The Real BBC ‘Impartiality Crisis’ Is Its Constant Platforming of Hard Right Tufton Street Think Tanks

The BBC is constantly accused by its critics in the right-wing press of being biased to the left and “woke”.

In reality, any bias is in a quite different direction, with a growing perception that its news agenda too often shadows that of the Conservative press and that its panels are regularly stuffed with pundits from the self-same right-wing newspapers and Tufton Street pressure groups

And that’s without mentioning it apparently taking every opportunity to platform Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and now Tim Montgomerie — in spite of Reform UK having a mere five parliamentary seats.

But there again, as Farage is, according to BBC political editor Chris Mason, “a master of political storytelling”, the BBC perhaps see his yarn spinning, however poisonous, as being good for audience numbers and thus not to be discouraged.  

Faced with this criticism, the BBC recently undertook a consultation on its draft Editorial Guidelines in which much was made of the issue of “impartiality”.

The Consultation Document notes that:

The scope and prominence of impartiality in BBC terms has changed significantly since the publication of the current guidelines, with evolving applications well beyond politics, public policy and other areas which used to encompass what were seen as ‘controversial issues’ 

Of course, one of the main reasons why this has happened, although the BBC doesn’t say so in so many words, is because the culture wars have gifted the traditional enemies of the BBC, who have long accused it of being overly liberal, with the perfect opportunity to yoke their cause to the anti-“woke” bandwagon. 

It is thus extremely disturbing to find the consultation appearing to cede ground to these culture warriors by stating that: “The guideline on breadth of opinion has been expanded and recognises that appropriate breadth and diversity, combined with freedom of expression, may mean the inclusion of views some in the audience find offensive”.

It also notes that: The section on ‘Contentious Views and Possible Offence’ now puts greater emphasis on freedom of expression and the need to sometimes take into account impartiality in judgements about ‘offence’, which itself may now encompass issues beyond, for instance, extreme political views.

The problem here is that both offensiveness and freedom of expression have been comprehensively weaponised by the culture warriors. Those who argue for the regulation of certain kinds of speech generally do so not because they find such speech offensive but because, among other things, it stirs up hatred and division, propagates disinformation or is used to harass, bully and threaten.

Calls for its regulation are then characterised by the likes of the Free Speech Union and Elon Musk as demands for censorship, which has now shifted from being a concern primarily of liberals to becoming a hobby horse of the libertarian right. In doing so it has essentially mutated into a demand for consequence-free speech and for those who object to such speech, or are victims of it, to shut up. 

It would thus be more than unfortunate if the BBC were to follow the line of Ofcom, which has allowed GB News to drive a coach and horses through the impartiality clauses in its Broadcasting Code in the name of a half-baked libertarian conception of freedom of expression.

One really does not have to have read Sir Isaiah Berlin (or more recently Timothy Snyder) to understand the importance of freedom from, as well as freedom to; indeed the distinction is absolutely fundamental to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which makes it abundantly clear that the right to freedom of expression is not unqualified but has to be weighed in the balance with other rights. 

Concerns about impartiality also lead to ‘guidelines’ to take on the matter of the affiliations of contributors to BBC programmes, such as interviewees or panel members. In this respect they note that in the case of those from organisations such as “charities, think-tanks or universities, it may be necessary, when relevant, to give appropriate information about affiliations, funding or particular viewpoints. The same applies to individual researchers, journalists, scientists or other experts”.

They are also concerned with the degree of scrutiny that should be applied to contributors, arguing that: assessing levels of appropriate scrutiny should be based on the degree of power, responsibility and accountability of the contributor. Appropriate levels of scrutiny should be applied to those who are in Government, as well as other bodies or organisations holding power and responsibility; but appropriate scrutiny should also be applied to those who oppose or seek to influence, including opposition parties, campaigners, experts and academics.  

Although journalists are mentioned only once here, this flies in the face of the fact that, when it comes to contributors’ affiliations, there is a great deal of concern about what many feel is the over-representation of journalists from right-wing media on BBC programmes.

This was raised recently by researchers from Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture, who analysed the composition specifically of Question Time panels from 2014 to 2023. As far as journalists were concerned, those that appeared most frequently were:

• Isabel Oakeshott, TalkTV: 13
• Julia Hartley-Brewer, Talkradio: 13
• Kate Andrews, Spectator: 12
• Tim Stanley, Telegraph: 12.  
• Camilla Tominey, Telegraph, GB News: 10    
• Fraser Nelson, Spectator: 7
• Melanie Philips, The Times: 7      
• Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday: 7

It needs to be borne in mind, however, that the above list doesn’t give a full picture of these contributors’ right-wing journalistic activity, as some contribute to more than one publication. For example Nelson, Oakeshott and Andrews all write for the Telegraph as well. 

What is so notable about this list is that contains no journalists from the left, or even the centre- left, of the political spectrum. The most frequent contributor from the left was Ash Sarkar from Novara Media, who appeared six times.

Of course, this mirrors the extremely heavy dominance of right-wing titles in the national press, but this immediately raises the key question of whether the BBC should be replicating this by inviting so many of its journalists onto its panels, particularly those devoid of the equivalent countervailing forces from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

After all, one way in which the impartiality with which the BBC is so concerned can be achieved is by balancing opposing views, but this does not appear to be happening as a matter of course when it comes to the journalistic make-up of BBC panels.

