of my income – a sum equating to over half what our oh, so generous, generous government has just put into my bank account as my “winter fuel payment”- I have made the inconvenient but unavoidable decision to give up watching live TV. All channels other than BBC have “catch-up” services, available through an internet connection and delivered either direct to the TV for those with a “smart” TV or via, as in my case, a laptop which can easily be connected to the TV through one of its SCART or HDMI outlets. The necessary cable can be purchased from any electronics retailer or on line. I remember when the BBC was THE trusted broadcaster of news and a producer of first-rate, quality drama, both on TV and radio. Now the BBC is almost entirely merely an outlet for London-centric, woke, left-wing views which bear little or no relation to the lives lived by the millions of UK inhabitants by whose payments it is funded. As far as the TV licence is concerned, Boris Johnson has let us all down yet again of course. When canvassing for votes pre-Election he promised to take the BBC to task as soon as he came to power, with a view to abolishing the licence fee as an individual, per household, payment. This he has now reneged on, as he has on a number of other issues. On a personal level I refuse utterly to contribute to an organisation which considers it appropriate to pay some loud-mouthed ex-footballer (or whatever he was) getting on for £2,000,000 a year to hold forth for an hour or so once a week, and which recently awarded a female radio broadcaster a pay RISE of £1,000,000 a year! Since the BBC bombards us with ever more adverts about itself between programmes now anyway, let it become self-funding by advertising stuff people might actually be interested in purchasing! So let’s all boycott the BBC entirely, not just the self-seeking, narcissistic participants in last evenings supposed “charity” event. The BBC should become self-funding, either through advertising or subscription. Auntie would then speedily learn her own, diminishing, value! Furthermore, how can the BBC even begin to justify making the same charge to one hard-up octogenarian or nonogenarian, possibly with limited mobility and in dubious health, living alone and watching just one TV for “company”, as is made to an entire family of father, mother, several children, all with their own receiving devices, all watching different channels concurrently? And how DARE the BBC send out threatening communications, like that I have just received, to people in their 80s and 90s who worked and paid taxes all their lives and have never knowingly broken the Law! Far from being a national treasure, the BBC is now a national disgrace.
I saw a comment a few days ago that fits the BBC – its a bit like a nudist beach, it sounds like a good idea until you get there.
Capita, delegated to bully those who do not pay up – far more women incidentally than men, because more women than men live alone in straitened financial circumstances, often with young children – should be prosecuted, along with their puppet master the BBC, for intimidation. At not much under £2,000,000 a year, what Gary Linnekar receives (I refuse to say earns) for appearing once a week for a couple of hours, is more than EIGHT TIMES what I have received in total income, during 20 plus years of retirement, from my State pension together with the annuity into the fund for which I paid for two decades previously. If more of the population realised that TV licence bullies have absolutely NO RIGHT to enter someone’s home unless they have obtained a Police warrant and that the householder has absolutely NO obligation to answer any questions concerning receiving equipment, then the BBC’s stance would be immediately weakened. If a TV licence inspector calls at your door, tell him to mind his own business and go away! It is up to those of us who truly care about independence, truth and decency (Nation Shall Speak Truth Unto Nation? Not now!) and who once respected the BBC but are now totally repelled by their unapologetic political and social bias, to take the fight to the enemy’s camp in the only way we can, which is by making a few personal sacrifices. We shall soon get over it and find better things to do with our time! Life does not need to be dependent on the frequently mind-mumbing ouput of the screen in the corner, or on the wall or wherever. Even that not entirely though – much better value to order up a few DVD box-sets of past dramas, usually made some years ago, which merit a second viewing and some decent films. Take up an alternative, perhaps more rewarding, pasttime. Rediscover music through that rather neglected CD collection! Show the BBC in the only way we can, by witholding payment of the licence charge, that they are not indispensible. Above all, show them in no uncertain terms that we have a decided aversion to being bullied.
Most charities are businesses which means that someone, somewhere is sucking up your donations.
David’s right, if you want to give, give locally. Not so sure that Guide Dogs would qualify – good cause but they have plenty money.
The BBC – I respect stillreading’s comments but if you don’t pay then you’re going to be in trouble. No one is going to be on your side (yes, Boris promised but that’s not worth anything now). Reluctantly, I have decided to pay monthly. I will stall payments and frustrate as much as possible. Even if you don’t watch the BBC, you still need to pay. I agree, there’s very little on the BBC worth watching, certainly not the news. I watch very little of their output. All in all, it’s very poor value for money.
