A leaked recording reveals the BBC’s Director General Tim Davie expressing pride in the corporation’s progressive agenda, stoking the ongoing debate over the Beeb’s impartiality. The Telegraph has the story.
In a leaked recording, Tim Davie said the BBC walked a “joyous tightrope of the culture wars”, and said “being progressive” was something staff “should be proud of”.
He made the remarks during an online question and answer session with employees, in which he said the corporation was “fair and balanced technically in terms of impartiality” in its coverage and did not have “party political bias”.
However, critics of the BBC reacted angrily to Mr. Davie’s comments, which came to light after the Telegraph acquired footage of the meeting in January 2021, claiming they amounted to a political position.
In the recording, a BBC employee told Mr. Davie there was “a real perception out there that we haven’t done enough to tackle impartiality, that we need to ‘de-woke’,” and asked him: “How would you respond to that?”.
Mr. Davie said: “We do a reasonably good job of walking along the joyous tightrope of the culture wars where, being progressive, diverse, doing the things we should be proud of, is not woke. But meanwhile, we’ve got to make sure that we are clearly representing views from across the board.”
Responding to the Telegraph’s findings, a BBC spokesman said the Director General meant progressive “in relation to areas like market-led technological change” and that “any other interpretation is wrong”.
Dame Priti Patel, a former Home Secretary, told the Telegraph: “The BBC once again have serious questions to answer over their political bias and culture.
“The public expects this taxpayer-funded broadcaster to be impartial, balanced and fair. But these latest revelations show they are obsessed with promoting a liberal metropolitan elitist agenda that most of the country disapproves of.”
Worth reading in full.
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The usual sleight of hand of the wucksters: Their political opinions are not politcal opinions because they represent the universal good and their opponents don’t have political opinions, either, they just represent universal evil. This obviously implies that opinions, ie, different interpretations of things rational people can disagree on, simply don’t exist for these people. They’re living in a Star Wars universe where the forces of light and darkness forever battle each other because they’re natural enemies.
It’s amazing how seriously primitive the beliefs of these supposedly highly-educated people are.
A very astute summation.
Yes, the weasel interprets impartiality as having no ‘party-political bias’ because progressivism obviously isn’t political, it’s a battle against the forces of darkness (i.e. us)
Labour, Lib Dem, Green political background? No, Tory!
Davie unsuccessfully stood as a councillor for the Conservative Party in the Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council elections in 1993 and 1994 and was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Association in the 1990s.
Perhaps if Davie is typical of many of the professional and managerial class attracted to the Tory party at that time, it may, in some small way, partly explain the leftwards lurch of this wretched duplicitous party.
I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it till I’m blue in the face: if you’re on here bleating about the BBC, but still paying your propaganda license fee, then you should be ashamed of yourself. No ifs, no buts.
I take your point, but the Licence fee is for watching live TV and not just the BBC. This is what is so unfair as I never watch the BBC but must pay to watch live sport on ITV or Ch 4. Subscription would be much fairer as the BBC has no need of our money as they are funded by the EU and people like Bill G.
There’s no need for that.
We need to know our enemy – and as someone else stated, we are required to pay the tax to watch other broadcast TV.
Well said! I haven’t paid mine for 15 years or more now.
There are also those of us who are moderately keen to maintain the status quo in homes in which husband and wife don’t agree about the seriousness of the BBC ‘problem’. My wife knows the BBC are biased but she just isn’t as bothered about it as I am. I think that the BBC is one of the most influential and embedded organisations there’s ever been, and their appalling bias makes me want to hurl the tv out of window; but I’d be hurling my wife out of window too – and she’s actually a rather good egg in most ways. So I hold my nose and dash through the room housing the idiot box, and my wife sometimes just rolls her eyes, sometimes gets angry, and just occasionally agrees (although she doesn’t agree as much as I’d like her to). This unpleasant situation doesn’t preclude me from giving others a full and frank account of my views. See how it works, sometimes?
Well how they can have party political bias when all the major parties are essentially the same?
