Shooting itself in both feet - how the BBC deepened its own crisis.
The fiasco of Gary Lineker’s tweets demonstrates the intense political pressure the BBC is under — and how frequently it buckles.
It’s ironic that, so soon after winning his voice back, Gary Lineker should literally lose his voice and have to step back from presenting BBC football coverage — for the second time.
The row over his tweets once again demonstrated the BBC’s spectacular ability to shoot itself in both feet, turning a difficult situation into a full-blown crisis.
And while it appears ridiculous for a global broadcaster to be brought to its knees in an argument with a former footballer turned presenter, it raises some deeper issues about the BBC, its current management and the way the organisation is being run.
There is nothing new about governments fighting with the BBC. Within months of becoming a public corporation in 1926, the government was trying to dictate the terms of news coverage during the General Strike.
In the early days of the Second World War, Winston Churchill considered taking full control of the BBC, co-opting it as an arm of British wartime propaganda, and was only dissuaded by the argument that it was exactly the kind of thing being done in Germany.
In the 1960s, Labour prime minister Harold Wilson would sporadically refuse to speak to the BBC, convinced it was stuffed with Tories. And in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s government was in a near-constant battle with the BBC over coverage of the Falklands, Northern Ireland and countless other issues.
So, political rows aren’t anything new. And neither, by the way, is the idea of the governing party stuffing the top of the BBC with its mates. Wilson, Thatcher and Tony Blair all did it as well.
What’s different this time, and what makes the seemingly ludicrous Lineker row more dangerous, is the changes in the way the BBC is run.
The old system had two boards — managers who actually ran the BBC from day to day, and governors, who had oversight but critically not editorial control.
Now the BBC has a single, unified board, combining managers with political appointees. This has made those editorial lines of control more opaque, and created a series of worrying situations.
The (current) chairman, Richard Sharp, a large-scale donor to the Conservative Party, puts himself on interview panels for senior roles in BBC News. Robbie Gibb, a former Downing Street director of communications, tries to have senior appointments blocked while roving around Broadcasting House, offering unsolicited advice.
People with very clear ties to the governing party are now overtly attempting to exert editorial control over the BBC, in ways that would never have been acceptable in the past.
This has justifiably enraged any number of people who keep watch on the corporation’s activities. But they frequently ignore another big change — the terror inside the BBC of getting into trouble, of finding itself in the headlines.
This has made the corporation exceptionally risk-averse and jumpy, and leaves it like a rabbit in the headlights when a tricky situation arises. As we’ve just seen.
The roots of this nervousness lie in a few past issues. Scandals like the one around Jimmy Savile, or Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’ phone call, triggered huge public fury, amplified through social media.
A mainstream media that is almost universally hostile to the BBC then fans the flames, and politicians — spotting a bandwagon — jump on board, making the situation even worse.
The BBC used to be protected, to an extent, by the knowledge that the public broadly respected and trusted it, and certainly placed more trust in the BBC than in the politicians that attacked it. But it can’t take that level of support for granted any more. The tiniest thing can become an out-of-control tempest in less than 24 hours, and the fear of what might happen frequently cripples the BBC’s response.
This public pressure comes on top of the BBC’s long-standing fear of taking on governments. It’s always easier to buckle than to resist. Look what happened the last time the BBC tried to stand up for its journalists and its journalism — the row with Labour over the Iraq war dossier twenty years ago.
That ended in a man’s death, a monstering from the establishment through the Hutton Report, and a crisis that cost the BBC both its Chairman and Director General.
Ever since then it’s been timid and nervous, unwilling to fight back against government pressure.
Most of the time it’s been timid in the face of Conservative governments, but the roots were laid under Labour — in some cases by people who now loudly decry the BBC’s craven attitude to the Tories, but who relentlessly bullied the BBC to bend to their will 20 years earlier.
Both sides are guilty of using the BBC as a punchbag when it suits them.
So, what’s the solution? How can you create a strong, independent BBC that is fearless in its journalism but also committed to impartiality?
It has to start with proper independence from government, regardless of the party in power. While the BBC must be accountable to the public and to parliament, it cannot be right that ministers can arbitrarily control its finances, or the charter that secures its existence, and use it as a form of coercive control.
A properly independent, politically balanced body needs to sit between the BBC and the government, making sure the BBC is doing its job, and making sure it does so free of political interference and bullying.
Would any party — Labour or Conservative, really be willing to surrender that level of control? Deep down, wouldn’t they want to retain the capacity to bully the BBC?
Meanwhile, the corporation itself has to change as well. Political appointees must be kept away from editorial decision making. If the lowliest BBC staff are to be held to tough impartiality standards, then people at the top should be treated no differently.
And if Gary Lineker has to be suspended for sending a tweet, then a Chairman who donated £400,000 to the party that appointed him to the role, and concealed information about helping to arrange an even bigger loan for the prime minister whose patronage he sought, cannot possibly remain in his post.
