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Beyer Recommends... Christmas Soaps

Channel If you expect festive cheer from your favourite soap this week, you'll be disappointed. For TV writers have been doing their best to give us the bleakest Christmas on record.

A corpse in a lake, the attempted strangling of a pensioner, a baby abduction and the return of a notorious killer and drug addict, will feature in some of the most popular shows.

And producers have been accused of upping the ante on the last year's Christmas shock tactics to win the ratings war.

Coronation Street will arguably be home to the most dramatic storyline, as one of the older characters is throttled with a negligee. Jed Stone falls foul of Tony Gordon at the factory.

On Emmerdale, a dead body is discovered in an ice-covered lake after another character falls in. And in EastEnders, character Sean Slater kidnaps the baby he thought was his and takes her to a deserted flat on Christmas Day. Then on the New Year's day show he falls into an icy lake with his estranged wife Roxy, before leaving the show in a dramatic fashion.

John Beyer, of the TV pressure group Mediawatch-UK, said the soap shock-tactics were out of control: I just think there is enough doom and gloom around at the moment. Everyone's Christmas should be a time of joy and peace, not a misery fest. Once again I feel like broadcasters are out of step with public feeling.

He added: They are all competing with each other to get the biggest audiences. They keep upping the ante to try to keep the ratings up and the logical conclusion is that they will end up alienating the audience.

I think there are questions of compliance... [With what we think people should be watching]

Channel 4 has received a few nutter complaints over a disgusting sex education series screened at a time when young children could be watching.

KNTV Sex , described by the channel as the alternative guide to sex education, goes out at 11am on weekdays.

Aimed at 14 to 19-year-olds, it covers issues such as masturbation, sexually-transmitted diseases, fetishes, bisexuality and homosexuality.

It attracted 100 complaints from viewers.

One said: I cannot believe that C4 would put such a disturbing programme on the air at 11am. The programme is not teaching anything except that sex is something amazing that you should do - it's absolutely disgusting.

John Beyer of Mediawatch UK said: I think there are questions of compliance and how this show works with the broadcasting codes and the protection of children. Ofcom needs to look at this. The trouble is that Channel 4 just do what they want to do.

Norman Wells of Family and Youth Concern said: Once again Channel 4 is seeking to push back the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable material for daytime television. The last thing children and young people need is another TV series that trivialises and cheapens sex and divorces it from any moral context.

KNTV Sex combines animation and comedy clips taken from TV shows.

It is presented by the animated characters Kierky and Nietzsche, two teenagers from the fictional country of Slabovia, which is described as the last communist state in Europe.

A Channel 4 spokesman said last night it takes a new approach to dealing with important issues around sex and relationships education for a teenage audience.

This series is based on information and advice from both sexual health charities and teachers. There is no explicit imagery and the content is suitable for the morning schedule.

A documentary that appears to show the moment when a man dies after going through with an assisted suicide was strongly criticised yesterday by anti-euthanasia campaigners and Mediawatch-UK.

The film, which is being screened on the Sky Real Lives channel tonight, seems to show the moment when 59-year-old Craig Ewert, who had motor neurone disease, died. It is believed this would be the first time the instant of the a person's death in an assisted suicide has been shown on British television.

Both the documentary maker, Oscar winner John Zaritsky, and Sky insisted that the film, Right to Die? - which is being shown at 9pm - is an important contribution to a vital debate.

Ewert, a retired university professor from Harrogate, Yorkshire, travelled to Dignitas, the organisation in Zurich that helps people to die, because he did not want to spend the rest of his days in a living tomb.

The documentary shows Ewert and his wife, Mary, exchanging a last kiss. He says: I love you sweetheart - so much. Have a safe journey. I will see you some time.

Ewert is then given a liquid and told he will die if he drinks it. He drinks through a pink straw, then asks for some apple juice and music. Shortly before his eyes close, he says: Thank you.

Dr Peter Saunders, a director of the Care Not Killing alliance, branded the film macabre death voyeurism. This is taking us a little further down the slippery slope. It seems there is a macabre fascination in this death tourism.

