The BBC’s Road to Appeasement
As the BBC comes under growing criticism for its coverage of Reform, we republish Adam Bienkov and Patrick Howse's 2024 investigation into how the corporation's leadership became cowed by the right
A 20-Year Plan To Take Down the BBC
Almost 20 years ago, Dominic Cummings was calling for the “end of the BBC in its current form” and advocating to make the broadcasting environment a more favourable one for the right.
The plan of the man who would go on to become Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial chief advisor was first outlined in a series of blog posts for the think tank Cummings then headed – the now defunct New Frontiers Foundation.
Cummings described the BBC as “a mortal enemy” of the Conservatives and wrote that there were “three structural things” the right needed to happen. These were the “undermining of the BBC’s credibility”; the “creation of a Fox News equivalent/talk radio shows/bloggers etc. to shift the centre of gravity”; and “the end of the ban on TV political advertising”.
In Cummings’ eyes, the “privileged closed world” of the BBC needed to be “turned upside down” – “its very existence should be the subject of a very intense and well-funded campaign”.
All of this went alongside plans to keep the BBC chronically underfunded and to abolish the licence fee. This would keep the corporation cowed and compliant, it was argued.
Parts of the plan began to be enacted by the Conservatives.
One of the first acts of David Cameron’s Government, for instance, was to compel the BBC to take on funding for the World Service and free TV licences for the over-75s (there was no compensating rise in the licence fee).
Squeezing the BBC financially was attractive to the Conservatives on several levels.
First, it has long been a common view within the right of the party that the licence fee is an unfair compulsory tax. This ideological objection fits nicely with the views of the right-wing owners of the majority of the UK’s print media, who see themselves as being in direct competition with the corporation.
But there is more to it. Restricting the BBC’s income, and constantly questioning the existence of its funding model, also helps to keep it in line. BBC bosses saw the threat to abolish the licence fee looming behind them like a terrifying black shadow. And the response from successive director-generals, from Mark Thompson onwards, has been to appease those seeking to destroy the broadcaster.
Among those most passionate about its destruction was Boris Johnson, who despite first coming to notoriety through his own appearances on the BBC, had long dreamed of neutering the corporation. “The only two things Boris really cares about are Brexit and killing off the BBC,” one close ally of his told this newspaper while Johnson was Prime Minister.
Another key element of the plan – not said out loud at this point – was to insert ‘true believers’ into key editorial positions, and to encourage others – such as former Director-General Tony Hall – not to rock the boat by too rigorously holding the Government to account.
As a result, with some honourable exceptions, the BBC was often timid to the point of cowardice during the Brexit and pandemic periods – fearful and reluctant to call out the misleading statements of Johnson’s Vote Leave campaign and the Conservative Governments that have followed.
The effect has been untold damage to the country.
The damning evidence given to the Covid Inquiry, and the economic and political damage caused by Brexit, is evidence of how badly the national broadcaster has failed Britain and why journalists in other parts of Europe shake their heads sorrowfully about the corporation’s downfall – while questioning how it could have been allowed to happen.
It is a good question.
The BBC’s Policy of Appeasement
The answer is that politically-motivated actors made it happen, facilitated and enabled by cowardly senior figures within the BBC, who thought that the best way to ensure the broadcaster’s survival was a policy of appeasement.
Under its former Director-General Tony Hall, the BBC enacted a series of editorial decisions which appeared primarily designed to appease the Conservative Government. One of the worst – in terms of its long-term consequences – was his order, following the 2016 EU Referendum, to treat Brexit as a ‘done deal’. This edict almost completely excluded the voices of the 48% of voters who had sought to remain in the EU from the BBC’s output for around two years – amounting to an egregious failure to inform democratic debate.
Hall’s attitude towards booking guests from the cluster of right-wing think tanks based in London’s Tufton Street was also hugely damaging. These organisations – most of which are not transparent about their sources of funding – continue to have a large presence on BBC programming, where they are allowed to pose as independent academic research bodies while refusing to reveal their anonymous funders.
