Intergenerational Poison

THE BBC has always had an army of guest ‘experts’ on hand to reinforce its news reports in ever-increasing (and not to mention infuriatingly patronising) detail, but whilst these proverbial talking heads seem to be getting younger by the day, what I find really sinister, despite the fact that everything the BBC does is rigorously controlled and filtered, is that its selected analysts - regardless whether they are being asked to comment on issues such as health, public services or education - simply parrot a series of robotic platitudes that have clearly been handed-down by their professional and academic predecessors.

It doesn’t take much to work out, therefore, that the replies are wholly textbook and tailor-made. Linguistic trends come and go, as do regional accents and the changing ethnicity of the guest analysts themselves, but down the years there remains an unbroken thread of continuity which inevitably ensures that the conformist values of the Establishment are carefully imparted from one generation to the next. It begins in the schools, is further consolidated by the colleges and universities, and is then sent out into the world like an habitual virus.