A Dead Chicken In Suffolk

The 32nd Edinburgh International Television Festival kicked off yesterday. This year the annual James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture was given by Jeremy Paxman.

Always high profile, the lectures are usually a stage for controversy. Last year Charles Allen, the outgoing Chief Executive of ITV, spent his time trying to convince everyone that the channel was in rude health.

In a year when British television has been hit by a succession of scandals, giving the press and lying shitbags like Tony Blair a field day, Paxman certainly didn’t pull his punches but dug further to reveal the true problems at the heart of television.

He began by asking “Never mind the scandals: what’s it all for?” The full transcript can be found here.