The noble Lord agrees with me; how brilliant. But, if the BBC is to be of value in the UK, we—its supporters—need to stop being defensive and accept that all grievances are not whipped up by devious political ideologues but arise from perfectly legitimate concerns from the public about impartiality.
Traditionally, a way of judging impartiality was the pride with which impartial broadcasters could boast that no one would know how they voted—their opinions were kept under wraps. But, today, the sense of compromised impartiality is the perception of groupthink at the BBC—not from party politics but from the embrace of values assumed to be incontestable but actually politically partisan and ideologically contentious, such as the BBC’s internalisation of identity politics.
Recently, the BBC’s director of creative diversity, earning a cool £250,000 a year, introduced an allyship training scheme and stated on the BBC website:
“build back better to ensure diversity and inclusion is baked into the ‘new normal’ once the crisis has passed.”
I emphasise the phrases “baked in” and “new normal”. Imagine, then, trying to be staff member in that BBC department who wanted to challenge its decision to spend £100 million on a drive for diversity and inclusion in response to the Black Lives Matter protest. Such an approach does not include but excludes those who disagree—diversity is never diversity of opinion. Try also being a gender-critical feminist working at the BBC—there are many, but they know to keep schtum. I even know people who work at the BBC who voted to leave the European Union, but they could not come out and remain secret Brexiteers to this day. That is how groupthink works: not everyone agrees, but everyone knows the narrative that you are expected to follow.
The embrace of such orthodoxies is rarely spotted as a threat to the impartiality of BBC output, but it is a new and very present danger. Why did no one at the BBC notice the danger to editorial independence when the corporation signed up to a partisan lobbying NGO such as Stonewall? This was so well documented and eventually revealed, despite pressure to drop it, by the Stephen Nolan podcast series—an example of BBC investigative journalism at its finest.
Yet, even now, BBC senior management has announced that it is working with another external organisation—Involve—on trans-inclusive policies, although Maya Forstater, co-founder of Sex Matters, has warned that it might be
“Stonewall in all but name”.
Kate Harris from the LGB Alliance has cautioned:
“For the sake of the BBC, its reputation and its audience, it must be open about the exact nature of the relationship and how it will safeguard its editorial independence.”
On another issue, do not alarm bells sound when we see a corporate logo for Albert pasted at the end of current affairs programmes, such as “Newsnight”? I was intrigued and looked it up, and I found out that the BBC has signed up to an initiative in which media organisations pledge to use their content to help audiences tackle climate change and inform sustainable choices. Tim Davie is quoted on Albert’s website, saying:
“At the BBC we will continue to tell the stories that matter ... or help audiences consider greener choices through our best loved shows like EastEnders”.
Is it any wonder that sections of the public will feel patronised, denied choice, lectured and nudged to embrace one true political outlook? That is not impartiality in my book.
To conclude: like the right reverend Prelate, who I welcome here and who gave an excellent, original and thoughtful contribution to today’s debate, I worry about some of the toxic trends in the public square. However, I worry that it is identity politics that is so tearing apart the public square and that it is the groupthink approach to fashionable political causes that threatens diversity of opinion. I hope the BBC will stop succumbing to both.
1.15 pm