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<\/p>\nFamily Sundays in my house follow a cosy routine: a spot of gardening, I cook a roast and then, later, we all gather, with a cheese board and snacks, to watch a murder mystery or a true crime documentary.<\/p>\n
Favourites from the former genre include Knives Out and Glass Onion, and from the latter, White House Farm, the story of how Jeremy Bamber killed his parents, sister and her twin sons at their Essex farm one night in 1985.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want anything too graphic, of course, just a compelling narrative with a few twists.<\/p>\n
There is, however, one true crime drama we won\u2019t be tuning in to and that is The Reckoning, the four-part dramatisation of the life of Jimmy Savile which started on BBC One last night.<\/p>\n
Savile was an evil paedophile whom the BBC continued to fete and protect even as his predilections were widely known in Broadcasting House and beyond.<\/p>\n
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The Reckoning, the four-part dramatisation of the life of Jimmy Savile which started on BBC One last night. He will be played by Steve Coogan (pictured) and his wife Angie will be played by Gemma Jones (pictured)<\/p>\n
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NADINE DORRIES:\u00a0Savile was an evil paedophile whom the BBC continued to fete and protect even as his predilections were widely known in Broadcasting House and beyond\u00a0<\/p>\n
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NADINE DORRIES:\u00a0Staff (at the BBC) would try to ensure he was never left alone with young girls and would bang on his dressing room door if ever he locked it because of their fears about what he might have been up to<\/p>\n
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NADINE DORRIES: One true crime drama we won\u2019t be tuning in to and that is The Reckoning, the four-part dramatisation of the life of Jimmy Savile which started on BBC One last night<\/p>\n
Staff would try to ensure he was never left alone with young girls and would bang on his dressing room door if ever he locked it because of their fears about what he might have been up to.<\/p>\n
His sinister conduct was the worst-kept secret, but he was never called to account.<\/p>\n
He was TV gold, an asset, to be shielded at all costs.<\/p>\n
As my colleague Christopher Stevens made clear in his unsparing review last week, this drama seeks to spread the blame \u2014 on the NHS, various politicians, sections of the media and even the Catholic church \u2014 all of which distracts from the failures of senior BBC management. No, the Beeb doesn\u2019t absolve itself totally, but I understand there are some significant omissions in the story.<\/p>\n
How is it that the Newsnight investigation into Savile after his death which was hurriedly shelved \u2014 a scandal that dominated headlines for weeks \u2014 isn\u2019t addressed?<\/p>\n
The BBC simply dismisses it as a story to be told another day. And while Margaret Thatcher features predominantly in one episode as a long-standing friend of Savile, no mention is made of Keir Starmer, now Labour leader but back then Director of Public Prosecutions when the Crown Prosecution Service investigated the DJ but did not prosecute because of \u2018insufficient evidence\u2019.<\/p>\n
Starmer was not the reviewing lawyer and he later commissioned an investigation which criticised both police and prosecutors over their failures.<\/p>\n
But why wasn\u2019t this important event included?<\/p>\n
In another scene, the blame is subtly laid on a priest who fails to elicit a confession from a frail Savile. Another box ticked because doesn\u2019t everyone love to hate the Catholic Church as well as Thatcher?<\/p>\n
My question: how much longer can the BBC get away with behaving like this?<\/p>\n
From Savile, Rolf Harris and Stuart Hall to Russell Brand and Martin Bashir, there have been too many failures and too many cover-ups \u2014 and yet it is shamelessly using this dark period in its history to chase ratings.<\/p>\n
Our national broadcaster is unaccountable, secretive and deeply flawed. No wonder the number of licence fee-payers is falling off a cliff.<\/p>\n
