Charles Moore remembers the olden days

Miley's having trouble moving on from something that happened over a week ago, but that's nothing compared to Charles Moore.

Moore still hasn't moved on from that time Russell Brand phoned up Andrew Sachs. The Telegraph's Mandrake column is happy to listen:

Brand thus displayed a peculiar lack of self-awareness when he alluded to Nazi persecution at the GQ [Men of the Year] event, given what Sachs’s own forbears had endured.

Moore drily noted that what Brand and Ross had later subjected Sachs to in their “disgusting” call also amounted to persecution. “I am not convinced that Mr Brand was ever really sorry at all for what he did,” Moore tells me.

Yes, incidentally: that is a grown-up, well-educated man who is idly comparing an ill-judged piece of childishness with the acts of the Nazis. That's surely the proof that will earn Mike Godwin the Nobel.

Thatcher: Charles Moore has questions

You'd think that, after his time spent as musical egg Ludwig on children's television, Charles Moore would understand the charts a bit better than he appeared to on last night's Question Time.

Actually, it was something of a surprise to see Moore on Question Time at all, given the fuss he made about not believing he should pay for a TV licence.

The convicted criminal Moore was appearing on a current affairs programme which, rapidly, had changed its location to Thatcher's Finchley and reformatted itself as a Thatcher special; on a channel which on Monday had cleared what felt like seventeen hours of prime time for a soft obituary which nobody watched, and is planning lavish coverage of her funeral. Naturally, then, Moore saw nothing but hate coming from the BBC.

As an example, he referred to the Ding Dong erm, ding dong, which - shortly after saying that vile people were being "bigged up every day" (really) he described this way:

I heard today a ludicrous thing on the PM programme. They're trying to get... basically the BBC is trying to get this Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead um, up to the top of the charts...

Hang about. The BBC are trying to do this? How, exactly?

... by going on and on and on about whether it should be banned and all this nonesense.

He then went into a strange sidebar on how Thatcher is Dorothy.

So, in Moore's view, merely having a debate about if the song should or shouldn't be played if it makes the Top 40 is "trying to get this up to the top of the charts."

On which basis, this will make him furious:

If only Charles Moore knew people at the Telegraph, he could remonstrate with them for trying to get Ding Dong to the top of the charts by going on and on and on about whether it should be banned.

Charles Moore: He keeps us poor

You'll recall last week Charles Moore penned an open letter to the BBC insisting he wouldn't pay his licence fee because of the airspace they gave to Jonathan Ross.

It was, he insisted, unfair to expect good, honest, law-abiding people like himself to use their hard-earned, god-fearing pennies to underwrite the costs of bringing unacceptable material to the nationally-owned airwaves.

Could this be the same Charles Moore who has just blown £45,000 plus costs in a legal settlement following his idiotic and wrong claims on Question Time that the leadership of the British Council Of Muslims condoned the killing and murder of British soldiers.

I'm a little lost as to whether we should all refuse to pay our licence fees until Charles Moore repays the £45k, or if we should just refuse to pay until the BBC promises never to put Charles Moore on again.

I'm also a little lost about this: If Moore really believes what he wrote in the letter, that the BBC was operating outside its charter ever since the Russell Brand phone calls to Andrew Sachs last October, why did he appear on Question Time this March? If the BBC had forfeited its charter, it had no right to broadcast - and was making the programmes with licence fee money Moore claims it had no right to collect. So Charles Moore went on a programme made with what he believes to be illegally obtained funds, broadcasting as a pirate operation, to make libellous and hurtful comments which have had to be compensated for, with monies he believes the BBC should not legally have.

Perhaps you should just pay your licence fee, Mr Moore?


[UPDATE: How will the Telegraph cope with this story? It loves a chance to have a pop at the BBC, but since the libel came from one of their own, what to do? Simples! Report the libel award but refer coyly to "a panelist". Good work.]

Charles Moore is the last person in the world still banging on about Jonathan Ross

For some reason, Charles Moore has decided that he doesn't need a TV licence because Jonathan Ross is still on the BBC.

If this really just sounds like a petty man too tight to pay a few quid for his television licence, desperately trying to find some sort of justification for his meanness, Moore is quick to defend himself:

I am not seeking to profit from my refusal, so I have today sent a cheque for £142.50 (the current rate) to Help the Aged. I have chosen this charity because part of Jonathan Ross’s offence was his insult to the old.

Hmm. Without wanting to defend Ross and Brand, has it really occurred to Moore what would happen to the Aged, with or without his money, should the BBC be destroyed by petty actions like his? There aren't many broadcasters who carry programming aimed at older viewers; there's no other broadcaster who would create a season like Grey Expectations; take the time to make programmes that address getting older. If we destroy the BBC, when broadcasters are busily chasing the younger, more affluent audiences, what will the lonely, the old and the housebound watch and listen to, Moore?

Jonathan Ross did some stupid things - for which he has apologised, and for which a lot of people have lost their jobs. Is that really worth destroying one of the nation's cultural institutions over?

I note that Moore doesn't say he intends to stop watching BBC News, or reading the website, or checking travel information on the local radio network while he is withholding his cash. In which case: is it morally OK for all of us to steal copies of the Daily Telegraph until Moore apologises for confusing an error of judgement with a moral vacuum?