Budget

This is the script of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Most people understand what a budget is. It’s a mechanism whereby we work out how much money is coming in and, therefore, how much can go out. Setting a budget tells us whether we can afford what we want or how to afford what we need. Wants and needs are, of course, different things.

What we do in our household is not very different from what happens in a business or a country. Tomorrow the Chancellor will unveil his response to these hard questions about how we pay for what we want or what we think we need as a society.

But, I think a budget is more than a simple transaction with numbers. In fact, a budget has been described – wisely, I think – as “theology by numbers”. A bit like “painting by numbers,” but with more powerful consequences.

If you don’t like the word ‘theology’, then substitute ‘worldview’ or ‘values’. Whichever words you choose, the point remains the same. A budget tells us what we really think about society (its businesses, industry, cultures, and so on) and what we really think matters. In other words, it demonstrates our real values and doesn’t just serve as a political ball to be kicked around.

When I think about a budget I go back to two powerful traditions. In the Hebrew scriptures it is very clear that God’s judgment about societies rests on how citizens treat one another and how they protect their weakest people. The prophet Amos, writing three thousand years ago, condemns the people for ordering their society in such a way as to celebrate religious revival whilst institutionalizing corruption. You could sing hymns of praise at the same time as buying off the judges and “trampling on the heads of the poor”.

This valuing of social justice wasn’t invented by the prophets, though. The earliest settlements in the Promised Land had instructions to leave ten per cent of the field’s harvest so that sojourners and homeless people could always find something to eat. A just society meant enshrining in money and produce an obligation to mutuality.

Jesus put it more starkly: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This is difficult and challenging stuff for individuals as well as for a country. The process of constructing a budget compels us to at least try to articulate what we think matters and why. Who benefits from a budget and who loses from it tells us something about where our heart really is … and what or whom we really love. Facing that exposure takes courage.

 

Public Service Broadcasting

This is the text of a speech I delivered in the House of Lords today in a debate “to take note of the future of public service broadcasting in the year of the BBC’s centenary”.

My Lords, I am grateful to Lord Foster for securing this important debate. Before saying anything further on the theme, I want to express thanks and admiration to those who prepared the Library Briefing. I have been knocking around these issues for a couple of decades, but this briefing is a model of narrative accuracy and concision.

Public Service Broadcasting in the UK is unique on the planet and one area in which this country is genuinely a world leader. Which is why it is so important that, in the centenary year of the BBC and the day after the fortieth birthday of Channel 4, we assess the value of what we have and steel ourselves against the ideologically driven impulse to diminish it. Yesterday I asked a friend who works in PSB what she would focus on in a debate such as this and her response was immediate: imagine a world without it. That is, imagine a world in which broadcasting serves only narrow cultural or political interests and is subject purely to commercial or transactional persuasion.

Or, I might put it, look at broadcasting in the United States.

Price is not the same as value.

The broadcasting landscape has changed and is changing by the day. Technology drives both the pace and nature of such change. But, there remain principles which, if neglected or sold down the river to the highest bidder, will sell our culture short. And not just that of the UK, but also the global audience that relies on the BBC for accuracy and integrity. Does it get it wrong sometimes? Yes, obviously. But, it is also open to scrutiny, challenge and critique. If you want to understand the global importance of the BBC – and what the loss of soft power might look like -, just ask Arabic speakers what they think of the recent decision to close our Arabic service at a time when it is most needed.

The main point about PSB is surely that, as the report by the House of Commons DCMS committee makes clear, it is characterised by universality of access, accuracy and impartiality, and independence. It is surely not coincidental that we read on the walls of New Broadcasting House the words of George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” For this freedom to be guaranteed, there needs to be a well-resourced facility for universality of access, accuracy and impartiality (which is not the same as neutrality), and independence.

Yes, technology has changed everything, and it is timely that there should be some serious scrutiny of legislation for a rapidly moving digital and legal world. But, as I wrote in a newspaper article some years ago: “If the BBC needs to hear what it doesn’t want to hear, then the politicians who want to reform PSB cannot exempt themselves from scrutiny of their motive. Diminishing those who challenge the integrity or motivation of governments or their policies is what happens in countries that are not admired for their democratic credentials.”