Dominica Roberts, of the Pro-Life Alliance, said the programme sent out the message that some people's lives are worthless , adding: It is both sad and dangerous to show this kind of thing on the television.

John Beyer, director of Mediawatch-UK, said: This subject is something that is quite an important political issue at the moment and my anxieties are that the programme will influence public opinion.

Barbara Gibbon, head of Sky Real Lives, said: This is an issue that more and more people are confronting and this documentary is an informative, articulate and educated insight into the decisions some people have to make. I think it's important that broadcasters give this controversial subject a wider airing.

It can be revealed that expletives were inserted into Ramsay's show when it was broadcast in the UK, after they had been bleeped out in the original version first shown in the US.

Nutters predictably said the decision to edit swear words back into Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA for British viewers was extraordinary.

In one episode of the series, more than 40 swear words were heard by viewers when the programme aired on Channel 4 earlier this year, compared to none when it was broadcast by Fox in the US last year.

The US series of Kitchen Nightmares was a spin-off from the British series of the same name, in which Ramsay attempts to turn around the fortunes of failing restaurants.

Instances of 'fuck', along with profanities such as 'shit'-, 'dickhead' and 'bollocks', were bleeped out of the hour-long shows when they were shown in the US in a 9pm slot in autumn 2007. When the series was broadcast in the UK this year, in a 10pm slot, the swear words returned.

John Beyer, director of the nutter group Mediawatch-UK, said: It is extraordinary, and only goes to show how much the television channels here can do what they like.

They keep defending the amount of swearing on television, but all their concerns about 'freedom of expression' and 'the need to reflect reality' seem to go out of the window when it comes to making money by exporting these programmes to America, where they know audiences won't tolerate it.

Channel 4 said its version was shown after Britain's 9pm watershed and was preceded by a clear on-air warning about its content. The US equivalent of the watershed is the 10pm safe harbor , after which more swearing is permitted.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: Gordon Ramsay is a well-known TV personality and viewers watching his programmes know what to expect. In the context of Kitchen Nightmares the strong language is a genuine expression of Gordon's passion and frustration.

The Sixties were swinging and letters signed “Disgusted of Tun-bridge Wells” went unanswered by the permissive executives at the BBC. Who could stem this rising tide of filth?

Step forward an indomitable housewife-superstar from Wolverhampton, She Who Must Be Dismayed. Her clean-up crusade brought down the BBC'
s Director-General and terrified liberals in the Church, the state and the stage.

It has taken the BBC eight years since her death to dare mine the comic potential of her life as the self-appointed leader of the “moral majority”.

The Mary Whitehouse I knew was a tough, feisty, vainglorious woman, in league with the right-wing moral rearmament movement, instinctively aware of her opponents'
 weaknesses and unscrupulous in exploiting them.

However, in all her autobiographies (she wrote three), she created the myth of the humble, self-effacing teacher, chosen by God to lead the country out of the moral wilderness cultivated by clever liberals. She was David, who dared to take on the Goliath at Broadcasting House, slaying him, not with pebbles, but with postbags of complaints by her legion of followers, who sat glued to BBC Two solemnly recording every swearword in the Play for Today and every innuendo in Pinkie and Perky.

The dramatist Amanda Coe has taken her at face value and run with her own account of the humble housewife who has greatness thrust upon her. It is a richly comic story and Mary is robustly reincarnated by Julie Walters, upstaged every few minutes by Alun Armstrong as Ernest, her bewildered postman husband, who alerts her to the acronymic danger of her original name for her campaigning organisation, Clean Up National Television .

