Former BBC staffers have expressed concerns about the leaked WhatsApp and email messages suggesting the corporation bowed to pressure from No 10 to avoid using the word “lockdown” at the start of the pandemic and to turn up criticism of Labour.
Rob Burley, a former senior editor in charge of political programmes, described the messages as “very troubling” while veteran BBC journalist John Simpson stressed that it was “not our job to do Downing Street’s bidding”.
The messages revealed by the Guardian on Tuesday date from 2020 to 2022, and show the BBC coming under pressure from No 10 over the corporation’s political reporting.
One email shows a senior editor informing correspondents that Downing Street was requesting them not to use the word “lockdown” in relation to the shutdown ordered by Boris Johnson on 23 March 2020 – the day the first lockdown was announced.
Another WhatsApp message asked correspondents to “turn up the scepticism a bit” towards Labour after a complaint from Downing Street that the corporation was not reflecting the “mess” of the opposition’s call for plan B Covid measures.
Burley said the messages were “very troubling evidence of the way that BBC executives operate in relation to government and how they put pressure on journalists to reflect the No 10 line”.
“This goes to the heart of it and needs investigation,” he added.
He said the “most troubling aspect of this is that these messages suggest that the political news team were not just made aware of Downing Street’s view but encouraged to reflect it as the BBC view … That’s pretty scandalous”.
Burley, who is now editor of Beth Rigby Interviews on Sky News, was formerly responsible for BBC live political programmes such as The Andrew Marr Show, Daily Politics and This Week.
He added: “When I was at the BBC there was a distinction between the political news team and political programmes which I ran. I avoided interaction with No 10 and certainly never discouraged programmes to cover issues that annoyed them.
“I left when the BBC ended this important distinction and merged news with programmes all with the same bosses. So from 2021 onwards programmes were less protected from political interference like this because they became part of the news operation discussed by the Guardian.”
Jon Sopel, a former North America editor and ex-chief political correspondent for the BBC, who now works for LBC, tweeted that the leaked messages were “not a good look – really”. Emily Maitlis, the former BBC Newsnight presenter who left for LBC to present a podcast with Sopel, also retweeted the report.
John Simpson, the veteran BBC world affairs journalist, commented on the leaks on Twitter, saying: “No surprise about the pressure – it’s always there. But the BBC’s own rules on impartiality require us to stand up to this pressure robustly at all times. If we don’t, we’re not doing our job properly; and it’s not our job to do Downing Street’s bidding.”
In response to the report, a BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC makes its own independent editorial decisions and none of these messages show otherwise.
“Like all news organisations, we are frequently contacted by representatives from all political parties. Selective out of context messages from a colleagues’ WhatsApp group and email do not give an accurate reflection of the BBC’s editorial decision making.”
The BBC’s ability to withstand criticism from the government has been under scrutiny in recent days after the suspension of football commentator Gary Lineker for a tweet likening No 10’s policy on refugees crossing the Channel to the language of Nazi Germany.
The episode has raised questions over the director-general, Tim Davie, who has espoused a policy of strict impartiality. The drive for impartiality has coincided with an exodus of top BBC journalists, with some frustrated with the way the management was interpreting this policy.
At prime minister’s questions, Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, questioned the government’s handling of the Lineker fiasco, which saw backbench Tory MPs demand that he be taken off air.
He asked Rishi Sunak: “Does he accept that people’s concerns about the BBC have been made worse because the government chose to put [Richard Sharp], a Tory donor with no broadcasting experience in charge of the BBC?”
Sunak replied: “As he well knows, the BBC chairman was appointed before I became prime minister.”
Starmer said Sharp has been described as a “mentor” to Sunak, adding: “He helped to arrange an £800,000 credit line for the former prime minister [Boris Johnson], a minor detail he forgot to tell the select committee which scrutinised his appointment.
“Does the prime minister think that his friend’s position is still tenable?”
Rishi Sunak insisted there was a “rigorous independent and well-established process” for appointing Sharp and that the process of reviewing his appointment was “independent”, adding: “Instead of pre-judging, and pre-empting that review we should let it conclude and wait for the outcome.”