My Lords, PSB is not the sole preserve of the BBC. The PSB landscape has changed: different media with differing offerings and funded by different models. This provides a balance that is precarious and must be respected. Please can the Minister update us on the future of the Media Bill and, particularly, the threat to privatise Channel 4 – a clear success story of the last forty years and for which there is no popular mandate to privatise? Following the appointment of the new Prime Minister, the government said that the Secretary of State was “carefully considering the business case for a sale of Channel 4”. Might I suggest that ‘business’ isn’t the only case to be considered here?

Further questions the Minister might like to help us with might be:

• How will the current drastic squeeze on BBC local broadcasting impact on local democracy, community cohesion and accuracy of reporting?
• How will the drastic squeeze on the BBC World Service and its consequent reduction in service impact on UK soft power in parts of the world where our reputation as a leading democratic and free nation is fragile and matters?
• Young people are accessing the BBC less than ever. But, does this emphasise the need to reach them with PSB more effectively, rather than simply diminishing its resourcing according to some ‘numbers’ equation that takes little account of power that cannot be cashed out in a profit/loss spreadsheet?
• If PSB is reduced as a source of public funding (and my assumption here is not incidental), what does this say about the encouragement and nurture of a new and younger generation of journalists and programme makers who need to embody cultural values, not just technical skills?
• Does the government value the fact-checking credibility of the BBC in a world being flooded with disinformation, with a serious impact on truth, democracy and culture?

My Lords, a reform of legislation might be needed in the wake of radical technological change ( to say nothing of the Wild West of digital, streaming and social media), but please will HMG commit to assuring the cultural and democratic future of PSB in the UK in order that we don’t lose what has taken a century to build, but could be lost in weeks?

 

Who’s afraid of the media?

This is the text of a commissioned article published last week in the Church Times.

Whenever I go to New Broadcasting House in London I can’t avoid the statue of George Orwell and the inscription on the wall beside it: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” It is taken from Animal Farm, a book that has been selling well in the brave new world of alternative facts and populist politics.

As we know, liberty cannot be the sole preserve of those who claim the power to dictate its terms. Maturity can be identified where people are able to hear what is uncomfortable and reflect on its probity, even if this means changing an opinion or mindset. In other words, citizens, politicians, journalists, ‘personalities’ and anyone else can reasonably be expected to behave like grown-ups, being unafraid to hear a different perspective.

The reason this matters is that we are now seeing before our very eyes a change in how governments handle uncomfortable news. Recently No 10 divided journalists into two lines in the hallway and told one line that they would not be admitted into a press conference. All the journalists walked out in an act of solidarity that in itself became widely seen as a touchstone of liberty. Although No 10 backtracked later and claimed there had been a misunderstanding, every journalist there saw it differently and recognised that this could not be conceded.

This comes on top of the Prime Minister refusing to subject himself to informed policy scrutiny during the general election, then preventing ministers from accepting invitations to appear on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Petty revenge for past coverage? Fear of detailed analysis of policy or motive? Deliberate strategy to shut out public access to information to which they should, as citizens, be entitled? Well, take your pick.

Anyone in the public eye knows how frustrating it is to be misrepresented, misquoted criticised or ridiculed in the press or broadcast media. A dig into my blog over the last decade will reveal lots of examples of me taking journalists to task and asking for better, more intelligent and less ad hominem journalism. So, I understand why the Prime Minister might, under the direction of his employee Dominic Cummings, decide to communicate directly and without mediation to those with whom he wishes to speak. Digital and social media make this possible. Mainstream media can be bypassed, ignored or belittled in an attempt to control the narrative.

