Residents of suburb of Didsbury are mostly sceptical of Tory minister’s criticism of broadcaster
When the media minister John Whittingdale goaded the
BBC this week by saying it pandered to the “metropolitan elite” in
London and Manchester, he did not specify where exactly these spoiled audiences could be found, gorging themselves on BBC Four documentaries and listening to difficult jazz on Radio 3.
But Whittingdale may well have had the south Manchester suburb of Didsbury in mind, home to million-pound Victorian houses traditionally occupied by lefty professors and students, as well as a prep school and private hospital. So many BBC executives moved in when the broadcaster relocated to nearby Salford that a local artist did a roaring trade in posters showing two
Women outside the area’s most famous pub – called, yes, the Metropolitan – gasping: “Oh no! Surely not another media whore moving to Didsbury!”