Bbc

How the BBC lost its way on Covid

I have been a BBC journalist for many years, and in that time I have been committed to impartiality and the corporation’s Reithian values to inform and educate. My despair about the BBC’s one-sided coverage of the pandemic though has been steadily growing for some time. And in early December, as I listened to a BBC radio broadcast, I felt the corporation reach a new low. During a morning phone-in show on 5Live the topic of discussion was Covid jabs and whether they should be mandated, or if punitive action should be taken against those who refuse them, such as imposing lockdowns on the unvaccinated. Setting aside the fact that

John Cleese’s cancel culture hypocrisy

‘Always look on the bright side of life’ sang Monty Python. But it seems that for at least one of the legendary sextet, such sentiments are now a thing of the past. For the octogenarian John Cleese has today announced he will complain to the BBC over an interview conducted with one of their reporters. What heinous crime did the journalist in question commit? Which unfortunate anchor is to blame? How much trouble is the Corporation in this time? Well, judging from the footage in question, the answer to Mr S seems, er, not a lot. Cleese was riled earlier by an interview with BBC World News presenter Karishma Vaswani who chose to ask him about his

Best of the Blob: who would be picked for its 1st XV?

Selectors for the Blob have chosen their 1st XV. Fans of The Game sometimes ask, as they do about Barbarians RFC: ‘Who are these people, do they have any supporters and who exactly pays them?’ Well, now we have the answer to at least that first question. Full back: Sir Philip Barton, head of the diplomatic service. Recovering from injuries after a sticky select committee hearing on Afghanistan. Sometimes drops the ball but popular with professionals for telling civil servants not to work weekends or more than eight hours a day owing to dangers of ‘burn-out’. Was holidaying at a family château in the Dordogne while Afghanistan was crumbling. Good

Gender is contentious. The BBC is pretending it isn’t

The BBC has produced its annual 100 Women list, a showcase for women who have done interesting, important things. There’s a lot to like about this year’s list: half the women on it come from Afghanistan; some of them, tellingly, can’t be pictured for their own safety. Perhaps if fewer British resources had been deployed getting Pen Farthing’s dogs out of Kabul in the summer, some of those women wouldn’t live in fear for their lives. But that’s another debate. There’s something else interesting about the BBC’s 100 Women, which says something about the Corporation’s ongoing struggle for impartiality. At least two of the people on the 100 Women list

Priti Patel and the progressive language police

There was an exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon that ought to be a scandal but won’t. It ought to be a scandal because it involves a Cabinet minister undertaking to do something that, in any other context, would bring waves of condemnation from across the House. It won’t because the scandalous thing the minister pledged to do is endorsed by Good People with Good Intentions and could only be decried by Bad People with Bad Intentions. The minister was Priti Patel and she was being questioned about the deaths of 27 migrants who attempted to enter Britain via the English Channel. The SNP’s Brendan O’Hara said

The BBC will regret cancelling Michael Vaughan

How cowardly of the BBC to axe Michael Vaughan from Test Match Special for the winter Ashes series on the basis of two words – ‘you lot’ – he might or might not have said more than twelve years ago.  Is this really how the BBC wants to play this? Anyone can make accusations of any type against someone famous that can’t be proved either way and then sit back and watch their life implode? If so then what’s to stop me, for example, from using this space to recall that in 2003 BBC Director General Tim Davie told me something deeply transgressive about, say, the trans community?  Davie might

It’s Harry, not Meghan, who’s the real problem

Who or what drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royal bosom for the land of slebs on the other side of the Atlantic? That’s one of the central questions of a new two-part documentary, The Princes and the Press, that aired on the BBC last night. The obvious suspect is the dreaded British media — barging, intrusive, xenophobic — riddled with prejudice, we’re told, against a mixed-race American in the monarchy. But the jostling between royal households seems equally responsible. After the early days of Hazza and Megz, a clear jealousy from some of William and Kate’s people began to seep into the media. The younger brother and his

In praise of Stonewall

This morning saw a profound breakthrough in the trans debate. I say that on the basis of an interview Nancy Kelley, Stonewall’s CEO, did with the BBC’s Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour.  What’s important is not really anything that Kelley said, though some of that was indeed interesting and I’ll come to it in a second. What matters is that the interview took place at all, since that constitutes a significant shift in the way Stonewall does its work. Stonewall’s instinct has been to largely avoid mainstream media and other political debates about its work on trans issues that is now its primary focus. Kelley has given a handful of interviews

Steerpike

Nadine battles the BBC

It seems that the fruits of high office haven’t changed Nadine Dorries. The Culture Secretary, who took up her brief eight weeks ago, last night hit out at Laura Kuenssberg on Twitter after the BBC’s political editor reported receiving a text from a Tory MP at the 1922 committee which said Boris Johnson ‘looked weak and sounded weak’ and that his ‘authority is evaporating.’ Dorries responded angrily, declaring: Laura, I very much like and respect you, but we both know, that text is ridiculous, although nowhere near as ridiculous as the person – obviously totally desperate for your attention – who sent it. Shortly thereafter the tweet was deleted but not before numerous screenshots

Is Laura Kuenssberg leaving Westminster?

