BBC ‘IDIOTIC’ TO BAN PROMS SINGING

Ex-chairman says Auntie’s ‘lost touch with country’ as Rule Britannia lyrics dropped

A FORMER chairman of the BBC yesterday warned it had ‘lost touch with the country’ as Tory MPs said the Last Night of the Proms row had reignited the debate over its future.

Lord Grade condemned the decision to perform Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory without the words as ‘idiotic’.

The anthems, which are usually sung, will be replaced with orchestral versions at the audience-free finale next month after claims that they celebrate an era of colonialism and slavery. As his backbenchers issued warnings about the broadcaster’s future, Boris Johnson yesterday insisted it was acceptable to sing the words.

The BBC decision also prompted a successful protest that propelled a version of Land of Hope and Glory by the late Dame Vera Lynn to the top of the pop charts.

Lord Grade yesterday branded the BBC’s decision to axe the lyrics a ‘ ghastly mistake which shows how out of touch they are with their audience’. He told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I would defend the BBC’s right to make decisions free of political influence but it is clearly a mistake – it’s just idiotic.’

The Tory peer said the BBC had shown ‘time and time again’ how it was disconnected from the country, particularly over the Brexit referendum and last year’s election when the Tories won an 80-seat majority.

‘They are too trapped in the Westminster bubble,’ he said.

He said new director general Tim Davie, who takes over next week, must ‘take a long hard look’ at the BBC and ‘come up with a definition and a role’ for it in today’s world.

In a speech yesterday at a school in Leicestershire, the Prime Minister cited the debate around Rule Britannia as an example of a concept that teachers could explain to pupils once they were back in the classroom.

‘Is it politically acceptable to sing Rule Britannia? Yes,’ he said.

Tory backbenchers yesterday voiced their fury at the BBC. Gareth Bacon, elected MP for Orpington in Kent last year, accused the broadcaster of being ‘anti-British’.

He said: ‘At a time when the BBC is funded through compulsory taxation with a prison sentence a possibility if you do not pay, we need to have a debate about the continuation of the licence fee.’ Andrew Lewer, the MP for Northampton South elected in 2017 said: ‘The spectacle of a metropolitan elite seeking to dismantle British culture is distasteful enough.

‘To have this paid for by a compulsory levy on the British population for owning a television takes it to a different level.’

Though some MPs would simply write to the BBC about ‘this latest “woke” outrage’ he warned: ‘Many others are beyond that now and instead are discussing its future’.

Damian Collins, a former chairman of the culture select committee, said: ‘Great words and music that become part of our national culture, based on the significance people have attached to them over many years, often centuries, should not be lightly discarded.’

A senior BBC source last night said they did not believe the same decision would have been made if Mr Davie had already in post.

‘This has been badly mishandled,’ they added.

Last night a friend of Finnish conductor Dalia Staveska, who is to lead the Last Night of the Proms, said that it was not her decision to drop the lyrics and she was ‘ heartbroken’ by personal attacks directed at her.

‘It is frightening, unpleasant, scary stuff,’ the source added.

‘A ghastly mistake’