{"id":80875,"date":"2025-08-20T19:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80875\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T19:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:44:08","slug":"protect-bbcs-independence-in-case-of-farage-government-ex-news-head-urges-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/80875\/","title":{"rendered":"Protect BBC\u2019s independence in case of Farage government, ex-news head urges | BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC<\/a> must be given complete political independence in case Nigel Farage enters government, its former director of news has said.<\/p>\n

James Harding, now the editor-in-chief of the Observer, pointed to Donald Trump\u2019s attempts to defund publicly backed US media and said it would be \u201crecklessly complacent\u201d to believe something similar could not happen in Britain.<\/p>\n

He said the BBC\u2019s survival was at stake and noted that Reform\u2019s last manifesto had claimed the \u201cout-of-touch wasteful BBC is institutionally biased. The TV licence is taxation without representation. We will scrap it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harding said: \u201cIn other words, the one-time reality TV star who leads Reform has some bracing reality in store for TV. It\u2019s recklessly complacent to ignore it. What\u2019s happened in the US is, as likely as not, going to happen here. We have to address this now.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments come with Reform consistently leading in the polls and fears within Labour and the Conservatives about its rise.<\/p>\n

Harding called for a complete overhaul of the BBC\u2019s political and financial independence, including the end of a regime under which the corporation enters negotiations over the renewal of its charter every 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extraordinary, when you think about it, that if parliament chooses not to renew the royal charter in 2027, the BBC will cease to exist,\u201d he said. \u201cThe BBC, which politicians can\u2019t help but keep on a leash, is, in effect, on a 10-year rolling contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical interference \u2013 and the perception of a political presence looming over the BBC \u2013 is a problem, one that we\u2019ve got too accustomed to. And it looks likely to get worse. We need to get on with putting the country\u2019s most important editorial and creative organisation beyond the reach of politicians now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harding issued his plea as he delivered the annual MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh television festival. He said the prime minister should be stripped of the power to pick the corporation\u2019s chair and board. Instead, he said, it should operate like other corporations, in which the board selects the chair, with the approval of the communications watchdog, Ofcom.<\/p>\n

He also called for the BBC\u2019s charter to be open-ended, like that of the Bank of England, with the licence fee or any future funding arrangement not decided \u201cbehind closed doors\u201d by the culture secretary and the chancellor, but by an independent commission that advises the government and is scrutinised by parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cBBC independence means giving it the resources it needs, not freezing its funding yet again, but doubling down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver five years, nearly 2.5 million households have dropped out of paying the licence fee, so this needs fixing. It\u2019s expensive and unfair on those who pay. If we believe in the universality of the BBC, we need to return to the principle in some form or other that every household pays.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The former Times editor also said the BBC should \u201clead the way in striking deals with generative AI companies on meaningful pricing of its reliable, ceaselessly renewed library of content\u201d.<\/p>\n

Harding, who is Jewish, said he did not believe the BBC was \u201cinstitutionally antisemitic\u201d, as some have claimed after a series of rows over its handling of Gaza coverage.<\/p>\n

He criticised the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, for her repeated attacks on the BBC director general, Tim Davie, after the BBC\u2019s admission that a Gaza documentary breached accuracy guidelines and its livestreaming of Bob Vylan\u2019s Glastonbury set, which included chants of \u201cdeath to the IDF\u201d, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever your view of the hate speech v freedom of speech issues, an overbearing government minister doesn\u2019t help anyone,\u201d Harding said. \u201cThe hiring and firing of the editor-in-chief of the country\u2019s leading newsroom and cultural organisation should not be the job of a politician. It\u2019s chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC must be given complete political independence in case Nigel Farage enters government, its former director of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-80875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}