To make the production work, Mary'
s enemies must be made equally ridiculous. So, Sir Hugh Carleton Greene is reinvented as a manic John Cleese figure, a lecherous, upper-class, overclever twit brought down by the simple soul he is too stuck-up to meet. Hugh Bonneville does a fine imitation. And there is a wonderful (and more accurate) portrayal of Lord Hill, the smarmy “radio doctor” who ran ITV and disarmed Mary with tea and cakes. But it was Harold Wilson, not Mrs Whitehouse, who really engineered Sir Hugh'
s removal by making the pliant Hill chairman of the BBC. It was Greene'
s penchant for satirising politicians and not his support for Play for Today that was his undoing.

The television play ends by showing how Mary learns to manipulate the media – a formidable talent she had from the outset. It swallows her pretence that she was not interested in politics, but, on the contrary, despite the laughable obsession of her followers with sexual innuendo, her true concern was with liberal and left-wing ideology. Her early target was Cathy Come Home – Ken Loach'
s drama about the underclass – and she discerned psychological discord and social anarchy in every Dennis Potter play.

Her fear of homosexuals was visceral. She claimed that homosexuality was caused by abnormal parental sex during pregnancy or just after .

Her real political agenda came to the fore in her alliance with Mrs Thatcher, whom she supported at every election. This was a betrayal of her cause at the time that it could have meshed with the antiporn feminists in the Labour Party. It was under free enterprise Thatcherism that sexual profiteering began to thrive in the Eighties – from the groaning “adult” shelves of every corner newsagent to the dirty talk on telephone lines leased from the newly privatised British Telecom.

Mary'
s bandwagon was finally derailed when her prosecution of the National Theatre for staging The Romans in Britain   (Howard Brenton'
s play attacking British Army actions in Northern Ireland) collapsed. She had privately prosecuted the play'
s director, but had been too mean to pay for her solicitor witness to occupy the best seat in the stalls, forcing him to sit at the back of the Olivier Theatre. From this vantage point, he could not say for certain whether the object that touched the naked buttocks of Greg Hicks (playing a druid priest) was the tip of a centurion'
s penis or the tip of a centurion'
s thumb. After the case was thrown out and she had been ordered to pay costs, she cut a doleful figure, muttering tearfully that God will provide.

Nonetheless, Mary'
s cultural vandalism left its mark, curbing the most creative period in British TV drama. If the corporation ever wishes to pay her a genuinely backhanded compliment, it should run a Mary Whitehouse season, devoted to all the comedy, drama and current affairs programmes condemned by her National Viewers'
and Listeners'
 Association. It would provide more entertaining and enriching television than its current output.

The British public continues to retain a high degree of common sense [...BUT...] allowing the public to decide what is acceptable or not, is simply passing the buck. [...A buck that Mediawatch is happy to accept]

Thousands of people have been able to watch a sickening video showing the massacre of young Russian men before it was eventually deleted from YouTube. The horrific footage shows the terrified men lying beside a road having their throats slit in turn. It was posted on Sunday, May 18. Three days later it was still there and had been viewed more than 8,300 times. YouTube promises that videos flagged by users as inappropriate will be removed from the site.

The film clip was removed within two hours of Sky News Online contacting YouTube. The 10-minute video was apparently posted by a 17-year-old Russian. The description which accompanied it said: This is a little part of the full horror!

But John Beyer, director of campaign group Mediawatch-uk, said:

While I recognise the argument about regulation at the periphery, allowing the public to decide what is acceptable or not, is simply passing the buck. It points up a lack of internal regulation. People take advantage of the system and by the time someone takes notice it's too late - the damage has been done. It's a huge problem. We need an international legal framework to decide what is permissible. This sort of material should simply not be uploaded.

Comment: Public Hypocrisy

Well if the public can't be trusted to decide what is acceptable or not, Then it rather puts a dent in Beyers usual rhetoric eg ...

British public demands accountability for film censors

The results confirm what we have always believed. The British public continues to retain a high degree of common sense and is not impressed by the self interested demands of the film industry.

Jonathan Ross has wound up nutters with some boisterous sexy banter with Gwynet Paltrow.

Ross said he wanted to 'fuck' married mother of two Gwyneth Paltrow if his wife would give him permission.

