BBC ‘broke its own rules’ after Davies’s Baftas rant
HE’S inked in to write the 60th anniversary series of Doctor Who, but Russell T. Davies is already generating headlines for the BBC — though not perhaps quite in the way the Corporation desires.
Indeed, I can reveal that the BBC has conceded it broke its own rules governing political impartiality when it screened Davies’s latest anti-Tory rant. Speaking at the Baftas in May, at which his Channel 4 series It’s A Sin was nominated for several awards, Davies said it ‘was made on a channel that the Government’s going to sell off ’.
Added Davies, who appeared on the red carpet alongside Ncuti Gatwa, newly announced as the 14th Doctor Who: ‘They’re also planning to get rid of the BBC licence fee, so if you like shows like this — go and vote differently, that’s what I say.’
His comments, screened in a report on the BBC News Channel, prompted a viewer to complain that they had not been ‘put into proper context’ and were, therefore, in breach of the BBC’s commitment to impartiality.
The BBC’s own review, now published, agrees. ‘The strong political view it included was not balanced by any reflection of Government policy during the news channel’s coverage of the Baftas that evening,’ it acknowledges, ‘and was therefore in breach of the BBC’s requirement to show impartiality on politically controversial matters.’
Davies’s views cannot have come as a surprise to BBC staff. Last year, he called Nadine Dorries, newly appointed as Culture Secretary, a ‘f***ing idiot’ after she accused the BBC of being both nepotistic and lacking in impartiality.
At the time, Davies, 59, was defended by Piers Wenger, then BBC Director of Drama, who emphasised Davies’s status as a freelancer, arguing that this meant he was ‘not governed by the same rules as staff members around impartiality’.
That defence could not be used for Davies’s Baftas outburst because his remarks were included in a news report.