However, this brave new world brings with it significant dangers. As we are already witnessing, direct control of the messaging means avoidance of the sort of scrutiny upon which a genuine democracy depends. A chat show is not the same as being subjected to intelligent, informed and fearless interrogation. Three-word slogans only work so long as no one is allowed to question them, digging beneath the assumptions behind the words, pushing the meanings to see if they contain any substance. One of the lessons of the last three years must be that slogans trump facts where the public accountability of the powerful is simply denied by a refusal to be subject to open scrutiny.

I would say this, wouldn’t I? A former professional linguist who worked in the intelligence world prior to ordination, I have not been coy about criticising the corruption of our public discourse, bemoaning the impunity of those who tell lies for a living and know they can get away with it, calling for a recovery of public and individual integrity on the part of public servants – which is what politicians are. US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson reportedly said in 1917, “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” I am not the first to challenge this: the first casualty is language. We should expect politicians and prime ministers to try to shape their messages in order to communicate well and clearly; but, we should be deeply suspicious when they deliberately avoid scrutiny or examination by experts who, on behalf of the people, hold them to account.

In this context we need to watch very carefully the government’s approach to the BBC. If the BBC needs to hear what it doesn’t want to hear, then the politicians who want to reform public service broadcasting cannot exempt themselves from scrutiny of their motive. Diminishing those who challenge the integrity or motivation of governments or their policies is what happens in countries not admired for their democratic credentials.

There is much at stake here for those who wish to deepen and not dilute democracy.

 

BBC and Indarjit Singh

I have just seen the report in today’s Times newspaper about Lord Singh’s withdrawal from doing Thought for the Day on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. I am sorry to see this and the terms in which he frames his reasons. His voice will be missed – although I suspect he has the same questions as I do about who might pick up from the next generation in due course.

In my experience of doing Thought for the Day I have only once felt pressed to speak on a particular issue and it didn’t turn out well for me. I wanted to talk about Steven Gerrard’s retirement (theme of loyalty), but there was some interfaith issue going on and I was persuaded to do a script on Islam. Two hours after delivery the Charlie Hebdo shootings took place in Paris and the criticism/abuse online led me to shut down all social media. Of course, had I known at 7.45am that there were to be shootings later that morning, I would have done a different script; but that sort of prophecy is not a gift I have been given.

Nevertheless, I fully understood the reasoning behind the request to address the issue in my script that day. Choices have to be made. The routine is that the contributor speaks on the phone with the producer for the next day’s slot and we agree a theme. Sometimes I have several possibilities up my sleeve – sometimes I have a blank sheet. Occasionally I have already written a script (or two) – just to get my mind working. Having drafted a script, there is then usually some back-and-forth about it before it gets signed off. Sometimes I argue with changes, sometimes I don’t. Usually the producer – who knows the medium and audience better than I do – reads what might be heard by particular language and advises a change. I always listen to this and learn from it. I have never been asked to say something I don’t agree with or edit inappropriately.

And, yes, I have had the phone call ten minutes before lift-off to ask for a tweak, but always in the light of other news that might change the way certain language is heard. We then negotiate. In my experience it is always a helpful and challenging conversation.

I always come away from the microphone wondering how I might have made my point better, more entertainingly or more clearly. I occasionally think I might have chosen a different theme, given the context on the programme and the nature of the news. But, I am clear that this is not a pulpit. The job of the contributor is to shine a different light on a theme – not to preach a sermon, but to stimulate thought, reaction, reflection, and so on. (My Inbox tells me that most reaction is knee-jerk and prejudiced … and sometimes abusive, but I get some intelligent stuff, too. Occasionally I get a critical response that is really helpful and moves me on. I think that’s called ‘being grown up’, even if sometimes it is painful.

And, yes, I sometimes wish it could be sharper and provocative, but there is a fine line to be trodden.

So, I am sorry Lord Singh is finishing. I hope this won’t be used as a further reason to malign the BBC when they do a thorough and mature job in working a difficult slot with sometimes difficult and opinionated people like me.

 

BBC – Religion under review

This morning the BBC is publishing a review of its engagement as a public service broadcaster with religion. I warmly welcome the report and the way the review was conducted, but also have one or two questions – I will return to these later.

