Pickles: BBC jubilee coverage was “mind-numbingly stupid”

We’ve got an interview in tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday with Eric Pickles, the Community Secretary, on his plans to tackle Britain’s 120,000 problem families.

But meeting him on Thursday, I couldn’t avoid asking him about the jubilee, and the BBC’s coverage.

He revealed it was on in the background while he hosted a party at Downing Street, but he switched to watching Sky News when he got home. Here is the full quote:

“The BBC coverage was, what’s a nice way of putting it… I can’t find a way… It was just mind-numbingly stupid. You found yourself shouting at the television… ‘no that is wrong. Even I know that is wrong’. You want to see the boats. It would be rather good if they knew something about the boats.”

Even the coverage of the service from St Paul’s Cathedral was “vaguely irritating”, he said, adding that he hoped the BBC’s Olympics presenters would be better informed. “I do hope they have taken this to heart and that when we get the 100m final, we’ve got somebody on who knows something abut running.”

Full interview in tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday

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• lekker12

  I am fed up with funding the BBC.

  The BBC should be broken up.

• a_no_n

   why?  I for one really like the BBC.  It’s had some great programmes recently, it’s past achievements are unrivalled, and it’s a vital link for people trying to break into the business.

  I take it you’d rather just be force fed Rupert Murdochs opinions 24 hours a day?

• a_no_n

  I find the ever expanding Eric Pickles to be “Mind-numbingly stupid” as well with his incessant prattling on and worthless opinions that offer nothing constructive.

  What sort of moron votes for a tedious waste of space like him?

• http://twitter.com/gekalte Gillian Kalter

  Get your news from multiple sources. 

• Guest

  The Beeb got the River Pageant wrong. Too much D-list celebrity stuff and not enough information on the craft. The pair of  android anchorpersons in the studio – one line from he-android, then one line from she-android – was an irritant exposed to a wider audience that never watches breakfast TV.
   
  What might have assuaged some viewers’ ire was an instant mea culpa rather than the arrogant defence of the indefensible from the Beeb hierarchy. But they can extend the longbowman’s salute safe in the knowledge that they’ve got the viewers over a barrel: it’s like it or lump it, plebs.

  The Beeb got the service in St Paul’s and the scenes in the Mall with flypast exactly right.

• Endgamed

  The BBC filmed coverage was made not just for the sole viewing of Mr Eric Pickles, but was aimed for a wider audience and a large one at that.

  I think if Mr Eric Pickles keeps up his arrogant remarks, it will not be long before he disappears into the anonymous realm of TV “has been’s” …

   I would like to offer a little word of advice to Mr Eric Pickles taken from one of favourite songs “Parklife” by the Band Blur, and I rather think he should make a very serious attempt to follow after listening to it  ”you should cut down on your porklife mate… get some exercise
  “

• Reiner Torheit

  You’re a paid-to-post BBC employee shill.