His liberal use of strong language on his recorded BBC1 chat show Friday Night With Jonathan Ross prompted gasps from the audience and the interview tone left Ms Paltrow speechless and looking shocked at times.

The astonishing language – thought to be the first time a major film star has been spoken to in such a direct sexual way on television– has been heavily criticised by the nutters of Mediawatch UK and an MP.

Tory MP Philip Davies said Ross'
s undignified remarks called into question the BBC'
s role as a public service broadcaster, particularly as he is reportedly paid £6million a year of licence fee-payers'
 money: Mr Ross likes to use inappropriate language in an attempt to be outrageous but the question is, should licence fee-payers have to pay for it on a public service broadcasting channel? My view is that they should not have to. I believe this issue should be raised with the BBC by the select committee when we have our next meeting with them.

The Sunday Express pointed out that, although the programme airs at 10.35pm, it is available during the day through the online iPlayer service.

The interview with Ms Paltrow was broadcast a week ago last Friday. Ross talked about her two young children, Moses and Apple, and inquired if she was thinking of having another child by asking her: Maybe having sex again soon?

A startled-looking Ms Paltrow responded: With you?

Ross then replied: Christ yes. I will phone my wife and if she gave permission, I would fuck you. Clearly you are gagging for it.

Broadcaster Michael Aspel, a guest on the same programme, spoke about his days presenting Miss World and Ross asked him if he had 'fucked' a contestant.

Mediawatch UK director John Beyer said: Clearly the BBC is not regulating this programme or monitoring the language being used, which is unacceptable and unnecessary and degrading. With the iPlayer system, the 9pm watershed is meaningless.

Ms Paltrow'
s Los Angeles publicist Steve Huvane said: Gwyneth very much enjoyed her appearance on the show and the joking was all in good fun. She was not offended.

Too Narrow!

Speaking today, mediawatch-uk director, John Beyer,
said about the Dangerous Pictures Act:

We are delighted that Mrs Longhurst has at last succeeded in her noble campaign, in memory of her beloved daughter Jane, to criminalise the possession of extreme pornography.

We hope that this will be a first step on the road to restoring decency and respect in our society.

We remain of the opinion that the scope of the new legislation is too narrow and we will continue to press for further strengthening of the Obscene Publications Act.

Comment: Narrow Minded Beyer

From Dan

“We remain of the opinion that the scope of the new legislation is too narrow”

Yes yes Beyer. Because you and your cohorts believe that legislation should outlaw all sexual material and make it a criminal offence to be in possession of even consensual adults sexual entertainment.

“We will continue to press for further strengthening of the Obscene Publications Act.”

Yes. Until all that nasty grubby porn is banned and all the dirty little pervs who look at it in their filthy rooms are locked up in jail where they belong eh?

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act has completed its 3rd reading in the House of Commons and has received Royal Assent so becomes law.

According to BBC Newsbeat, the Dangerous Pictures clauses will be enacted from January 2009.

John Beyer, Director of Mediawatch UK, and supporter of even stricter measures on pornography Said: It is important for there to be clear divide between what is legal and what is not. People need to know. Contrary to the views expressed by protesters, he feels the new law provides that clarity on extreme material. But there may be a need for an amnesty, during which the public are able to hand in any material that could be considered a crime to possess. The last thing anybody would want is for the police to be raiding people's homes.

The maximum penalty for obscene publications has also been raised from 3 years to 5 years in prison.

The Dangerous Pictures clauses went unamended but the Government backed down and allowed a free speech protection to be written into its proposed 'homophobic hatred' clauses.

The decision came after the Government was defeated for a second time in the House of Lords. Peers voted 178 to 164 in favour of the protection.

This marks the end of a lengthy battle to make clear that the new criminal offence should not interfere with free speech or religious liberty.

The amendment says, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.

Words or behaviour which are threatening and intended to stir up hatred will be caught by the offence, which carries a maximum seven year prison sentence.

Speaking in last night's debate, Lord Waddington said: My understanding is that the Government do not wish to see discussion stifled and people harassed, bullied, interrogated and sometimes arrested for expressing their views. However, if that is so, it really is time that they did something about it.