The key to understanding the thrust of the report lies in the introduction by Lord Hall, the Director General of the BBC:

We believe that the plans we have set out will build on this to deliver an even more profound approach. They will ensure that the BBC better reflects the UK, the world, and the role that religion plays in everyday life. They will also raise understanding of the impact religion has on decisions made at home and abroad.

This goes to the heart of the matter. Religious broadcasting is not about proselytism or evangelism. It is about enabling people to understand the world and why it is the way it is. As the report notes, almost 85% of the world’s population has a religious faith, worldview or culture – and they derive their motivations, comprehensions and assumptions about human beings, human behaviour, place in the world, and social order from the lens through which they look.

I like the quotation now engraved in the wall of New Broadcasting House behind the statue of George Orwell:

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

And that goes for all of us.

My questions are the usual ones: who, when, how and how much. In other words, when will we see the plan that clarifies who is responsible for establishing clear means to achieve these important aims, what are the timelines for delivery, and how much resource will be committed to making sure the promises are realised?

 

Judas on the telly: Radio Times

Before coming to Iraq I was asked to write a piece for the Radio Times. Picking up on the Kate Bottley programme on Good Friday, I thought I would start from there. However, the article was essentially about avoiding the pigeon-holing of religious broadcasting. Here is the text, but buy the Radio Times anyway – the biggest-selling magazine in the UK.

So, it's Easter again. And there's a programme about Judas on the telly.

When Bob Dylan decided to go electric some of his fans thought he had sold out. The infamous sound of a bloke in the audience shouting “Judas” said it all – one name pregnant with a hundred accusations.

I feel a bit sorry for Judas. He is not just another one of those characters in the well-known story of the crucifixion of Jesus; rather, he has gone down in history as the ultimate traitor, the cheap and nasty greed-merchant who sells his friend and his soul for a few quid. I wonder what his mother thought.

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. Judas had invested himself in the revolutionary leadership of Jesus of Nazareth … only to find himself let down. Trying to force the hand of the messiah didn't work, and, instead of provoking the ultimate uprising against Roman rule, the glorious leader simply let himself get nailed without resistance. No wonder Judas got upset.

I guess it's up to the observer to decide what was really going on with Judas – whether he is a traitor or a scapegoat. Whatever conclusion you draw, he's has had a lousy press. Just call someone by his name…

It's actually all about betrayal. And faith. And disappointment. And hope and meaning and living and dying. All the stuff of life as we all know it, in every age and every culture.

It shouldn't be surprising, then, that the case for or against Judas should be re-opened on Good Friday. After all, what better opportunity can there be for taking a fresh look at a religious story than hanging it on an Easter peg?

That's fine in itself. But, it begs the question why such programming shouldn't be scheduled at other times of the year. Why lock 'faith' stuff into the predictable slots when 'people who like that sort of thing' can be indulged for an hour or so? If sport and politics, economics and science can be exposed to the searching eye of the camera and the probing ear of the microphone throughout the year, shouldn't 'religion' get the same treatment – and not get pigeon-holed at the predictable times of the calendar?

Well, I celebrate those broadcasters that spot the creative opportunities to tell the stories and ask the hard questions. Faith provides a lens through which the stuff of human living and dying, leaving and losing, laughing and weeping, searching and finding can be explored. Faith isn't a box whose lid can be lifted from time to time in order to keep one section of the audience happy. Faith is about the raw stuff of life – and the questions about what it all means. Not just at Christmas and Easter, but all year round.

And this is why the Sandford St Martin Trust joins with the Radio Times to celebrate and reward excellent religious broadcasting. That's not broadcasting about religion for religious people; rather, it is telling those – often surprising – stories about people whose lives and interests and failings and celebrations shine a light on those questions that face us all as human beings. They offer a sort of vocabulary for thinking and asking and wondering.

No shoving stuff down people's throat. But, capturing the imagination and offering images and narratives that keep scratching away at our mind and memory, possibly opening us up to new, and sometimes surprising, ways of thinking and seeing.

