BBC culture

From the Telegraph: Former Newsnight producer Anthony Jay on the culture of "media liberalism" at the BBC:

We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual elite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being naive in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain's problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas.

This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world. We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. Some people called us arrogant; looking back, I am afraid I cannot dispute the epithet.