MOMMABEAR POINTS OUT this very interesting piece by Janet Daley about English sentiments and English media. Excerpt:

What was shocking was the extent to which people seemed resigned to feeling utterly alienated by the BBC’s coverage of events. What became clear was that the Question Time episode was simply a new low for what they had come to regard as a little more than a cosy, self-indulgent corporate conspiracy against the views of ordinary people.

They had learnt to expect that the experts who would be allowed airtime would all subscribe to the official received wisdom. (Which was, at the time, that the warmonger George Bush would rush into an ignorant, insane “over-reaction” and thus destabilise the world. The American policy proved, in the event, to be carefully planned, strategically cautious and remarkably successful, but no one at the BBC seemed to be embarrassed: they just went on to attack the speculative next stage of American foreign policy.)

Over and again, the letters assured me that “the BBC has nothing to do with us”: I should not mistake the national broadcasting service for the nation. The letters came from all over the country and many of them were scathing of the metropolitan circles that I inhabited.

Britain was full of decent people who were not fooled. The obnoxious chatterers to whom I was referring were “a tiny minority” – which is statistically true enough.

So why, you ask, don’t I just ignore them? Because I can’t, dear reader. And neither can you. Whether you like it or not, they claim to speak for you. Unlike the diffident people who took the time to write to me, they speak with a loud voice and they invariably see to it that they are heard by those they wish to influence.

Nice piece.