Did anyone notice Davie admitting multiculturalism is now a big problem?
So we are in a multicultural war and Davie confirms it.
If he were a Tory then Labour would insist he is racist and have the whip withdrawn.
I think he’s only comfortable saying that because he is sure his side will win. Let’s see.
At £10,000 per week he is hardly going to criticize the Public disservice broadcaster he is in the directorship of, is he? He is just looking after his salary and pension whilst working for an organisation that is so overwhelmed by their own superiority that he nor they can see any flaw in it.
Years ago when John Birt was making BBC staff redundant in droves one of the commercial TV networks added to their job ads “ex BBC need not apply”. Thus making the point about the lack of superiority of BBC staff.
[from memory it was either Thames or LWT].
In an interview with Tory chinless wonder Dowden, Laura Kuenssberg corners him with a question about how his party is not doing enough to tackle Islamophobia. obviously this is in connection with Tory Tin man Anderson;s comments on Citizen Kahn. Instead of answering logically. Well the two are very different.anti-semitism is a primitive engrained hatred of Jewish people their nation and culture. Islamophobia is a well-grounded suspicion of radical Islam and its enablers. It’s an evidenced attack on western culture and people. Tell her that the murder of 200 plus Jewish civilians and the kidnapping of more. Constitutes a special crime executed by the Islamist terror group Hammas. A group the BBC uses language games to opt out of calling by its name. Go back to 9/11 and 7/7, to Glasgow Airport, Manchester Arena London Bridge, the David Amess Murder and the hounding of Mike Freer. . Mention Batley and the teacher in hiding, , the boy who scuffed the Koran and had to sit while a peasant imam made him and his mum uncomfortable. All while the police sat watch not over the Islamist but the reaction of the community. Mention that as the Shawcross report explains, prevent is focused on not following up the real terrorists the islamists. Please do it. Do not run away the next time. Islamophobia is a ideological construct designed to create terror over words.
Has anyone noticed that Laura Kuenssberg’s mouth is wonky when she speaks? One side is lower than the other.
Very odd.
Physiological presumably – not political trait?
as a Conservative PM appointed him we can be reassured this is what they want.
all their candidates who try to proclaim their opposition to wokery are not to be trusted. Sadly all the traditional stuck in the mud Tories will believe them when they claim to believe what we do.
A Conservative Party PM
Ah, BBC started their ‘don’t give a shit’ campaign now they expect their true love, Labour (communists in disguise), to come to power. Evil, socialist bstards broadcasting communist sh1te 24-7.
3+ years ago I complained to the BBC saying they would have blood on their hands because of the covid/vax/lockdown propaganda..
A coherent response was there none – (same as I told the Guardian, but at least the Beeb didn’t ban me).
Tim Davie et al, may you rot in Hell.
Just seen BBC report which claims different boroughs in London have different outcomes for female abuse due to better involvement by councils. Clearly both rubbish and encourages differences.
Also just seen a long report with smiling reporters (unusual) which describes a different Ramadan economy in London. No white faces.
segregationalist?
Racist?
Yet all the time people argue with me in places like this that the BBC are not left wing. They think anyone who says the BBC are biased towards the Liberal Progressive World View are “right wing extremists”, so I am glad to see this twerp freely admits what me and everyone else with any kind of observational skills has known for a very long time. That Liberal Progressives at the BBC see themselves as the good guys and anyone to the right of centre should be criminalised and their point of view should be shunned by all of polite society. ———It is apparently the Progressive State broadcasters role to decide for us that Obama and Biden are good, but Trump is bad, and that Palestine is good but Israel is bad. But what they forget is that all license fee payers are not Liberal Progressives. Stick to being “impartial please”. Because if you continue thinking you should be “proud to be progessive” then you deserve to have that license fee abolished and you can go and live in the real world for a change.
Why is it everyone knows the bbc is a joke, except this guy? Have not watched tv in four years. Have not missed it, do not intend to start watching any time soon.