Senior judge and 'gay rights' sympathiser, Dame Butler-Sloss, agreed that free speech needed protecting. She said: ...there are religious groups, not only Christians, not only bishops, but many Jews and Muslims, which share strong views that they gain from the Bible, the Old Testament in particular, or the Koran. Those people are potentially at risk.

She continued: It is those people who will potentially be intimidated; they will certainly be bothered and may go through an extremely unfortunate experience before calmer heads point out that under the new clause, as under older clauses, they have not committed any offence.

The Government said the issue could be made clear by publishing guidance instead of inserting a free speech protection into the Bill. But Lord Clarke said: If we mean that we are to maintain the principle of free speech, we should make sure that it is in this Bill and not leave it to the interpretation of guidelines, which would become another lawyers' paradise.

Following the Lords vote, the Government backed down and the measure was passed by a substantial majority in the Commons. The offence will become law with the free speech protection included.

The BBC is under nutter attack for allowing access to mature material 24 hours a day on its new iPlayer internet service.

The programmes are subject to the post 9pm watershed ruling when they are shown on terrestrial television. But children are able to bypass age restrictions on iPlayer by simply ticking a box to say they are over 16.

They can then watch programmes with sex scenes, strong language and other material deemed unsuitable.

While the readily available mature content on the internet is nothing new, many nutters are predictably horrified the BBC is not taking a tougher stand.

Nutters fear that it is in danger of rendering the watershed extinct with the iPlayer service. Others have called for media regulator Ofcom to be given more powers in overseeing the way online programming is aired.

Conservative MP Philip Davies, who sits on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, said: "I think parents would be massively concerned if they realised how easy it was for their children to access such inappropriate material. Having that kind of tick-box self- certification is clearly inadequate. They may as well have no control on at all.

John Beyer, director of Mediawatch UK, said: The BBC is promoting its iPlayer at every possible opportunity and they know that children and young people are accessing this kind of material.

A corporation spokesman said, however: "The BBC takes its responsibility to enable parents or guardians to protect younger viewers from unsuitable BBC content on its websites very seriously and provides a number of tools to do this. For example, BBC iPlayer clearly labels programmes which may be unsuitable for young audiences. A lock system allows parents or guardians to prevent younger viewers from watching guidance-rated programmes unless they have a password. Setting up these systems is optional but they can be easily activated at any time.

Wednesday 28 May 2008, BBC: Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story

With Julie Walters starring as Mary Whitehouse and Hugh Bonneville playing her arch-enemy, BBC Director-General Hugh Carleton Greene, Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story will bring to life the battle for Britain's morals that raged in the Sixties.

Julie Walters said: I am very excited to be playing Mary Whitehouse, and to looking at the time when she attacked the BBC and started to make her name.

The 90-minute film was written by Amanda Coe,

Ofcom have cleared BBC1's Catherine Tate Show of breaching broadcast regulations with an expletive-littered Christmas Day episode that became the most complained-about programme of the festive period.

Forty-two people complained to Ofcom about the number of four-letter words and stereotyping in the show, which featured a sketch in which a Northern Ireland family exchanged presents including a knuckleduster, balaclava and chocolate penis.

More than 100 viewers also complained to the BBC about the show, including the excessive use of the word "fuck" by Tate's foul-mouthed character Nan Taylor in the first sketch of the show. Nan's catchphrase is "what a fucking liberty".

The regulator cleared the show, saying viewers were already aware that the show was likely to contain offensive language. It said it had been preceded with a warning about offensive language and was broadcast 90 minutes after the watershed.

Overall this episode was typical of the Catherine Tate Show and would not have gone beyond the expectations of its usual audience, said Ofcom in its ruling: For those not familiar with the show, the information given at the start was adequate.

