One would imagine that when the British nation was under assault by Hitler's Blitz that the British Broadcasting Corporation did its best to calm, reassure and support people through the horrors and that its top priority was to help the nation whose name appeared in its name to unite against a common enemy. Scroll forward 80 years and we find the nation facing a new and indeterminate scourge that may or may not prove to have a similar outcome although it is likley to affect old people largely. Is the British Broadcasting Corporation exhibiting the same sort of all hands to the pump, keep calm and carry on approach? Not exactly. Today it sought out a WHO Doctor who could contradict the comments of Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Officer who is nobly doing his damndest to ease us through the crisis. He mentioned the concept of 'Herd Immunity' which is, no doubt, one of many guesses being made in an uncertain and developing situation. The BBC whose name shares an epithet with the British government firstly wheeled out the ex Health Minister, who happened to lose the leadership contest to the current PM, to question the government's response and then found someone to pour cold water on the idea of 'Herd Immunity' and, of course, the Guardian jumped on the bandwagon. What really motivates 'Aunty,' who always has our best interests at heart in these situations, since the election? My take on it would be that they prioritise two things above what you might expect them to put first - not causing panic and supporting those charged with the responsibility of dealing with the predicament the Covid-19 situation presents. Firstly, they want to create a scandal of contradiction that calls the competence of the government and its experts into question in a situation where there is always bound to be an element of guesswork given that the world has never faced corona virus before. Why would they wish to do this? It's simple - they feel an animus towards Boris Johnson and his government that trumps any saner or less selfish considerations such as it not being helpful to attempt to undermine and destroy confidence in the government at a time like this. This is the measure of how much they hate Boris Johnson. Secondly, they want to take back control of a cognitive agenda that they lost when Johnson was so convincingly elected. The country told them in no uncertain terms they were not, for most people, the cognitive Kings of the Castle they thought they were and this really got them where it hurts given that they were the ones who were supposed to be in charge of the Fact Checkers and Reality Checkers and that this is the only thing they really care about. They really have been smarting given that telling us what to think was supposed to be their job. The only scandal here is their list of priorities.
Picture Credit: Nilses - Eigene Herstellung, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=774662