What is it with the BBC? Why can’t it learn? How can it so badly and repeatedly fail in its duty to represent all of us, not just Hampstead dinner party guests? It assures it understands the issue, and one or two Beeb people even recognise it needs a top-to-bottom cultural overhaul. But it appears institutionally incapable. To many of us, it seems that its left-leaning “progressive” bias is just too deeply ingrained. It’s in complete denial. Bringing this into sharp focus was yesterday’s “interview” between BBC Breakfast host Naga Munchetty and Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on the government’s new migrant deal with France.
I put “interview” in inverted commas, because it felt more like a party political broadcast on behalf of the government. Look, I know interviewers need to challenge politicians. Of course they do. And they sometimes need to play devil’s advocate to get to the truth. But surely, they can do that without sounding so insanely one-sided. When Philp, quite reasonably, said that the government’s new one-in-one-out policy won’t achieve anything, and that a meaningful deterrent only works “because people know they’re going to get returned,” Munchetty interrupted him with a blunt: “No, it’s not.”
If it had been Yvette Cooper debating with Philp, then that bald, aggressive statement might be expected. But from a supposedly neutral BBC interviewer? And Munchetty didn’t leave it there.
She came up with a second “No, it’s not” when Philp protested, again rightly, that what he’d said was reasonable – which it was.
Then, sounding every bit like a government spokesperson, Munchetty chose not to ask Philp a question about the new returns agreement, which is the job of an interviewer, but to issue what sounded like a Starmer-approved message: “You see evidence of a plan in place,” she declared, “and then that is then … understood by others, and that’s how a deterrent works; it doesn’t work straight away.”
Finally, when Philp protested that the government’s returns agreement should, if the stated aim is to deter, “work straight away”, Munchetty shot back: “Did Rwanda work straight away?”
Actually, Naga, the answer to that is yes, Rwanda was starting to work straight away, and that’s despite the fact it never actually came into operation, unlike Starmer’s agreement with Macron, and was abandoned by Labour on its first day in office.
Throughout the country, millions of us are appalled at this government’s abject failure to stop the channel crossings, despite its smug assurance that it would simply “smash the gangs”.
Millions of us know this returns agreement with France isn’t worth the paper it’s written on when only about 6% of those who make it to the UK will be sent back – a pathetically inadequate ratio.
But rather than trying to understand this basic truth, and get to grips with Philp’s viewpoint, Munchetty attempted to put him in the dock. Why would she do that?
I actually really like Munchetty as a BBC presenter. On the rare occasion I watch her programme, I find her a bright, cheery presence. But for my money she let herself and her organisation down yesterday.
The BBC’s scandals and crises continue to mount up, from sexual abuse cases, to bullying (something of which Munchetty herself stands accused) to biased documentaries about Gaza and broadcasts of hate songs from Glastonbury. Its whole funding model is now under serious question, as is its very status as our national broadcaster.
It’s not too late for the BBC to change. It’s not too late to pull back from the brink. But yesterday’s interview with Philp is yet another example of how much the BBC has its head in the sand, and just how close we’re getting to the end.