I sent back my television licence nearly three years ago, and disposed of my television set.
I was heartily sick of being expected by the British Government to pay through the nose to fund a left-wing propaganda outfit, pumping out ‘Woke’ propaganda via its so-called ‘news’ and engaged in a race to the bottom with the commercial companies in its deeply boring, heavily propagandized, and appallingly trivial ‘light entertainment’ output. I have not regretted my decision for a single moment.
Back in the days of the Cold War, Western governments used to provide a lifeline to the unfortunate people trapped behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ by providing alternatives to the Orwellian media of their Socialist tyrannies, with stations such as ‘Radio Free Europe’ and Radio Liberty’.
The irony, therefore, is not lost on me that in order to obtain broad coverage of world events I now find myself increasingly turning to RT News. Of course I know the content is ‘Spun’, just as it is with every MSM outlet, whether owned by governments or Big Corporate. But in general it provides a far more complete coverage of world events than you can ever find from either the BBC or from its commercial rivals. Of course its news is ‘Spun’, just as is the news from any MSM outlet, whether owned by Government or by Big Corporate. But it doesn’t try to shove a ‘Woke’ agenda down my throat at every available opportunity, and I’m old enough and educated enough to make my own judgments based on the facts presented without swallowing everything I’m told.
The BBC on the other hand heavily censors its news content by concentrating almost exclusively on those news stories which can be spun to promote its ‘Woke’ agenda, and completely ignoring any events, either in the world at large or in the UK, which can’t be used for this purpose.
As for the commercial stations, by getting rid of my television completely I’m happily spared a dose, every twenty minutes or so, of Government/BLM propaganda in the form of advertisements specifically designed to instruct us that the only socially acceptable families in this country today are either mixed-race ones, or of Afro-Caribbean heritage, or originating in the sub-continent.
Freed from the tyranny of the box in the corner, I have caught up with my reading, which nowadays consists mostly of books dealing with various aspects of history. As a result I am much better equipped to deal with the vacuities of the young, who have only been fed Marxist propaganda at state schools, and at the polytechnics which were so hilariously re-classified as ‘Universities’ a few years ago.
I sent back my television licence nearly three years ago, and disposed of my television set.
I was heartily sick of being expected by the British Government to pay through the nose to fund a left-wing propaganda outfit, pumping out ‘Woke’ propaganda via its so-called ‘news’ and engaged in a race to the bottom with the commercial companies in its deeply boring, heavily propagandized, and appallingly trivial ‘light entertainment’ output. I have not regretted my decision for a single moment.
Back in the days of the Cold War, Western governments used to provide a lifeline to the unfortunate people trapped behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ by providing alternatives to the Orwellian media of their Socialist tyrannies, with stations such as ‘Radio Free Europe’ and Radio Liberty’.
The irony, therefore, is not lost on me that in order to obtain broad coverage of world events I now find myself increasingly turning to RT News. Of course I know the content is ‘Spun’, just as it is with every MSM outlet, whether owned by governments or Big Corporate. But in general it provides a far more complete coverage of world events than you can ever find from either the BBC or from its commercial rivals. And it doesn’t try to shove a ‘Woke’ agenda down my throat at every available opportunity, and I’m old enough and educated enough to make my own judgments based on the facts presented without swallowing everything I’m told.
The BBC on the other hand heavily censors its news content by concentrating almost exclusively on those news stories which can be spun to promote its ‘Woke’ agenda, and completely ignoring any events, either in the world at large or in the UK, which can’t be used for this purpose.
As for the commercial stations, by getting rid of my television completely I’m happily spared a dose, every twenty minutes or so, of Government/BLM propaganda in the form of advertisements specifically designed to instruct us that the only socially acceptable families in this country today are either mixed-race ones, or of Afro-Caribbean heritage, or originating in the sub-continent.
Freed from the tyranny of the box in the corner, I have caught up with my reading, which nowadays consists mostly of books dealing with various aspects of history. As a result I am much better equipped to deal with the vacuities of the young, who have only been fed Marxist propaganda at state schools, and at the polytechnics which were so hilariously re-classified as ‘Universities’ a few years ago.