Also central to the rot during these years was an approach to political ‘balance’ which has mostly benefited the right. Rather than trying to establish the truth on a given subject, BBC news programmes were too often content to merely present different – usually extreme – points of view. This approach helped to create a false equivalence between experts with views grounded on peer-reviewed evidence-based knowledge, and individuals from right-wing think tanks and pressure groups which rarely bothered with such things.
As a result, instead of educating and enlightening its audiences, the BBC all too often presents a ‘he says this, but she says that’ narrative that fosters a feeling that there are legitimate debates on topics where none really exist, because the evidence so overwhelmingly points the other way. This was most famously seen when climate change denier Lord Nigel Lawson was wheeled out for Radio 4’s Today programme to ‘balance’ the opinion of pretty much every scientist working in the field.
This approach to ‘balance’ has been continued by Lord Hall’s successor as Director-General Tim Davie, a former Conservative candidate, who stunned journalists at the corporation late last year after deciding to address a closed meeting of the influential 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs.
During the meeting, he apparently assured his audience that Sir Robbie Gibb – a former BBC editor who went on to be Theresa May’s director of communications – was being given a key role in ensuring BBC ‘impartiality’. Sir Robbie was drafted onto the BBC’s Board by the Government he supports.
The Chairman of that body until last year was Richard Sharp, another committed Conservative and close confidant of the Prime Minister who appointed him, Boris Johnson. In 2020, Sharp helped Johnson secure a loan guarantee for £800,000 from another friend, Canadian businessman Sam Blyth. This happened when Johnson was Prime Minister and as Sharp was in the process of applying for the job of BBC Chairman. Sharp told the UK’s top civil servant of the time, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, about the arrangement, but then had another private meeting with Johnson and Blyth at Chequers.
The idea that a candidate for the chairmanship of the BBC could be that close to the Prime Minister of the day should have been enough to rule him out. He should never have been let anywhere near the job. But, in fact, he was chosen by the Government precisely because of his political views and attitude towards the BBC.
Sharp did not, of course, content himself with a hands-off role. Instead he meddled in editorial affairs, including intervening in senior editorial appointment processes. He even accused the BBC of “liberal bias” in an interview with The Sunday Times in December 2022. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that he was brought in to help bring the corporation down.
Mired in accusations of conflicts of interest, Sharp eventually resigned last April 2023. But not before much damage had been done.
Off-Balance: Compliance on the Inside
So how does the BBC’s top-level commitment to appease the Conservatives, and to advance the party’s agenda, play out in the lower ranks of the BBC?
The Conservatives have been able to rely on individuals with very influential editorial roles who have helped frame the country’s political discourse on a daily basis.
While not necessarily Conservative supporters, these senior editors, it is alleged, came under the influence of Downing Street through political pressure and the need for access.
The result of this has been what one former senior political journalist at the corporation described as a “culture of fear”.
“There was a period which coincided with the aftermath of the 2019 General Election and the Covid pandemic when BBC bosses were absolutely terrified of Downing Street,” they said. “What the Government, then under Cummings and [Johnson’s communications director] Lee Cain, managed to do was convince the BBC that they [in Downing Street] were the embodiment of public opinion and that the BBC was the embodiment of everything that wasn’t.”
This strategy was pursued “mercilessly” by Downing Street, according to the insider, and was highly successful in terms of being internalised by senior figures.
“It got into the heads of a lot of bosses up to and including the Director-General himself – that we were all basically ‘metropolitan liberals’ who weren’t representative of anyone and that we needed to be bloody careful because, if we stepped out of line, then we knew what was going to happen.”
The big problem with this drive for so-called ‘impartiality’ was that the demands for ‘balance’ only seemed to come from one political direction.
“I don’t remember anyone ever saying to us ‘oh I just don’t think we’re properly reflecting the Green Party view or the liberal-left view on this story’,” one former BBC journalist said. “It was always just slanted in one direction – which was basically the nativist, authoritarian, Conservative direction. The pressure was always from the Conservative direction and never from the Labour direction.”
Governments of all colours have always sought to put pressure on the BBC. But, while in the past, editors may have been able to resist this pressure, in its more recent weakened state, senior executives and editors appeared to be far too ready to buckle.
