Toby Young
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One reason that white British working-class people will continue to be under-represented at the Beeb in spite of the new quota is because the Corporation announced last year it wasn’t satisfied with just 15 per cent of its workforce being from BAME backgrounds and wants to increase that to 20 per cent. And many of the applicants who tick the BAME box will also tick the ‘working-class’ box, given that non-white people from low income families are more likely to go to university than whites. According to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, 59 per cent of black African pupils eligible for free school meals progressed to higher education in 2018-19, 58.6 per cent of Bangladeshis, 57.2 per cent of Indians, 47.1 per cent of Pakistanis and 31.8 per cent of black Caribbean pupils. So much for ‘white privilege’.
And that 16 per cent figure for poor white British pupils conceals an even starker figure – just 12.7 per cent of boys in this group progress to higher education, compared with 19.4 per cent of girls. That’s the truly disadvantaged group in modern Britain: white working-class males. It is their taste that is completely neglected by the BBC, with the exception of Match of the Day. But even for those brief moments of pleasure on Saturday and Sunday night, they have to put up with the BBC commentators extravagantly praising the Premier League footballers taking the knee before the game. The implication is that people like them are racist troglodytes badly in need of cultural re-education.
Of course, the BBC could avoid this criticism and stop worrying about how ‘represented’ different groups are by taking the simple step of becoming a commercial broadcaster. Provided white working-class men aren’t forced to pay the licence fee as a condition of receiving a live television signal, it won’t matter that their interests are being neglected and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. If the BBC becomes a subscription- funded streaming service – the British Netflix – it can lean in to its progressive, metropolitan bias instead of trying to downplay it. Given its global brand recognition, as well as its stellar reputation among international elites, I’ve no doubt it would be highly profitable. It could demonstrate its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion by refusing to employ any white people at all, which may sound paradoxical but which would probably go over well with its affluent, highly educated subscribers. If it isn’t being funded by the taxpayer, no one will give a fig.
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