Screenshot: Sir David Clementi giving the keynote speech at the BBC/RTS Cambridge Convention, 2017. Youtube.In his “ I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington”1963, Martin Luther King declared that the American constitution was a promissory note that had been returned marked “insufficient funds”. For diversity, the BBC Charter has become a promissory note that has been returned marked insufficient commitment and inadequate regulation.
Two years ago, Sir Peter Bazalgette, then Chair of the Arts Council, told the Lords Communications Committee inquiry on the BBC:
“The fundamental principle here should be that public money should be spent for the benefit of everybody, and the products of that public money – programming, arts events, whatever they happen to be – should draw on all the talents of the country, not only to reflect the country but to bring forward those people for their personal fulfilment as well.”