Rishi must not kowtow to tech giants<\/span><\/p>\n When I was Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I was proud to oversee the introduction of the Digital Markets Bill and the establishment of the potential Digital Markets Unit (DMU).<\/p>\n I won\u2019t bore you with the detail, but one of the biggest threats to independent journalism \u2014 and therefore to free speech \u2014 is the fact that tech giants such as Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc), Google, Apple and Microsoft, lift the work of journalists employed by media outlets and post it on their platforms.<\/p>\n They do not pay for the privilege, although they profit hugely from digital advertising the work attracts.<\/p>\n What is more, the tech giants can manipulate the online visibility of articles \u2014 and therefore news \u2014 using algorithms. It\u2019s no coincidence that Left-leaning media outlets tend to top search lists, despite the fact that they are not necessarily the best-selling publications or most popular sites.<\/p>\n The role of the DMU was to regulate powerful tech firms and ensure fairer practices and greater transparency.<\/p>\n Rishi Sunak pictured yesterday at Chequers\u00a0<\/p>\n Former prime minister Boris Johnson, a journalist himself, understood this. He gave his backing to make the Bill work in a way that protected independent journalism and free speech.<\/p>\n However, Rishi Sunak, a known admirer of Silicon Valley and all things Californian, is under pressure to water down the powers of the Digital Markets Bill and the DMU. (Personally, I can\u2019t believe our ex-deputy PM, Nick Clegg, now earning an eye-watering salary as President of Global Affairs for Meta, hasn\u2019t been lobbying hard on this behind the scenes in No 10.)<\/p>\n This is a Bill which has been signed off by Cabinet and is already passing through Parliament. Yet at this late stage, Sunak is considering allowing tech giants to launch substantive appeals against regulatory measures, potentially miring the DMU in long administrative and legal challenges.<\/p>\n Google and Facebook took around 80 per cent of the annual digital advertising spend in the UK in 2019. Be in no doubt, if tech giants aren\u2019t regulated, many media outlets may not survive, not even the Left-leaning ones.<\/p>\n Then we will be dependent on woke millennials in California deciding what news, if any, we see.<\/p>\n If you needed confirmation Labour politics was, and always will be, the politics of envy, look no further than Shadow Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson. She\u2019s spearheading policies that would impose 20 per cent VAT on private school fees \u2014 but has admitted she\u2019s never visited one in her official capacity, nor has she seen in person the great work many do with other schools in underprivileged areas.<\/p>\n It is poorer pupils who benefit most from such relationships with the independent sector, and it is poorer pupils who will be the biggest losers of this misguided policy.<\/p>\n Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson at a school in London last month\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0I wrote about the French bed bug invasion some weeks ago and now learn that, following Paris Fashion Week, the critters have reportedly been hitching first-class international travel in the Louis Vuitton suitcases of the world\u2019s most stylish folk to all corners of the globe. Meanwhile, an acquaintance in the capital has had all her soft furnishings, mattresses, rugs, curtains, sofas and cushions placed in large plastic bags, double-sealed with duct tape. Normal fumigation with pesticides isn\u2019t working, so she\u2019s hoping the pests will die of starvation. And to be on the safe side, she\u2019s moved into her mother\u2019s home until Christmas.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, infected mattresses are being left on Marseille\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n Please God let us Brits escape this buggy nightmare!<\/p>\n A bed bug on a glove of a biocide technician from the company Hygiene Premium who treats an apartment against bed bugs in L’Hay-les-Roses, near Paris, France<\/p>\n Like every other sane person in Britain, I\u2019m utterly baffled that councils, police forces, the fire service, universities and other public bodies are being advised to recognise the male menopause.<\/p>\n Seriously, give me a break! Will this mythical malaise \u2014 no doubt to be used by malingerers to get paid time off work \u2014 present just like man flu? Will it be worse than anything a woman has experienced, last five times longer and will there suddenly be a \u2018cure\u2019 available to save our poor chaps?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a precedent, after all. Remember when impotence became a thing and, hey presto, suddenly men could buy Viagra over the counter?<\/p>\n As if HRT could ever be that easy for sufferers of the real menopause to get their hands on!<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/09\/21\/76353237-12612169-image-a-38_1696883398700.jpg\")
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