“I would get messages communicated to me directly from editors telling us to be so careful because the Government was out for the BBC and its journalists,” one former BBC political journalist said. “That was obviously the result of quite substantial pressure from the Government. But who is really to blame for that? Is it the Government for exacting political pressure or is it the BBC for being so craven to a party which at that time was seen as so hegemonically powerful?”
Katy Searle: A Cosy Relationship
Among those in charge of exerting this pressure was Katy Searle, who headed the BBC’s Westminster operation during the period of the Brexit Referendum campaign, three UK general elections, and the pandemic.
Byline Times has spoken to five people who worked in the Westminster newsroom during this period, who saw Searle in operation at close range. These former and current senior BBC figures said she had a reputation within the organisation of being too close to Downing Street and with a focus on “access journalism”.
One said “she would often rely solely on No 10’s briefing, which would sometimes turn out not to be true. If you come bounding out of your office saying ‘here’s the story!’ it doesn’t create a very good impression”.
It is claimed that Seale would often use the 10am editorial meeting in the Westminster office to stamp her mark on the day’s political coverage. Participants have described how she would routinely repeat the Government line she had been given without properly scrutinising it, causing unease among other journalists. It was also suggested that she would refer to senior Government figures by their nicknames, implying an overly cosy relationship with them.
An example from the pandemic lockdown period, in May 2020, sets the scene.
Then Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock claimed that the Government had achieved its target of carrying out 100,000 Coronavirus tests a day – a number later found to not only be wildly optimistic, but would have actually been impossible to calculate at that time.
A source claims Searle entered the editorial meeting that day claiming Hancock had hit his target. She was challenged on this assertion, and it was pointed out to her that the Government could not possibly know that it had achieved the target, because not enough time had elapsed for the tests to be returned and processed. One contributor to the meeting said the BBC would “risk looking ridiculous” if it reported the claim as fact.
But Searle apparently ensured that the BBC News’ online team “led with the line all day”, according to the source, “and everyone just did as she told them because they were scared” and so “they just rolled over”.
Indeed, the BBC’s handling of the pandemic was a particular matter of concern within the organisation.
One former colleague noted that there was a view within the broadcaster that the crisis could help the BBC ‘prove its worth’ with Downing Street – which led to one former colleague of Searle’s describing the BBC as effectively becoming a “state broadcaster” during the period.
This was all part of what the former colleague described as “an incumbency bias” shown towards the Government by Searle and the BBC. They claim this had an impact on what stories the corporation reported and how they were covered.
The situation was exacerbated by a merger between the management of BBC political programming and BBC News under Searle. This removed the barrier between the Westminster news operation, which was heavily reliant on access to Downing Street and Government figures for stories. Political programming had previously not had the same imperative to maintain such a comfortable relationship with the Government.
Searle, it is claimed, had a particular reputation within the BBC for trying to squash stories that were damaging to Downing Street. A former colleague provided two examples of this.
One again related to Matt Hancock and revelations about his lockdown rule-breaking, which were initially dismissed by Searle who told colleagues that it was not a story – only for the BBC to have to reverse its position once the controversy was widely picked up by other news outlets. Searle was also allegedly unhappy when a BBC camera crew was eventually sent to doorstep Hancock about the story.
Then there was the alleged bullying of officials by Priti Patel. It is claimed that Searle was very dismissive of the story and suggested that the BBC should not cover it. It was later noted with frustration by other broadcasters that the BBC had failed to ask the then Home Secretary about it when a reporter conducted what is known as a ‘pool’ interview with Patel on behalf of all broadcasters after the story broke.
One source said Searle “used fear to get the whole newsroom to do as she wanted” and that the “threat of job cuts was never far away” – which she “used all the time”.
“People were scared to say anything – she would try to humiliate us, and shout us down so that we wouldn’t do it again the next day,” the source added. “She would also threaten to take correspondents off air permanently.” Searle was, they said, very direct.
The source also described how several Westminster journalists had been subjected to “real Alex Ferguson-style hairdryer treatment” – a reference to the way the former Manchester United manager would shout into the faces of errant players from very short range.
