Free Republic

A damning catalog of multi-million-pound waste within the BBC is exposed for the first time today by The Mail on Sunday. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws reveal a climate of “feckless” excess and extravagance—including millions spent on first class travel. The figures expose a revolving door culture in which staff are given large redundancy payments and then rehired at exorbitant rates, as well as overpayments leading to vast sums of license fee payers’ money being wasted. […] The news of BBC excess comes at a time when the beleaguered Corporation is facing the prospect of root and branch...

A fictional crime drama based on the premise that the Bush administration ordered the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington aired this week on German state television, prompting the Green Party chairman to call for an investigation. "I think absolutely nothing of the conspiracy theory that has been hawked in this series. I hope this particular TV movie will be discussed very critically at the next supervisory board meeting of ARD [state television]," said Green Party Chairman Reinhard Buetikofer, who acknowledged that he had not seen the show. Sunday night's episode of "Tatort," a popular murder...

I want to save myself the price of a stamp or a phone call today by writing an open letter to Mr Richard Goodbody, the regional manager of the Swindon enforcement division of the TV Licensing Authority. I have no reason to doubt that Mr Goodbody is a perfectly pleasant man in private life, but in his public capacity he is, in my view, a blithering nincompoop; and if my language is intemperate it is because Goodbody has just sent me one of the rudest and stupidest letters I have ever received. Crossword "Mr Johnson," he begins, without any of...