Is Laura Kuenssberg’s time as BBC political editor coming to an end? That’s the suggestion tonight after the Guardian reported she is in talks to step down from the role and move to a plum gig hosting the Today programme.  Rumours of Kuenssberg’s impending departure have been circulating around Westminster for some time now to little avail. But this time it is being talked up as part of a wider shake up of the Beeb’s lead presenters, with Jon Sopel recently announcing he is ending his US beat and returning to the UK. Rumours of Kuenssberg’s impending departure have been circulating around Westminster for some time now Kuenssberg’s time in

The Sunday Feature is one of the most consistently interesting things on Radio 3

The story is likely apocryphal — and so disgraceful I almost hesitate to tell it — but it goes like this. On the night of 14 November 1940, as more than 500 Luftwaffe rained bombs on the people of Coventry, the newly appointed city architect Donald Gibson was watching the fires. Gibson had been appointed to the newly created position of ‘city architect’ three years earlier by the radical Labour council that had come to power in a local election. His job was to modernise what was then Britain’s best-preserved medieval city, and build the ideals of social justice and equality into the city’s brick and mortar. That night, as

The true enemy of political interviews

The rhythm of the big party conference leader interviews is a strange one. First come days of slow, repetitive, detailed preparation, much of which we know will be junked on the day. My brilliant team play Keir Starmer or Boris Johnson, being as cheerily obstructive, long-winded and deflecting as possible, until all of us could repeat the key facts and graphs and quotes in our sleep. Next, a frantic early Sunday morning (up well before five) to fillet the latest news, discarding what had been favourite questions and lines of attack, and boil everything down to a manageable size. By now my heart rate is rising and I’m eating more

In blockbuster Britain, the BBC is being left behind

There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it. Netflix is normally secretive about its figures but this week published a list of its most popular shows and top of the pile is Bridgerton, which imagines Regency London as a racially mixed society. Although funded with US money, it is shot in Yorkshire with a British cast, using British technical know-how, and, thanks to Netflix’s global audience of more than 200 million, this British show has now become the most-watched series in the history of television. Not so long ago, it was argued that subscription television would never

The BBC is being left behind in blockbuster Britain

There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind it. Netflix is normally secretive about its figures but this week published a list of its most popular shows and top of the pile is Bridgerton, which imagines Regency London as a racially mixed society. Although funded with US money, it is shot in Yorkshire with a British cast, using British technical know-how, and, thanks to Netflix’s global audience of more than 200 million, this British show has now become the most-watched series in the history of television. Not so long ago, it was argued that subscription television would never

Jess Brammar isn’t the problem

We need to talk about Jess Brammar. No, not the fact that Ms Brammar has landed the plum job of executive editor of the BBC’s news channels, despite cries of opposition from various Tories who insisted that Brexit-bashing Brammar is too politically partisan for such a position. My view is that it should be up to the Beeb who it employs, and politicians and their advisers should keep their beaks out of broadcasting. Rather, Jess Brammar represents a wider problem. It’s the fact that so much of the cultural elite is hostile to Brexit, which, lest we forget, is the most popular political idea in living memory in this country.

A defence of Jess Brammar

I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for half a million quid or so. Nineteen rather barren acres, slightly warmed by the Gulf Stream. These little parcels of desolation quite often become available for purchase and I do wonder if Gigalum should be purchased by the state for the dumping of toxic waste. Gruinard island, further north, was used by the government during the second world war as a site for testing militarised anthrax, for example. My proposal for Gigalum is that it should be a repository for everyone in the country with the word ‘diversity’ anywhere in

Steerpike

BBC promote convicted arsonist

The BBC has been plunged into a fair few impartiality controversies recently. But while such rows can often be a matter of subjectivity and taste, you would hope that Corporation staff would draw the line at promoting a convicted arsonist accused of orchestrating a ‘terrorist campaign’ against Oxford University. Yikes. This latest BBC East drama hails from Cambridgeshire and was caused by Auntie’s coverage a fortnight ago of an animal rights protest outside a facility that breeds dogs for laboratory research. Activists have been protesting outside Marshall BioResources against such breeding for the past two months, with 15 arrests made at the time the Beeb published its original article. Among those protestors interviewed

Is the life of Jimmy Savile a suitable subject for drama?

One day in 1975 the Israeli cabinet found themselves being lectured on the most intractable political problem of our age — how to bring peace to the Middle East — by a peculiar white-haired British entertainer wearing a pink suit with short sleeves. His name? Jimmy Savile. That’s how he told it anyway. Remarkably, witnesses back up the generality if not the specifics of the anecdote. Savile indeed visited the Holy Land in 1975. And he did talk to the Israeli president Ephraim Katzir, saying (so he claimed): ‘I’m very disappointed because you’ve all forgotten how to be Jewish and that’s why everyone is taking you to the cleaners.’ Jimmy

The BBC’s strange obsession with remakes

BBC Director General Tim Davie, in his proclaimed push to create ‘landmark’ TV shows appears to be steering the Corporation in an increasingly conservative (small ‘c’) direction, intent on trading off past glories. Former soft drink marketer Davie’s lack of programming and editorial experience is often painfully apparent; he is increasingly given to sweeping crowd-pleasing statements, such as the remarks he made to the public about BBC’s staff’s attendance of Pride marches, telling staff to stop virtue-signalling on social media. Despite having spent 16 years in various senior roles at the Corporation, Davie doesn’t appear to have the antennae to pick up on the mood of his workforce. He may well believe upsetting the

The central performances are tremendous: Glyndebourne’s Luisa Miller, reviewed

Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter with an outsize peppermill. It’s principally a means of signalling that you’re part of the club. But occasionally it’s genuinely useful, and Glyndebourne’s new production of Verdi’s Luisa Miller had me thinking about the concept of ‘tinta musicale’, a term used to describe Verdi’s sense that each of his operas should have its own distinctive sonic colour. The late-summer warmth that suffuses Falstaff, for example, or the maritime translucence of Simon Boccanegra. Or take La traviata: the enervated violins of the prelude, the hectic brilliance once the curtain rises. Already,