The producer who until recently was at the center of the BBC’s political coverage has criticized director-general Tim Davie’s failure to “really understand journalism” and lamented new threats to the standard of current affairs analysis of the station
Rob Burley claims that an element of the BBC’s core purpose, questioning politicians and scrutinizing politics, is now being “virtually thrown away”.
Speaking to the Observer this weekend, Burley, who previously produced the BBC’s live political output including The Andrew Marr Show, hit out at the corporation for losing many of its experienced and heavyweight interviewers and for the recent ” arrogance” displayed in the public conflict with the football presenter. Gary Lineker.
“It’s clear that things have been handled very poorly,” Burley said. “They have lost many good political presenters. I don’t know if there’s much BBC expertise left in that vein in the building. Funding cuts are real and tough decisions have to be made, but Tim Davie doesn’t really understand journalism, in my view, and so has rejected many of those cuts.
“At the same time, many of these politicians who are crying foul over the loss of local radio journalists are the same people who pushed the original BBC funding cuts through parliament.”
Burley’s candid new book Why is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me? revealed last week that he had been told by BBC board member Robbie Gibb to stay away from investigating promises made to the electorate by Brexiteers.
Burley now feared, he said, that the BBC’s showdown with Lineker in March over a tweet attacking the government’s immigration policy was a damaging repeat of mistakes made in its dealings with veteran political broadcaster Andrew Neil.
“The attitude of the leadership of the BBC and Tim Davie reminded me of what happened with Andrew. He had his new BBC Wednesday night political program set up – a long interview – which they then scrapped and gave him offer a kind of unfixed and occasional space.
“Whether you liked Neil or not, he was of particular value to the BBC because he’s not the sort of person the corporation is primarily made up of. He comes from a business background and doesn’t have the same liberal loyalties. There there were many other reasons why he was valuable too, of course, but this was particular to him. And of course then he left for GB News and is now with Channel 4.
“So I feel there was a certain arrogance there that I saw with the attitude towards Lineker, that Davie seemed to have thought he would end up on the line. He didn’t realize the level of support Lineker would get from the other sports presenters “.
The Andrew Marr Show was one of Burley’s responsibilities at the BBC. Photograph: BBC/Getty Images
Burley, who is now a producer for Sky News and does interview shows run by its political editor Beth Rigby, said his book aimed to entertain, while “arguing the value of longer interviews”. .
“It’s a key part of a democracy and the BBC has pretty much thrown it away,” he said. “They seem to have lost a lot of those people, as well as their faith in the idea. They don’t think the viewers want it.”
On the claim, detailed in his book, that Gibb, a number 10 aide to Theresa May, had tried to divert him from investigating the government’s claims about the financial benefits of Brexit, Burley added: “I was very clear in the about the book. , and I don’t think Robbie has contradicted my version. In fact, he has repeated his line that it was important to ‘move on’ and not just litigate Brexit again.” At the time of the referendum, Gibb was editor of the BBC’s live politics programmes.
“I remember after the Brexit vote I walked into his office and said, ‘Now we have to look at all the claims of the Brexit campaign,'” Burley recalled. “And it seemed quite sensible to look into things, including of course the £350m claim on the bus. So I was quite surprised by what Gibb told me.
“I mean, I understood that the truth of the actual claim is quite complex to pick out, because the source of funding for the NHS is hard to define, but that’s not the point.”
Gibb has since justified his view that the Brexit promises were a dead issue. “£350m wasn’t a lie at all. It’s just campaigning. Nobody ever says, ‘And Labor say you have 24 hours to save the NHS?’ – but when it comes to Boris Johnson, they do. So I don’t have a truck with him,” he said.
Gibb’s views were, in fact, ignored, Burley admits, and the claim of the Vote Leave battle bus was investigated by the BBC. “In general, I don’t think the BBC has a big problem with bias: although there is always potentially an ‘incumbency bias’, in favor of the government, that you have to guard against. Whichever politician is in charge has a lot of leverage in allowing access and setting the agenda.”
Burley agrees that viewer confidence has been shaken by the recent investigation that led to the departure of BBC chairman Richard Sharp, the Tory donor linked to arranging a loan for Johnson , especially when considering Gibb’s seat on the council and Davie’s historical involvement with local Conservative party politics. But he said he sees it as a perception problem rather than a real danger.
“I don’t think Robbie Gibb tries to influence everything, and I was surprised by that example, which is why I described it in the book,” he said.
