BBC’s Shameful Surrender

Once again, the denizens of New Broadcasting House have leaned over so far in order to appease the right that they have fallen flat on their faces: Tuesday evening’s edition of Newsnight began with a monologue to camera by host Emily Maitlis; she passed adverse but factually correct comment on chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings; the Tories complained; the Beeb caved in and as a result stands diminished.

Emily Maitlis

Moreover, including the wording “we believe the introduction we broadcast did not meet our standards of due impartiality” in the Corporation’s craven surrender note gave the green light for the right-wing press to administer another kicking, with the Murdoch Times carping “BBC admits attack on Cummings broke rules”, while the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph sneered “Maitlis broke BBC rules with Cummings rant”.

Worse for Lord Hall-Hall and his minions, comparisons were soon being made with the lack of admonishment meted out to Ms Maitlis’ fellow hosts and commentators, not least Andrew Neil, who was not disciplined for using the Sunday Politics’ web presence to peddle climate change denialism, nor for his part in the infamous Daily Politics edition where a shadow junior minister resigned live on air.

And talking of that Daily Politics episode, Neil’s co-conspirator, political editor Laura Kuenssberg, also escaped censure, as she did recently for openly defending Polecat Dom on Twitter after his lockdown-busting trip to Durham has been exposed. She also got away with another infamous episode, effectively taking dictation from the grotesquely dishonest Matthew Elliott after Vote Leave was caught breaking electoral law.

It got worse: as Dawn Foster put it, “Strange how the BBC are hardline when Maitlis discusses Dominic Cummings, but don’t care when she attacks trade unions”. James O’Brien added “Maitlis doesn't publish The Spectator. BBC managers aren't scared of her paid attack dogs (She doesn't have any)”. Andrew Neil is allowed his role at the Speccy, despite its publication of Islamophobes, and one Nazi-sympathising anti-Semite.

The Spectator also recently published a piece by Cummings’ wife Mary Wakefield which appears not to tally with the truth about that Durham trip, but hey ho. John O’Connell of Far Right Watch had picked up on this ambiguity. “Emily Maitlis is critiqued. Laura Kuenssberg is not. The BBC itself is not upholding those 'highest standards of due impartiality' that it seems to revere so highly.” Well, quite.

Carole Cadwalladr was surprised at the speed at which the BBC caved in. “BBC complaints don't work like this. The procedure takes months & eventually ends up in 'executive complaints unit'. This is an extraordinary review by unknown persons. Could [BBC News PR] please tell us on what basis this review took place & who made this decision?” Who took the decision? Was it handed down from board level?

Events later span out of the Beeb’s control completely, as Ms Maitlis, who had said - directly, to camera - at the end of Tuesday’s Newsnight that she would be back the next evening, did not appear. The Guardian stated that she had been replaced. Newsnight editor Esme Wren protested “[she] hasn’t been replaced tonight in response to the BBC statement. [Katie Razzall] is part of the team and we work as a team throughout”.

Ms Razzall then chipped in “Just for the record, Emily [Maitlis] has not been asked by the BBC to take tonight off - and if I thought she had been, I certainly wouldn’t have agreed to present the show”. So maybe she made the decision herself, after being effectively issued a public humiliation for doing her job? By this point, forms of words were not making it.

The Corporation had surrendered, caved, folded, buckled, however you slice it, to a rattled and inept Government whose ranks are stuffed with the dregs of the alphabet soup of Astroturf lobby groups that have so polluted political discourse for so long. As Adam Bienkov of Business Insider put it, “It says a lot about the political culture in the UK that the only person who has faced any consequences for Dominic Cummings' actions is a journalist who pointed them out”. The dark days of the late 1980s all over again.

Along with the impression being given that the public are once again being taken for fools, as Tom Pride noted: “BBC editor now claiming Emily Maitlis has voluntarily taken the night off presenting [BBC Newsnight]. The elite running this country - the government politicians and MSM journalists - really think we're all thick, don't they?”

And Nick Davies, who prised open the can of worms that was the phone hacking scandal, surveyed the damage and concluded “I spent 40 years as a reporter. Emily Maitlis' comments on the Cummings story were well within the normal boundaries of fact-telling and analysis. In criticising her, the BBC have buckled under pressure from a bully government which deals in falsehood”. He means lying. Which they do.

With Lord Hall-Hall conspicuous by his lack of support, and none of his known potential successors apparently versed in the art of dealing with aggressive and dishonest politicians, this episode heralds a very bleak future for the BBC.

I would like to be proved wrong on that point. But fear that I will not. Not a good look.

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