The regulator said the depiction of the Northern Irish family, who discover that their son is gay, did not breach broadcast standards: In Ofcom's view it would have been clear to the audience that, in a comedy show such as this, exchanging Christmas gifts of terrorist paraphernalia was absurd in the extreme . Comedy has a long tradition of engaging with challenging subjects and confronting taboos.

The Catherine Tate Christmas Special, which guest-starred George Michael, was broadcast at 10.30pm on Christmas Day and was watched by 6.4 million viewers. In all it received more than 100 complaints.

The regulator reported: As for the use of this language on Christmas Day, the BBC said that it does not regard any word as being more obscene on one day than on another. It did take account of the different audience expectations on different occasions, but in its view it was not the general expectation of audiences that everything broadcast on Christmas Day should reflect its character as a religious festival.

John Beyer 'Confused' by Watershed Concept

From Mediawatch-UK

Speaking today John Beyer, director of Mediawatch-uk said that this finding “is a disgrace” and “seriously inconsistent” with Ofcom's finding last week about the obscenities used in the Live Earth concert.

No wonder the viewing public is confused and have lost confidence in the regulation of broadcasting. Considering that Ofcom has itself found that the majority of viewers believe there is too much swearing on television, this finding is all the more extraordinary. The Communications Act 2003 requires that “generally accepted standards” are applied to the content of television and radio services and it seems to me that Ofcom is failing to take public opinion into account - and that is a breach of trust and certainly not what Parliament intended when setting up the new regulatory regime.

John Beyer director of mediawatch-uk joined the long line of groups welcoming the Byron report and said:

• Firstly, we welcome the fact that the Prime Minister set up the review at all which we believe indicates that violence and pornography it is a matter to be taken seriously
   
• Secondly, we welcome proposals for a uniform system of rating games and the requirement that all games involving weaponry and combat are certified
   
• Thirdly, we welcome the tough new sanctions proposed against retailers who disregard the age classifications on games.
   
• Fourthly, we welcome the proposals to raise awareness of game and internet content among parents and guardians and the proposals to improve information on blocking inappropriate website content.
   
• Fifthly, we welcome the important proposal to establish a UK Council on Child Internet Safety and the recommended objectives. This could provide a forum where any aggrieved person could seek relief.
   
• Finally, we welcome the criticism of some social network sites and the proposals for improved management and oversight of them.

In conclusion Mr Beyer said: We cannot help but wonder how these important proposals will work out in practice and how quickly any new legislation needed can be enacted. The critical thing will be the Government's response to Dr Byron's Review and how long it takes to implement the proposals. Their effectiveness must be monitored carefully and we will do our best to highlight the successes and any failings.

Comment: Has Beyer gone soft?

Thanks to Dan

Generally Beyer believes that age ratings and giving parents more information over violent/sexual content is not enough and there should be tougher legislation to stop such content being released in the first place.

But he here is welcoming age ratings and more content information for children. Has Beyer gone soft? Maybe he might change his mind about locking up porn viewers next?

Don't bank on it though Still it's a suitable plug for Mediawatch UK's Children and the Media Booklet (to advise parents.... That the media is a toxic corrupting spawn of the devil destroying our children with violence, sex and perversions and needs to be stopped now!)

Meanwhile the Daily Mail with Anne Diamond put a suitably Ban these sick games for the sake of our children spin on the story:

See her article from the Daily Mail

According to Ms Diamond some games such as Resident Evil 4 shouldn't be allowed to be sold even to adults. Does her role as a Mum of 4 give her the authority to tell us adults what games we should and should not be allowed to play? No! And I reckon she is a worthy candidate to be included in your Hall Of Shame.

Sorry, sane adult thinking not allowed until 9pm ...and I knock off at 5

The continuous promotion by the BBC of its iPlayer over recent weeks, and Channel 4's On-Demand service, has given rise to questions about how this ingenious facility is to be regulated so that the predominantly young people, at whom it is aimed, may be protected from offensive and harmful content, as the Broadcasting Code requires.

