'What crisis? Let's have a £1.3-billion bash'

The title is a headline in the Indian newspaper The Hindu which is scathing about the cost, lack of alternative voices and the UK's media coverage of the Queen's Jubilee, particularly the BBC’s wall to wall coverage and the build up to this weekend's celebrations.

Here’s a taster ‘Forget the party-pooping republicans and sulking businessmen who complained about the loss of revenue and productivity as a result of the longest holiday weekend in living memory to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee. At 86, even the Queen, well-preserved and sprightly though she is, must have been exhausted after four days of non-stop excursion dashing from one “amazing” event to another with a permanent grin on her face.

When it comes to the royal family, particularly the Queen, Britons have form on fawning, and nobody fawns better than the media. And here I am not talking about the usual suspects, The Telegraph, The Times, the Daily Mail or the Sky. The BBC, allegedly packed with loony republicans, out-fawned them all prompting The Times writer Philip Collins to comment: “I thought the BBC was meant to be a nest of Lefties. Where are they all?”

A three-part BBC documentary on the Queen's 60-year reign, screened in the run-up to the jubilee, was widely criticised for not presenting a single dissenting voice. The campaign group, Republic, accused it of acting like the Palace's “cheerleader-in-chief”.

“For the past 18 months, our national broadcaster has sought to promote the institution and its incumbent family and to join in the royal celebrations. Rather than act as an impartial commentator, the BBC has become cheerleader-in-chief for an institution that is controversial and contested,” it said.

In one of the many cringing moments, a star BBC presenter looked on with awe and excitement as an executive of a supermarket chain revealed the “wonderful” contents of a Jubilee picnic hamper created by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and royal chef Mark Flanagan. The camera rolled on as the man waxed eloquent about “chilled British country garden soup”; “tea-smoked Scottish salmon”, and specially spiced-up “Diamond Jubilee chicken”!

The royalists were still not impressed and took to social networking sites to complain that the Beebs did not always get the tone “right” — on one occasion referring to the Queen as “HRH” rather than “Her Majesty”.

“Low grade, celebrity driven drivel. How did Beeb get it so wrong?” asked angry Tory MP, Rob Wilson'.

And it’s not just the UK media, BBC Wales and ITV Wales have had little else in their news bulletin’s for 4 days, as well as the Western Mail and Daily Post posting extensive coverage of street parties and official events in Wales.

I’m not a republican, but i’ve not been interested in the Queen’s Jubilee like a lot of my friends, colleagues and family, but yet again I find myself asking why any alternative view on the Queen's Jubilee, like the London Olympics is only to be found in foreign newspapers.

Any source