Searle would often focus particularly on the online team as its output would set the tone across the BBC and it is seen as a trusted news source in the country. “She was continually asking them to tweak headlines – everyone knew what was going on,” the source added.
It is claimed that Searle would talk to Downing Street and pass on its views – not as an element of a story to be explored or challenged, but as a command to be followed. “She would come out of her office and tell us all ‘here’s the line’,” the insider said. “It really felt as if we were a bureau of [Conservative] Central Office.”
Katy Searle declined to comment.
A BBC insider said she was “backed to the hilt” by Laura Kuenssberg, then the BBC’s Political Editor. “They were best best buddies,” they said.
During the pandemic, Kuenssberg was heard to remonstrate with colleagues who she felt were being too critical of the Government. “Oh look guys,” one source – who heard the exchange – quoted her as saying, “it’s really hard what they [the Government] are trying to do. Cut them some slack”.
Laura Kuenssberg: Competition and Scoops
Kuenssberg’s friendly relationship with Downing Street appeared to be driven by the desire for access and the search for scoops.
Chosen as the BBC’s Political Editor in 2015, she was not particularly well-known at the time for her political knowledge and expertise, but was seen as an experienced news journalist. To those who saw her abilities in this sphere – including the authors of this article – she was undoubtedly confident, ambitious, and fluent. She loved being on air, being first with a story, and was always a go-to correspondent whenever airtime had to be filled.
Sadly, this also made her profoundly unsuitable for the role of Political Editor. What the BBC really needed – and what the country needed during this politically turbulent time – was someone who could take a step back and tell the audience when they were being lied to.
What they got instead was someone who was far too reliant on access to the powerful and who was imbued with a determination to get Downing Street’s version of events out before the competition at Sky or ITN.
Some former colleagues of Kuenssberg and Searle look back at this period with embarrassment and question how close the BBC allowed itself to get to Downing Street under Boris Johnson.
“We had Searle and Kuenssberg there at the helm [in Westminster] during the most unbelievably tricky journalistic episode we’ve ever faced in covering Brexit and the pandemic, with a person in Johnson who they’d already basically decided was this most extraordinarily colourful character who would bring so much life to our coverage,” one former colleague told Byline Times. “And neither of them came with the sort of intellectual heft that was needed to deal with it. So there is a shame and an embarrassment about that.”
For Kuenssberg, access to power was crucial. She was never more than a single phone call or text message away from people right at the heart of power, who would instantly feed her a line to throw on air. Scoops appeared to be all that mattered – even if they were simply spoon-fed from Downing Street.
“There’s a great sort of cachet in getting the story and getting it first and scooping people,” one of Kuenssberg’s allies told this newspaper. “And that inevitably drives closeness and I think the famous park bench moment [in which she sat alongside Johnson and interviewed him in a park] is the prime example of where that just all felt a bit wrong.”
Kuenssberg also faced allegations of bias against the Labour Party and its former leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 when the broadcasting regulator Ofcom found that she had inaccurately reported his views about shoot-to-kill policies in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Paris. She later apologised after helping to spread a false story about a Labour activist punching a Conservative advisor during the 2019 General Election campaign.
Broader relations with Labour hit a particular low during this period when Corbyn’s team was misled into agreeing to a major election campaign interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil under the understanding that Johnson had also agreed to take part. In reality, sources on both sides say no such agreement had been made. So as Corbyn suffered the Neil treatment, Johnson simply refused to take part. Although embarrassing at the time, there was little fear at the BBC of upsetting Labour under Corbyn, sources say. “There was just this general sense of them [Labour] not being in the game.”
Internally, Kuenssberg was widely expected to be moved on after the 2019 General Election. But, when the pandemic hit, those plans were apparently derailed. Kuenssberg instead played a big part in the BBC’s coverage of the Government’s handling of the crisis, hitting a particular low point following Dominic Cummings’ infamous trip to Barnard Castle.