Whether it's Gogglebox or Grantchester, Call the Midwife or Rev, a documentary or drama, there are some great programmes to celebrate.

Cast your vote.

 

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Just pray?

This is the text of an article requested this morning by the Yorkshire Post in relation to the decision by cinema advertising bodies not to show an advert about the Lord's Prayer in their cinemas before Christmas this year. The decision has provoked a spat in the media and on social media – some of it even polite.

So, the major cinema chains have banned a one-minute advert from being shown in their theatres on the grounds that people may be offended. God, give me strength. (Which is a prayer.)

If you don't pray, then you are almost certainly in a small minority of people on the planet. Even people who claim no faith seem to admit to praying in certain circumstances.

In the last couple of weeks we have seen hashtags and posters, banners and even football scarves, emblazoned with 'pray4paris'. Why? As I said on last Friday's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, “it is interesting that in times of tragedy or challenge, the most unlikely people resort effortlessly to the language of prayer. “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims,” we've heard; and we've seen people kneeling, praying before makeshift shrines and at packed services in the Notre Dame cathedral. But, prayer to whom?”

The fact is: people pray. Billions of people across the globe pray the Lord's Prayer every day. For some Christians in some parts of the Middle East and Africa, the utterance of this prayer can amount to a death sentence. Yet, it is a prayer I have seen uttered by those committed to other faiths, but who see in this prayer – taught to his friends by Jesus – a fundamental recognition of human being, human need, and the realities of human experience. We are not God, but we live in relation to God; we have daily physical needs and we get tempted to go the wrong way; if we don't forgive those who wrong us, then how on earth do we expect to be forgiven and reconciled by God and others?

In the Christian tradition prayer is not about presenting shopping lists of requests to a god whose job it is to make life comfortable, convenient or secure for us. Rather, prayer is that exercise that, bringing us into the presence of God, gradually exposes us to the mind of God towards ourselves and the world where we are. Inevitably, this then exposes us to the need to change so that we gradually see God, the world and ourselves through God's eyes. Prayer is open for anyone. Prayer invites us to be open and honest with God and one another – to tell the truth about our fears and anxieties as well as about the things that make us scream with joy. It's like being stripped back so that we see as we are seen.

So, why do the cinema people think prayer is so dangerous? And who exactly is going to be offended by a one-minute advert that consists of a pile of people saying a phrase of the Lord's Prayer in sequence? No propaganda. No coercion. No pressure. Just an encouraging invitation. What is the problem?

Well, the problem is basically the illiteracy of a liberal culture that thinks itself to be intellectually mature and culturally sound. This culture assumes (I choose the word carefully) that secular humanism is neutral – and self-evidently 'true' – and that, by definition, any religious world view is somewhere up the scale of irrational and loaded madness. A five year old child could demolish that one. There is no neutral space.

Secondly, as an irrational reflex, religion gets widely connected inextricably with 'problem', 'trouble' or 'conflict'. Therefore, it has to be neutralised. The five year old would be on a roll by now. Just this morning a Muslim tweeted that, rather than ignoring Remembrance Day and the poppy appeal, his group had actually raised more than £400,000 for the Royal British Legion this month. Has anyone actually asked who might be offended by this and why? This phenomenon has echoes in seasonal appeals to empty Christmas of its name.

Thirdly, this religious illiteracy goes deep. Last week the Daily Telegraph reported on the debates that nearly saw the word 'Abbey' removed from 'Downton'. It seems that there was no reference to church (although, for good or ill, church would have been an integral part of the life of those characters), and we never got to see them sit down for a meal because that would have meant seeing them say grace. Really.

There is still time for the people who run the cinema chains to change their mind. They might even invite a conversation about reality 'out there' in the world. But, even if they don't, they have exposed yet again the intellectual and cultural redundancy of a dominant knee-jerk assumption about religion and the world. It would be funny if it weren't so common.

(Of course, the word limit meant I couldn't ask how advertising actually works, if it isn't to get inside our heads and promise to meet our deepest needs by selling us something. Which, apparently, is unproblematic.)