Of course, newspaper journalists, particularly specialist correspondents, can make extremely valuable contributions to broadcasting. However, none of those listed above fall into this category.

Columnists such as Melanie Phillips (also a regular on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze) may adopt an authoritative-sounding ex cathedra tone but she is first and foremost a commentator rather than a specialist reporter, and so is writing in exactly the same journalistic genre as Richard Littlejohn or Alison Pearson.

OK — she’s also written books, but their quality can be judged by her publication All Must Have Prizes, which Colin MacCabe dismissed as “a book for our media age, in which opinion is all, knowledge nothing and the niche marketing of prejudice has reached a fine art”.

In this context it’s also worth recalling Financial Times contributing editor Jon Lloyd citing Washington Post and CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria to the effect that liberal journalists are often journalists first and liberals second, but that conservative journalists are conservatives first and journalists second, something which BBC panel bookers would do well to remember. 

As noted earlier, the Guidelines state that the degree of scrutiny applied to programme contributors “should be based on the degree of power, responsibility and accountability of the contributor”.

Yet the journalists listed above work for what many regard as some of the most powerful, irresponsible and unaccountable media organisations in the country and express their views entirely unchallenged in their columns. Such behaviour should not be permitted to be replicated on the BBC.

Admittedly programme chairs do sometimes intervene, but all too often it is left to another panel member to challenge the veracity and authority of the columnist (thereby running the risk of being labelled ‘difficult’ and not invited back on the programme).  

Much the same issues are raised by the amount of times that representatives of right-wing think tanks appear on BBC programmes. 

As Byline Times repeatedly reports, the past fifteen years have seen a massive growth of think tanks, particularly on the political right. Of course, not all think tanks are right-wing: some are studiously politically neutral, such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies or Chatham House, and some are left-leaning, such as the Institute for Public Policy Research or the Electoral Reform Society.

However, on the right, new entrants such as Policy Exchange and the Legatum Institute have joined older but newly-reinvigorated players such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute. 

In a 2017 issue of Journalism Studies, Justin Lewis and Stephen Cushion of the University of Cardiff  demonstrated that between 2009 and 2015 there was a clear shift to the right in the BBC’s choice of the think tanks whose work it cited.

As they explained: In 2009, there was a broad balance between left and right think tanks – left-leaning think tanks receiving 16.5% of think-tank references and right-leaning think tanks receiving 18%.

In 2015, references to right-leaning think tanks remain at a similar level (16.2%) while references to left-leaning think tanks are halved to just 8.5%. To put it into a broad political context, when Labour was in power, the BBC’s use of think tanks was relatively even-handed, but when a Conservative-led coalition was in power, the centre of gravity shifted to the political right.

Since that work was carried out, during the years in which the Conservatives ruled alone, right-wing think tanks, and particularly those clustered around the Tufton Street archipelago, have become increasingly powerful, vocal and more visible — not to mention, in some cases, distinctly richer.

New research needs to be done on the extent of their profile on the BBC, both in terms of references to their work and their members’ participation on panels.

It should also be pointed out that several of the journalists mentioned above have close links with these think tanks, and that their papers regularly and uncritically reference and reproduce their work. The effect is of an echo chamber, or hall of mirrors.

The BBC’s various uses of think tanks and their representatives raise a number of crucial issues in relation to the impartiality guidelines. As mentioned earlier, the Consultation states that in the case of contributors from organisations such as “charities, think-tanks or universities, it may be necessary, when relevant, to give appropriate information about affiliations, funding or particular viewpoints”.

But whilst it is indeed the case that BBC presenters do sometimes refer to a think tank as right-or left-leaning, and, in the case of the former, as free market, they do not always do so.

However, even if they did, it would be very far from sufficient, because what really needs to be made clear is whether the body concerned is a bona fide think tank or in fact a lobbyist.

These groups are extremely well-funded, albeit from highly opaque sources in most cases, and, as noted earlier, enjoy a symbiotic relationship with right-wing newspapers which are always ready to highlight their findings. This means that such work can quite easily achieve a media prominence that is out of all proportion to its worth and validity, having effectively bought itself into the marketplace of ideas. 

This is not to suggest that the think tanks in question enjoy the same relationship with the BBC as they do with their press allies, but the BBC needs to be exceptionally cautious in how it references their work and how they use their representatives on panels.

Not only should they be described as lobbyists, where appropriate, but also their funding sources (or lack of transparency about them) needs to be made clear.

This is particularly the case when it is relevant to the subjects under discussion — for example, climate change, given how the fossil fuel industry has been found to fund some of these organisations. And if a think tank objects, they simply shouldn’t be invited on.

The BBC’s revision of its Editorial Guidelines comes amid a barrage of allegations from the right-wing press that it is a “woke” organisation.

However, I would argue that the BBC’s real, but unacknowledged, problem when it comes to maintaining impartiality is its presence in a media ecology in which right-wing newspapers, in spite of dramatically falling sales, remain such a dominant influence (and have now been joined by GB News).

By privileging this section of the nation’s media as a prime source of news and opinion, and doing so in ways that reflect and amplify its biases rather than filtering them, the BBC simply risks being dragged along in its political and ideological slipstream, thus calling into question its much-vaunted claim to impartiality.

Any changes to the existing Guidelines in this area should be based on a clear understanding of how stories emerge in the media ecology which the BBC inhabits, and how they should be balanced and explained by a public service broadcaster.