Cummings had been accused of breaching lockdown rules by driving hundreds of miles north, culminating with a jaunt to Barnard Castle to ‘test his eyesight’. The story was broken by Pippa Crerar, who then worked for the Daily Mirror. But before most people had read the story or even heard about it, Kuenssberg tweeted Downing Street’s rebuttal, effectively undermining Crerar’s genuine scoop. She appeared to have completely bought into the idea that her role was to tell the audience what she had been told by her top level sources – no matter what their credibility.
But at a time when Britain’s Prime Minister and the people around him lied as a matter of routine, the BBC’s political coverage, fronted by Kuenssberg and policed by Katy Searle, risked losing them credibility too.
Sir Robbie Gibb: A Right-Hand Man
Laura Kuenssberg left her role as Political Editor in 2022, while Katy Searle left the BBC entirely the following year.
Today, however, at least one high level ‘true believer’ is still exerting considerable influence within the organisation, supported by others in the editorial infrastructure.
Sir Robbie Gibb’s position on the BBC Board gives him the power to enforce a Conservative agenda on BBC journalists through his influence on middle managers. Alongside fellow travellers, such as Director-General Tim Davie, they are ensuring that the broadcaster continues to move to the right.
Former Guardian and now Prospect Editor Alan Rusbridger has recently done sterling work in exposing Sir Robbie’s role in the Conservative capture of the BBC. He describes him as “the most important journalist at the BBC, even though he doesn’t work there. And therefore he’s one of the most important journalists in the country”.
Rusbridger has pointed out Sir Robbie’s links with Downing Street and the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.
One former BBC journalist, who observed him closely when he was the Editor of the BBC’s Daily Politics programme, described Sir Robbie as being “obsessed with the Brexit agenda” long before the Cameron Government announced the referendum.
“He would tell output editors to get Farage and other right-wing figures on to peddle that agenda – at a time when its polling position just didn’t merit that amount of coverage,” the source said. “He would relentlessly drive the Brexit agenda and, because it was so extensively covered by the Daily Politics, other programmes – like Newsnight and Today – would pick it up and run with it. So when Brexit happened, Robbie thought that it was all down to him – and, in a way, it was.”
Internally, he was widely seen as a surly, humourless, individual who often scared subordinates into tiptoeing obedience. He was never popular at the BBC.
However, one source insisted that they “have a certain admiration for him”.
“He’s loathsome, but he’s a politically-motivated operator – and he operated,” they told Byline Times. “And he did it all flying under the radar and went almost completely unnoticed.”
Sir Robbie was later appointed as Prime Minister Theresa May’s director of communications and even given a knighthood for his services. The fact that he now sits on the BBC Board, and is part of a four-member committee tasked with ensuring BBC impartiality, is truly shocking.
But it is not at all surprising.
For his placement is all part of a plan that has been followed for two decades – a plan to keep the BBC timid, compliant and on-side.
Even as a general election defeat looms, the Conservatives are keeping up the pressure by attacking the BBC’s supposed lack of impartiality – at the same time as they turn a blind-eye to GB News, which boasts current Conservative MPs as regular paid ‘presenters’.
These are dangerous times for Ofcom and for the BBC. Both organisations risk being seen – if they are not already – as Conservative mouthpieces, at the precise moment when the polls suggest that the national mood is swinging strongly the other way.
The question is whether the BBC will carry on down this road of appeasement – and what challenges are in its way to changing course.
I'm afraid the BBC is lost. I stopped trusting their news reporting many years ago. My only consumption of their material are selected podcasts, like Science in Action (now closed down) and More or Less. I willingly pay my licence fee to support those parts of the BBC that have.not been corrupted. Their News and Current Affairs might as well be delegated to GB News.
Well researched and evidenced piece. Control of the news agenda has always been part of the Tory plan, and unfortunately under the Conservatives during the last 10 plus years they have succeeded. They have had a compliant press for decades, and it is a shame that they managed so easily to control the BBC.
The structural changes giving them control will be long lasting. It is ironic that this has come to fruition at the time when the Conservatives appear to be terminally wounded. However, I am sure that the Faragist supporters within the BBC will happily continue to prevent any return to independent thought.