Ofcom, in its Draft Annual Plan for 2008/09, has drawn attention to the gap in regulation of downloading and says: These developments are exposing differences in the regulatory frameworks because many of the rules applicable to content delivered by traditional broadcasters do not apply to very similar or identical content delivered over the internet.

Ofcom says: We will encourage all content providers to promote and make available information about potentially harmful or offensive content in a form that is easy to understand. At the same time we will encourage the promotion of internet filters, firewalls and PIN access to television services that are easy to use and are effective in helping people manage their access to the media.

In the letter to Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham MP John Beyer said:

Our concern is with regulation. I have recently been in correspondence with Ofcom who tell me that the Communications Act 2003 excluded downloaded material from its regulatory oversight. Given that this Act requires Ofcom to have special regard for the protection of under-18s from offensive and harmful material we wonder whether the Government has any plans to remove the exclusion so that Ofcom does have regulatory oversight of material downloaded from the websites of broadcasters who are normally subject to their regulation.

You will not need me to point out that the ability to download programmes anytime makes the "watershed" completely redundant. We are aware that Broadcasters continue to defend offensive and harmful material shown after 9.00pm because of the watershed. This is also one of the reasons for Ofcom failing to intervene on content when many people feel it is necessary.

We would certainly value your advice on how children and young people are to be protected from harmful and offensive material in the downloading environment especially as neither Film nor Broadcasting was included in the brief given to Dr Tanya Byron.

Beyer is calling for an immediate review of the regulatory oversight of Ofcom and is recommending that it be extended to include programming that is downloaded from broadcasters who are normally subject to its jurisdiction.

The BBC has been criticised for its supposedly "irresponsible" portrayal of binge drinking in its top dramas.

Baroness Coussins, a peer who sits on the Advertising Standards Authority council, claims the corporation is failing to show the negative effects of abusing alcohol in shows such as EastEnders and Holby City .

Speaking at an advertising conference, Baroness Coussins said: Holby City had doctors, no less, in excessive drinking scenes.  Where are the calls for BBC programming codes, or the equivalent in the commercial sector, so the consequences of irresponsible actions have to be shown?

In October, the Portman Group, which was set up by alcohol producers to promote responsible drinking, complained to media regulator Ofcom that an episode of the hospital drama Holby City had been "highly irresponsible".

And yesterday, John Beyer, of pressure group Mediawatch UK, pointed out that two of the most popular soap operas on TV, EastEnders and Coronation Street , are mostly set in pubs, adding: The Baroness has a point. But the question is, what are the broadcasters going to do about it?

The problem is that they never seem to want to do anything about anything other than to carry on with their own agenda.

He added: Soaps are so popular with young people and it is mostly young people with disposable income that are binge drinking.

A BBC spokesman said neither EastEnders nor Holby City set out to "glamorise" alcohol but intended instead to "reflect society". A spokesman claimed the corporation always tried to handle the issue "sensitively" and said it did in fact show the negative consequences of alcohol.

Mediawatch-UK have commissioned a poll to show support for Julian Braziers BBFC Accountability Bill to be debated in Parliament today. They asked:

Anyway the press release reads:

British Public Demands Accountability for Film Censors.

Mediawatch UK, the UK broadcasting watchdog, today publishes an important survey showing that 80% of the British public wants the BBFC to be fully transparent and accountable to Parliament.

The results of the survey, carried out by ComRes, coincide with a Private Members Bill introduced by Julian Brazier MP (Canterbury), which is receiving a second reading in the House of Commons today. The Bill attracted publicity earlier this month when the Board classified a number of video works, banned by the Director of Public Prosecutions, such as ‘SS Experiment Camp'.

John Beyer, director of Mediawatch-uk, comments: “The results confirm what we have always believed. The British public continues to retain a high degree of common sense and is not impressed by the self interested demands of the film industry. We again call upon the BBFC to review its guidelines on violence, call upon the games industry to act more responsibly on violence and call upon the Office of Communications to enforce the terms of the Broadcasting Code much more vigorously, particularly with regard television programmes that condone and glamorise seriously antisocial behaviour and violence.”