Poor value for money indeed Loppoman. And I know full well that for watching, or even recording, ANY transmission, from ANY channel at the time of actual transmission requires a licence. Which is why, as I wrote, I have decided to do away with live TV altogether. So many people vowed during the AgeUK Campaign “Switched Off” that they either wouldn’t pay or would do as you are doing – frustrate payments to the maximim whenever and in every way possible. You end op paying though. You say “no one is going to be on my side”. I agree if you mean no one in Government. But a good many individuals will be on my side although they may decline to take the step I am doing. It is a shame that, as is almost always the case in the UK, a relatively few campaign for the benefit of the many. A lot of people say beforehand that they aren’t going to comply with something but then, when things get nasty, they roll over. The only time the great unwashed prevailed was over the Poll Tax (incidentally in my view a far fairer way of paying than we now have!) because they turned out in their thousands and were prepared to get violent. Millions of people, particularly the young, have no TV licence. My grandsons, with girl friends and living in their own flats, are examples. They get their news from their phones or laptops, they purchase TV entertainment from Netflix or Amazon Prime. It’s high time for us oldies (I tend to think most regular readers to this blog are older) to take a stand on the TV licence tax. Being still regarded as docile, compliant, law-abiding, we are, as always, the cash cows.
And incidentally, reverting to the main message of today’s blog, never, ever give anything to either Children in Need or to any of the large charities, Oxfam included, whose enormous pay-roll you are financing. Isn’t it Oxfam whose local representatives in third-world countries were found recently to have been routinely sexually abusing children? If it wasn’t Oxfam, it was some other internationally-operating so-called “charity”. David is right – if you wish to give, then donate locally or to a charity of your own choosing where you can see the direct benefits of what you give. That’s what I’ve been doing for years, supporting a wonderful centuries old, educational establishment here in England, which relies entirely on charitable support.
Every time I pass an Oxfam shop, I feel like burning it down and selling the staff into slavery! They are one of the agencies presumably responsible for the huge population explosion in Africa which is expected to roughly double by 2050. This will add 1.2 billion people to Africa’s 2020 population of 1.3 billion. And as a survey amongst the young males living there now showed that 40% of them have plans to get to Europe by any means possible, the current ’trickle’ crossing the Mediterranean now will turn into an irristible flood within a decade. And from there of course, further on to the English Channel where we provide a taxi service for them. Considering Churchill inquired of the feasibility of the RAF dropping poison gas on intransigent Iraqi villages in the 20’s, I have no doubt were he PM now, he’d sink a few rubber dinghies crossing the Channel to discourage the rest. Give me a speedboat and a heavy machine gun and I’d solve the problem within a few days.
Yes William, forget this climate change b/s**t and concentrate on the world’s population.
The MSM won’t dare talk about this but the real problem the world is facing is population explosion and pollution of the rivers and oceans. And we’re talking here of Africa and the ME. As you say, there will be so many of them that they won’t be able to feed themselves and so they will head for Europe (if Europe as we know it still exists). This can only lead to war as the remaining Europeans fight to hang on to their land, assets and culture. I’ll be long gone by then, thank God.
Once again, David, a timely reminder as to the wretched situation the UK has descended to. Woke, self-serving BBC, staffed by over-paid numpties, the “news” staff bolstered by dim “as you say” “specialists” who, when cut to, repeat parrot-fashion, what has already been stated. I, too, look elsewhere, to RT, Aljazeera, French and Euronews for much more comprehensive world and even Brit related balance.
Another little earner for Crapita to be the debt collector , banging on doors to pressurise the elderly criminals, like me, who have the fibre to tell them where to go. Crapita,like the omnipresent Serco, are a national disgrace. Serco and Deloitte, who are incapable of getting an audit right, make zillions being fed contracts by civil servants not up to the job themselves.
I recently went online to see if there was info as to when my winter fuel payment might be made, only to discover it, too, is run by Serco. My letter to them 3 weeks ago, remains unanswered.
Great contributions re: the self- charity industry. Even the saintly RAF Association, headquartered in Mayfair, headed by Air Vice Marshalls, recently ran multi-page spread in the DM trumpeting that they were sitting on a multi-million, still growing pot and looking for any surviving folk who did wartime service and even National Service to contact them to assist in diminishing the money pile. When contacted by this veteran who did 4.1/2 years from 1949 to 1953 was offered an intro to local food banks and an interview at the local Citizens Advice office.
Contacts tell me that Matt Hancock is in for a nasty surprise imminently.
Sky Australia is a breath of fresh air and good old fashioned common sense,the Aussies might just kick back.