 

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BBC futures

I chair a media trust that goes by the name of Sandford St Martin. We reward excellence in religious broadcasting and advocate for the same in a range of different ways.

One of the most important decisions to be made in the UK in the next year or so will be about the future of the BBC as its Charter is renewed.

The Sandford St Martin Trust submission to the BBC Charter Renewal consultation can be read in full here and focuses particularly on the public service remit, seeing religious broadcasting as a touchstone of how this remit is fulfilled.

The Trust's submisison can be read here.

 

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BBC religion

It was announced last week that the BBC is to shake up its commissioning briefs (so to speak).

According to reports, four of the BBC’s most senior commissioners will have their roles closed as part of a major overhaul of the factual division. The restructuring, which is being overseen by factual commissioning controller Emma Swain, is aimed at saving money and re-focusing the division ahead of the proposed closure of BBC3.

Basically, three-and-a-half head of commissioning roles will be removed and another created. This will result in the department having six commissioning heads, compared to eight-and-a-half currently.

The bit that interests me particularly is where this puts religion in the new scheme of things. One of the posts to go is that of Aaqil Ahmed, who currently combines being head of Religion & Ethics with being commissioning editor television.

The proposed three newly created head of commissioning roles will cover:

· Head of science, business, history and religion (specialist factual)
· Head of documentaries, current affairs and BBC3
· Head of specialist features and natural history

There will be consequences for other people involved in commissioning in the factual division.

This might all make perfect sense and be a rational and productive structural change within the BBC. But, in the absence of more detail, it also raises important questions:

Who will take overall responsibility in the BBC for the range, quantity and quality of the religious coverage? Or will this be left as a sort of “fill in” content?
How much, and what sort of, religious programming does the BBC expect of each of its tv networks?
3. Why is there no BBC news religion editor to complement the science, economics, business, political, financial, arts and sports editors?

This is not about special pleading by religious interest groups. At a time when it is impossible to understand the modern world – its politics, economics, military and humanitarian events – without understanding religion, why is religion not being prioritised as needing expert interpretation in the public and broadcast sphere? You don’t have to have a religious bone in your body to see the need for this sort of exploration and interpretation in the media. Whether personally religious or not, religion cannot be avoided by any serious observer as a serious factor in shaping – for good or ill – the actions and motivations of people and communities.

So, where will religion sit in the company of science, business and history? And who will be well-informed enough in all four of these areas to give adequate priority to each?

My questions arise from the limited information I have read. They should not be interpreted as suspicious or negative. But, the answers to these key questions will be interesting.

 

Religion for the Times

It was reported last week that the BBC is to move current Defence Correspondent Caroline Wyatt to Religion, replacing Robert Pigott who has held the post for a decade. Given Wyatt's heavyweight role in Defence since 2007, this is seen as a beefing up of the religion brief. Some of us have argued for years that the BBC should appoint a Religion Editor – recognising the importance of religion as a factor in the world and how we understand it. This seems like a re-beefing up of the 'correspondent' role and goes some way to meeting the need.

Ironic, then, that it was also reported this week that the Times is to get rid of the Religion Correspondent role that has been occupied so successfully for 25 years by Ruth Gledhill. This means that no English newspaper has a journalist dedicated to covering religion as a specialism.

This is the context in which the Sandford St Martin Trust – which I chair – is changing. During the last year we have conducted a detailed strategy review and clarified that we wish not only to 'promote excellence in religious broadcasting', but also 'to advocate for' it. To this end we are changing the way we operate and will shortly be advertising for a part-time Executive Secretary to help us run the trust and develop our ambitions.

The Trust gives prestigious awards each year, presented at a ceremony at Lambeth Palace and with judging panels chaired by people who know their stuff. We have been developing our year-long presence, especially through good work in social media and a new website, but our ambitions go well beyond this to both stimulate and engage in debate on religious broadcasting.

More will become clear as plans are developed. However, the point is that the religious broadcasting drum will continue to be banged – but more smartly as we invest in making a difference.

 

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