BBC admits it was wrong on Cummings racism claims
A BBC documentary about Dominic Cummings did breach accuracy rules, the corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit has ruled.
Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story, presented by Emily Maitlis, suggested that Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser was prejudiced against Muslims.
The show ‘risked misleading viewers’ by taking out of context quotations about migration from a paper by a think-tank directed by Mr Cummings.
Taking Control, broadcast on BBC2 in March, reported f rom a 2005 paper called ‘How demographic decline and its f i nancial consequences will sink the European dream’.
It included the extract: ‘ The consequences of economic stagnation coinciding with rising Muslim immigration cannot fill anyone familiar with European history with anything other than a sense of apprehension, at least, about the future
‘In the middle of all the crazy stuff’
of the continent.’ But it was ruled this ‘tended to support the impression complained of’ – which was that Mr Cummings was prejudiced against Muslims.
In the judgment of the Executive Complaints Unit, the quotation ‘would have conveyed a different impression in the programme if more had been done to reflect its original context’.
They added: ‘As this risked misleading viewers, there was a breach of the BBC’s standards of accuracy, and this aspect of the complaint was upheld.’
Another row later erupted in May after presenter Miss Maitlis delivered a highly critical monologue on Newsnight about the Barnard Castle controversy.
Mr Cummings came under fire over his 260-mile trip from London to Durham after the start of the first national lockdown, and also claimed he drove to the castle to check his eyesight.
Miss Maitlis said he ‘broke the rules’ and had made the public ‘feel like fools’. She also accused Boris Johnson of showing ‘blind loyalty’ towards his adviser. There were reportedly more than 24,000 complaints over Miss Maitlis’ tirade. The BBC admitted the show ‘did not meet our standards of due impartiality’.
In the September issue of Tatler, the mother- of-two revealed that Mr Cummings – who resigned in November following internal battles about his role – had texted her with a message of support following the backlash.
She told the magazine: ‘It was peak surreal getting a message of support from him in the middle of all the crazy stuff.’
Just days after she made those comments on Newsnight, Miss Maitlis risked new accusations of bias after she appeared to mock Mr Johnson’s claim that he was ‘proud’ of the Government’s record on coronavirus.
In her introduction to a Newsnight episode at the beginning of June, Miss Maitlis referred to research that suggested the UK was currently the ‘world leader’ when it came to ‘excess deaths’ from Covid, pointedly adding: ‘Is that really something to be proud of?’