Disabled BBC weathermen? Bring back the bouncing dwarf

TODAY’S edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes courtesy of the BBC, which is advertising for disabled weather forecasters, no experience necessary. ‘Do you want to share your passion for the weather by presenting weather bulletins? Do you have a disability?

‘The BBC does not currently have any weather presenters who are disabled and we are actively seeking to improve on-screen diversity.’

Under the sub-heading ‘ The Ideal Candidate’, the recruitment advert, on the BBC’s website, says: ‘You do not need to be an expert or to have a qualification in meteorology.’

You might have thought that a complete lack of any relevant expertise or qualifications might be a bit of a drawback for anyone planning a career as a weather forecaster. But in the brave new world of the BBC, ability to actually do the job comes a distant second to having the right politics, gender, skin colour, sexuality, religion or disability.

The Corporation is obsessed with quotas — except at senior management level, which consists almost exclusively of white, predominantly-male, middle-class, Oxbridge-educated Guardianistas.

They salve their own consciences and shore up their lavishly- rewarded, privileged positions by imposing strict ‘diversity’ targets on the lower orders, even if that means hammering square pegs into round holes.

Before the usual suspects start squealing with confected outrage, let me make it clear for the umpteenth time that I have no problem with broadcasting organisations reflecting the audience they are supposed to be serving.

I’ve written before about my time at London Weekend Television in the mid-Nineties, when my executive producer Trevor Phillips was about the only black face in the building not pushing a broom or working in the canteen.

Things have improved immeasurably over the past 20 years, both on-camera and behind the scenes.

When I worked for the BBC, there were plenty of people with physical handicaps employed there. But they got those jobs because they were talented engineers, producers, computer wizards, or whatever. All of them were hired for their abilities, not because of their disabilities.

The BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue, currently based in Washington, is a talented political journalist, with years of experience, who just happens to be blind.

ADE ADEPITAN and Arthur Williams are part of the Channel 4 Paralympics team because they are polished presenters with a background in competitive sport, not because they’re in wheelchairs.

Taking somebody on simply because they are disabled smacks of the worst kind of tokenism. It’s insulting to those people who have bothered to learn their trade.

What message does this advert send to, say, a girl from a Chinese, Nigerian or White British background, come to that, who has spent three years at university obtaining a meteorology degree and hopes to forge a career as a BBC weather presenter?

Must she forget about it because she’s not only over-qualified, she’s also able- bodied? That’s the problem with the ‘diversity’ agenda. There’s an ever- shifting hierarchy of victimhood.

Does sexuality trump ethnicity? At the moment, gays seem to be seriously over- represented in a number of areas, including weather forecasting. Should Muslims be promoted ahead of homosexuals, or Afro-Caribbean women ahead of heterosexual white men with disabilities?

And (don’t get me started) why are there so many dopey birds wittering on about football and rugby, especially on the BBC? At this rate, it won’t be long before Match Of The Day is introduced by a paraplegic Somali transsexual in a burka.

Look, I’m all in favour of equal opportunities. everyone should be able to make the most of their talents and ambitions, regardless of their background.

There are still obvious areas of employment where the cards seem to be stacked against visible minorities. For instance, professional football club owners remain reluctant to hire Black British managers — no matter how distinguished their playing careers.

But there’s a world of difference between a level playing field and a system which disregards ability and hard-earned qualifications in favour of candidates who tick the right political boxes.

This latest advert is straight out of the BBC’s own, self-parodying series W1A. A recent episode featured a Muslim weatherman with a full Islamic beard who had only been hired to keep the diversity watchdog happy. When he discovers they’re more interested in his beard than his brains, he’s absolutely horrified and threatens to walk out.

Actually, when it comes to promoting vulnerable minorities in the field of weather forecasting, the BBC is a long way behind the game. Twenty years ago, L!Ve TV, the cable channel run by Kelvin MacKenzie, featured a weather map fronted by a dwarf called rusty.

Because of his restricted growth, rusty couldn’t reach above Birmingham, so whenever he had to discuss the forecast for Scotland and Northern england he would bounce up and down on a minitrampoline — until one day he fell off and almost broke his neck while attempting to point to a cold front over Aberdeen.

having said that, rusty’s forecasts — which didn’t change from one week to the next — were no less accurate than those of the BBC.

For instance, when I set out for Lord’s last Saturday morning the local BBC website was predicting warm, dry weather. Before the lunch interval, it had turned bitterly cold, the floodlights were on and the match was held up for two hours because of rain.

The ‘experts’ ask us to believe them when they insist the earth will melt in 2050 because of global warming, but they can’t even tell us with any degree of certainty what’s going to happen today.

So perhaps the BBC’s enlightened new recruitment policy makes sense. They might just as well hire a disabled weatherman with no qualifications.

he couldn’t do much worse.