Robbie Gibb - SACK HIM NOW

It was more than a year ago that Zelo Street noted the propensity of BBC non-executive board member Robbie Gibb to interfere in the Corporation’s recruitment process, effectively on behalf of the Tory Party, in an attempt to head off the appointment of Jess Brammar, someone who was considered insufficiently establishment and right-wing. The conclusion was stark.

Robbie Gibb in his natural habitat

The Beeb should have no truck with Gibb’s presence; he should be sacked from the board and not allowed to darken the Corporation’s corridors any longer. Now has come confirmation that Gibb’s interference in BBC business was not limited to personnel matters, with the implied conclusion that he has been influencing news coverage to make it more acceptable to the Tories.

This revelation of what was already widely suspected came during this year’s MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, given by now former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis. Moving right along from the obvious criticism that her intervention would have been significantly braver had she still been at the Beeb, her comments were nonetheless damning.

As the Guardian has reported, “Reflecting on her time at the BBC, Maitlis said the corporation often slipped into a ‘both-sides-ism’ approach to impartiality that gave a platform to individuals that did not deserve airtime. She recalled how during the 2016 EU referendum the BBC would create a false equivalence by putting one pro-Brexit economist on air to debate with one anti-Brexit economist, even though the overwhelming majority of economists felt Brexit was a bad idea”. See also under climate change.

But it was when discussing the carpeting she received for righty calling out former chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings that she made her accusation against Gibb: “Put this in the context of the BBC Board, where another active agent of the Conservative party - former Downing Street spin doctor, and former adviser to BBC rival GB News - now sits, acting as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”. And that is a serious problem for the BBC.

Gibb’s idea of impartiality looks like another way of saying “what Gibb finds acceptable”, what might accord with his opinion. And opinion does not necessarily equal fact. The “both sides” obsession used during the Covid pandemic has merely confused viewers and given an opening to conspiracy pushers and other no-marks who should never have been platformed.

Emily Maitlis - better late than never

The BBC was clearly unhappy about reporting Ms Maitlis’ comments, but could not pretend that the lecture hadn’t happened. What to do? Simples. The first attempt at covering the story airbrushed Gibb from the frame. Adita Chakrabortty noted “The BBC website's report on [Emily Maitlis’] speech completely omits any mention of Robbie Gibb. As if the Corporation is seeking to confirm her argument about its censorship”. Whoops giveaway!

The story was later amended, but the internet never forgets, and the original was there for all to see. So how would the right leaning part of our free and fearless press react to the revelations, and left leaning pundits like Owen Jones observing “it's just very unfortunate that those of us who said the BBC's political coverage was rigged in favour of the Tories were long treated as wild conspiracy theorists”. We did not have to wait long to find out.

The odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist at the Murdoch Sun, sneered “Funny how there were no posh telly crowd speeches decrying the fact the entire BBC strategy was for many years set by a Gordon Brown-era Labour Cabinet Minister who sat on this hallowed BBC Board”. So deflecting and lying - and no sign of a denial.

But what was way more revealing than Master Cole’s whinge was the array of front pages offered up by today’s papers. The Guardian, alone among them, mentions the story. The Mirror, campaigning for a freeze in energy price increases, had good reason to devote more space to that story. The others, more prosaically, merely had good reason to keep quiet.

And that is because most of them have been fully invested in the premiership of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, which has included bullying the Beeb into submission. They are part of the misinformation machine that brought us the act of national self-harm that is Brexit, and the continuing efforts to deflect from an increasingly grim reality.

Perhaps the real world should be allowed back in. And that process can be shown to have begun with one act - the sacking of Robbie Gibb.

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