When the Spectator hosted a debate on Britain’s cancer crisis at the last Conservative party conference, the sponsor gave Editor Fraser Nelson a shocking ultimatum: drop Professor Karol Sikora or lose £25,000 in sponsorship. Fraser tells the story in the Spectator.
We want to discuss the questions that matter. A classic example was a debate in the last Tory conference: ‘How to fix Britain’s cancer crisis?’ The lineup was Elliot Colburn MP, vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, Dr. Katharine Halliday, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, Dr. Owen Jackson from Cancer Research U.K. and Prof Karol Sikora, perhaps Britain’s best-known oncologist. It was also sponsored.
But the sponsor had a condition: no Sikora. Why? We tried to be open-minded and work out the sponsor’s concerns. Fair enough if we had found a loudmouth doctor with no cancer experience, or a bad communicator. But Sikora’s credentials are impeccable. He’s eloquent, has 40 years’ experience and is a former director of the World Health Organisation’s Cancer Programme. The sponsor said he did not align with its “values”: that he was too controversial, too political. Again, odd: he has lambasted both Labour and Tories in the past so he’s hardly parti pris.
But he has been a critic of the NHS, and it soon became clear to me that this was the issue. The sponsor was an NHS supplier and leery about platforming an outspoken heavy-hitter likely to deliver a few home truths about NHS failings. I can see the logic: which NHS supplier can afford to annoy the NHS, a behemoth and number one purchaser of health services in the country? So we ended up with a choice: keep Sikora, or keep the £25,000 of sponsorship.
We could easily have dropped him. So sorry, professor, we have overbooked. Come back another time! All we’d have to do is go down to three panellists (plus the sponsor) or find another, bland oncologist. No one would ever know. But not for a second did we consider cancelling Sikora. The Spectator is about promoting wide and vibrant debate or it’s about nothing. How could we have a debate about Britain’s awful cancer rate without discussing the elephant in the room of NHS structure? I’d argue that the U.K.’s woeful cancer record is, in part, caused by a refusal to discuss such questions.
Fraser doesn’t mention it, but you have to wonder whether Prof. Sikora’s outspoken opposition to Covid lockdowns didn’t also play a part in the sponsor’s judgement that he did not align with its “values”.
Worth reading in full.
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Corporate fascism like this needs to have consequences for members of the bod, prison sentences and wealth stripping would be the appropriate penalties.
No platforming is the coward’s way out. We’ve seen far too much of this recently. I’m glad the spectator decided to invite him despite this.
It’s a pity they don’t name the sponsor and call them out for their blackmail. I doubt prison is the answer but shame and scorn might be.
Personal honour and integrity should be valued but many seem willing to overlook this when money and power are in play.
Had Boris Johnson still been editor of the Spectator he too would have shown the door promptly to the NHS supplier!!!
What puzzles me is why an external sponsor needs to stump up £25,000 for a debate attached to the Tory party conference, and why they thought an NHS supplier would be a good candidate for that given the obvious conflict of interest.
Who is this NHS supplier? We MUST start naming and shaming these people. It’s in the public’s interest to know who is engaged in censorship and bribery, which is what this is.
“The Spectator is about promoting wide and vibrant debate or it’s about nothing”
Fraser Nelson might try to take the moral high ground on this point, but The Spectator has not, to my knowledge, said anything negative about “the vaccines”, has an editorial line that seems to prohibit any questioning at all of the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential Election, argues that Jan 6 was indeed “an insurrection”, does not deviate from the mainstream narrative on the Ukraine war, etc, etc, etc.
In other words, we don’t buy your case, Fraser.
We gave up subscribing to the Spectator quite early on in the lockdowns because of this very thing.
Same here they never reported on any of the marches either. As far as I’m concerned they are the MSM especially as they are associated with The Telegraph both of whom were responsible for the scaremongering when this s**t show started. Craven to the core.
Please don’t use the word ‘vibrant’. Is that really a word that registers your thoughts. Do you go to bed or wake up in the morning wishing for vibrancy? I highly doubt it. It is one of those words used usually by the progressive brigade to describe behaviour or aesthetic conditions which jar with our sensibilities but shouldn’t if you’re a good person. What do you say to your wife – hello darling congratulations on the morning wash the colours are looking particularly vibrant today! If you said that to her then she has the right to go out and seek another man as far as I’m concerned.
While the world crumbles around us, the pedant is debating whether to insert a comma or semi-colon…
It is also used in conjunction with the 15 minute cities great reset agenda. ‘Inspiring vibrant local communities’ etc. They basically mean neutered and powerless for reasons that they ken are beyond our understanding: a simple sleight of hand for anyone who is gullible enough.
Name and shame the supplier please Spectator, we need to know.