Who runs Britain - the mystery

The BBC hasn't a clue how the country is run.

by Christopher Booker, right

The BBC Today programme's series on "Who runs Britain?" has again brought home the astonishing ignorance of most of our politicians and journalists as to how we are now governed.
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Only one or two contributors, such as Daniel Hannan MEP, left, showed any sign of recognising how our system of government has been revolutionised in recent years, so that most of the laws and regulations which rule our lives are now made by a vast, mysterious technocracy in which elected politicians play very little part.
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It has long proved beyond the likes of Jim Naughtie and his colleagues to recognise this, however. They appear to think it is enough just to pit against each other people of opposing views, most as ignorant as themselves, inviting them to engage in a few minutes of trivial argument which leaves the audience hopelessly uninformed.
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Having spent rather too much time in recent years trying to puzzle out this revolution, I am constantly staggered how poorly served we are in this respect. Last week, for instance, we were bombarded with verbiage about "Blair versus Chirac", the EU budget, the "rebate", the "CAP", the "WTO".

But how many commentators could give an informed explanation of how and why France managed to design the CAP in her own interest, so that 40 years later her farmers still receive nearly a quarter of its total spending? Or why, without the rebate, Britain would receive less from the EU budget per head than any other country? Or why the stranglehold that France has on EU trade policy means that the WTO cannot prevent her farmers inflicting such damage on those of the developing world?
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Again, amid the muted response to last week's review of Defence Industry Strategy, how many people bother to ask why we need those two huge aircraft carriers the Royal Navy is supposed to be buying (other than as part of our contribution to the EU's planned "rapid reaction force")?
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How many ask why weare to spend £300 million just on designing these ships, when, thanks to the increasingly doubtful future of the Joint Strike Fighter project, no one even knows what aircraft will be using them?
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Similar questions large and small are thrown up by this peculiar new system by which we are governed (with "Europe" all too often hovering in the wings). But the BBC isn't even remotely interested in doing its homework to provide the necessary background information, then asking the right questions. Much more fun for its smug presenters to stage silly little studio arguments between people as hazily informed as themselves, until it is time to say "I'm sorry, that's all we've got time for".