The BBC and British American Tobacco...

[max_tranmere]

Very interesting two-part documentary on BBC2 this week, hosted by Peter Taylor, about the tobacco industry. We got the predicable line about "this is the worlds biggest preventable killer, over one billion are addicted, and billions in profits are made out of killing people annually" type stuff. We also learn that British American Tobacco, the multi-billion pound corporation, and the world's second biggest tobacco company, has a very large lucrative pension scheme that lots of other corporations invest in and make money out of. Including the BBC we learn. So Peter Taylor, who is a non-smoker and who condemns smoking, will have along with his colleagues a nice fat pension in old age and part of it will have come from investing in tobacco manufacturing and selling. Rather ironic wouldn't you say?

[Sam Slater]

[quote]Very interesting two-part documentary on BBC2 this week, hosted by Peter Taylor, about the tobacco industry. We got the predicable line about "this is the worlds biggest preventable killer, over one billion are addicted, and billions in profits are made out of killing people annually" type stuff.[/quote]

'type stuff'? It's either true or it isn't. If it isn't true, he shouldn't say it and people will rightly pull him up on it. If it is true, why do you seem to have a problem with such a statement?

[quote]So Peter Taylor, who is a non-smoker and who condemns smoking, will have along with his colleagues a nice fat pension in old age and part of it will have come from investing in tobacco manufacturing and selling. Rather ironic wouldn't you say?[/quote]

A little. But if you were Peter Taylor and so against smoking, would you feel you'd do more for your cause staying with the BBC and trying to educate the public about it or resign from the BBC and refuse any future pension?

[spider]

Are you sure Peter Taylor is an emploee of the BBC - he could be a freelancer?

If he is an employee I guess he has to contribute to the pension fund.

Once money is taken out of your pay packet (before you even get your hands on it) you have no control how it's used.

It's like income tax.

I don't want my income tax money going to pay for a replacement for Trident, going to pay for HS2 or going to pay for repairs to Royal residences for instance.

I have no control over any of that, just like Peter Taylor has no control regarding where the money he pays into the BBC pension fund is invested.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Most BBC reporters are freelance. I was genuninely surpirsed to learn the likes of Jon Motson have always been hired guns and never fully paid up BBC staff. As for pensions I imagine some people wouldn't be happy investing in British Gas, BAE etc but if you want a really shit annuity then go ethical.

[max_tranmere]

What Peter Taylor said was correct, smoking is certainly bad and companies do make a fortune selling this harmful product. When I said it was 'predictable' I meant that when someone tunes in to a programme like this they want to hear something new, not just the standard line (although it is accurate) about smoking being harmful. We already knew that. There was lots of interesting stuff in the programmes, stuff about how the cigarette companies are going to incredible lengths to get round the advertising bans in various countries, he also went to Third World countries and explored how the big cigarette firms in the West are making a fortune in these places, and clearly don't care what it is doing to people - even to young kids.

I think it is good that Peter Taylor did these two programmes and that they also had an element in them focused on trying to educate people. There was a lot of stuff about e-cigarettes for instance, some doctors and researchers said they were less harmful than normal fags, others said they were totally harmless. So the worst case scenario is that they might still be harmful, but not as much, as normal fags - possibly not at all. The number of e-cig smokers in Britain according to this series is now 2 million, three times more than a couple of years ago. These two episodes might convince more smokers to switch to these.

Peter Taylor will certainly take the pension, so would I in his shoes, I just think it's odd that he was grilling a guy from British American Tobacco about their profits from the harm that fags do, but he and others will take money (a pension) from the profits from the harm that cigarettes do. I would take the pension too as I've said - perhaps we are all full of inconsistences.

[max_tranmere]

He might be freelance, he might be a salaried-staffer, I'm not sure. Usually well known journalists and presenters broker very good deals, with their agent sitting at the meeting with them, when they negotiate about doing work for TV networks. It was probably worked out at his initial meeting with the BBC, decades ago, and at probably every contract renewal meeting since, that he would get some kind of pension from them along with his (presumably) large salary. He deserves a large salary, he is very good at what he does.

[max_tranmere]

Corporations invest in any organisation to get the best return on their pension fund. A lot buy large properties. There are numerous big houses and flats in central London that no one lives in and probably never will, that were bought and are owned by corporate pension schemes - both from here and from abroad. The BBC invests its pension money in (aswell as in other places) British American Tobacco. The Church of England we learned a few months ago invests its money (one of the places it puts its pension cash in) in the payday loans company 'Wonga'. Wonders will never cease! Every organisation just wants as much money as it can get, morality or ethics rarely come into it.