Friday, March 22, 2019

Ready? Aye Ready!

Ready or not, here I come”.  How often did we shout these words as a child in our wonderful free creative world as a child?  Hide and seek was a great game.

The BBC played that game last night.  On the news.  With a room of business people in Cardiff.  One of their business reporters was allowed to ask those who were prepared for 'No Deal' to raise their hands.  The BBC reported that not one person did.  Well.  That’s it.  Businesses are not prepared.   

But wait a minute.  Was the sample scientific?  Balanced?   When you dig only a teensy bit deeper you realise there is something rather wrong here.  Why do I say that?  Well, because it bears no reality to the data from a wider survey which showed that “Around 80pc of British businesses believe they are ready for a no deal Brexit as the Bank of England revealed that the economy is accelerating ahead of the UK's scheduled departure from the EU”.   

Indeed, the Bank's survey of businesses found that around two thirds were now implementing contingency plans for a 'No Deal' exit from the EU.    

One very simple question.  Why was the BBC allowed to broadcast such utter nonsense?  

One business leader responded:  “I do business with several EU countries, and it will be completely unaffected.  One bit of paperwork, possibly, but easy-peasy.  But then I'm not a large CBI multi-global with lobbying offices in Brussels, & a multi-billion budget for 'persuading' MEPs to preserve my large business moats and drive off any competition.”   

The BBC is sadly looking more and more like a cheerleader for stopping us leaving the EU.  Perhaps that could be one reason why the quarterly reach of BBC News in the United Kingdom has dropped from 26.17m in Q4 of 2012 down to 16.91m in Q3 of 2108.  People don't trust it any more.

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