With 76% of respondents wanting the amount of violence permitted in films, games and on television to be more tightly regulated, and 68% believing there are links between violent crime and the level of violence in films and on television, there is great public concern that the BBFC's classification decisions should reflect broad public opinion and suggests that the general public is dissatisfied with the current system.

Beyer continues: We believe that the Prime Minister, who has expressed personal concern about all the violence and pornography that children can so easily see, was wrong to exclude film and television from the remit given to psychologist Dr Tanya Byron whose report is due next month. Film is a very powerful global influence and it is astonishing that the Board has escaped proper scrutiny for almost 100 years. It is right that Parliament should represent public concerns and we hope very much that Mr Brazier's Bill will go through unopposed.

Speaking today John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, said about the moral outrage over SS Experiment Love Camp :

"It beggars belief that the BBFC continues to defend the indefensible. We are supporting Mr Brazier's timely attempts to make the Board more accountable to Parliament. This is a long overdue reform and the Board's latest decisions prove the need for his initiative."

Comment: In Other Words

From Dan

We are supporting Mr Brazier's timely attempts to make the Board more accountable to Parliament. Then it will have to finally answer to us and the legions of other blue rinsed moral guardians who like us vote Tory, read the Daily Mail and are disgusted at all the morally corrupting society destroying filth that the wet liberal lefty morons at the BBFC allow people to watch at the cinemas.

This is a long overdue reform. It`s high time the BBFC stopped giving people the choice over what they watch and only allowed them to watch what we the silent moral minority think is good for them to watch.

In a letter, mediawatch-uk writes to us:

'A very important Private Members' Bill has been introduced in Parliament by Julian Brazier MP (Canterbury), which aims to make the BBFC more accountable to Parliament. For some time the BBFC has been classifying films with unacceptable levels of brutal violence, obscene language and some very explicit sexual conduct and nobody can do anything about it.

mediawatch-uk believes that Mr Brazier's proposals are long overdue and we are supporting his efforts. Mr Brazier has specifically asked mediawatch-uk members to help him by writing letters to their Members of Parliament, or contacting www.writetothom.com, urging them to support his BBFC (Accountability to Parliament and Appeals) Bill which will be given a Second Reading on Friday 29 February 2008

Needless to say if we do not do all we can to support Mr Brazier we will only have ourselves to blame if the Board continues to classify ever-worsening material.

We have said for a very long time that the Board is a law unto itself and should be accountable to Parliament. Mr Brazier's Bill will go some way to achieving this and we hope his Bill will lead to a regime of classification that is more responsible, promoting greater respect and civility in our society. Keith Vaz MP, Anne Widdecombe MP, Jim Dobbin MP and John Gummer MP among others are supporting the Bill.

More information can be found at: http://services.parliament.uk/bills However, it should be understood that Private Members' Bills are vulnerable and do not always become law unless they are very well supported by other MPs. We would be very grateful indeed for donations towards this campaign, costing around £2,000. .

Julian Brazier (Con) is a senior backbencher and a Catholic.

Brian's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy

On New Year's Day 2007 Channel 4 had what it called a Monty Python evening . This included another showing of the film Monty Python's Life of Brian and a programme about what the ‘Pythons' have done since the making of the film.

The first programme, shown at 8.00pm, in which John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk was invited to take part, was The Secret Life of Brian which purported to be a retrospective look at the 1979 film that caused a global furore . John Beyer was interviewed for this programme for more than an hour by Will Yapp on 1 March 2006 and so it was a disappointment that only a few seconds of the interview was used.

In the interview John Beyer made it clear that we recognised Brian was a distinct character that was not meant to be Jesus Christ. He said that we had sought legal advice and had been told that the film did not constitute a criminal offence of blasphemous libel. The programme perpetuated the idea that Mary Whitehouse led a campaign to prosecute the film. This is simply not true and we have correspondence on file to prove this. The programme failed to distinguish between the representations made by the then Festival of Light, and others, to ban the film.