BBC has no God-given right to exist, says Tory

Party chairman raises new concerns of corporation’s impartiality and ‘liberal establishment’ bias

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

THE chairman of the Conservative Party has said the BBC does not have a “God-given right” to exist as he suggested the corporation did not always understand Britain. Richard Holden raised fresh questions about the impartiality of the BBC and warned its coverage of some issues was hindered by a “liberal establishment” bias.

He also urged the BBC to stop pursuing “blind alleys” after a review of its output by campaigners suggested a biased approach to debates over race and gender.

Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, this week confirmed the corporation’s website and social media channels would be policed by Ofcom in an attempt to address audience concerns about “sufficient impartiality”. In an interview with The Telegraph politics newsletter, Mr Holden was asked whether he believed the BBC was biased.

“I think there is a broad liberal establishment element of the BBC, and that skews the way they look at some things,” he said.

“Some aspects of the BBC are things they do really well. I actually really like its regional news coverage, and the World Service side of things is fundamentally important for Britain.

“But does it go down some blind alleys at times, a bit like the Civil Service

does? Absolutely, and they need to really think about that.

“I think that the BBC needs to properly, a bit like a lot of other institutions, stop thinking about itself, stop believing it’s got a God-given right to exist, and actually reflect the broadest views of British society.

“That doesn’t mean it’s got to go down every rabbit warren going – but it needs to understand the country that it’s there to serve.”

Earlier this week Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, hinted that he was planning to unveil a major package of tax cuts at the Spring Budget and Mr Holden promised that the Conservatives would “put cash back into people’s pockets” in March.

Asked about the fact that the Conservative Government has the highest peacetime tax burden in UK history, he said: “We’ve been able to support the British people over the last five years through these big, big challenges with both Covid and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. After we’ve taken those decisions, we can put cash back into people’s pockets

“Stage one was the National Insurance

cut, stage two is going to be the Budget, and then we’re going to have a stage three into the general election as well.”

The Tory chairman also defended cuts to the size of the Army – which is now the smallest it has been in centuries - after the head of the Army suggested the public would need to be mobilised if the UK went to war.

He also insisted the Tory Party “agreed on 99 per cent of areas” following splits over Mr Sunak’s Rwanda Bill, which dozens of backbench MPs say is not tough enough.