All Perfectly Normal

Oh look. Another example of the revolving door between the BBC and Tory party. The government quietly slips another Tory into a key position as the assault on the BBC prepares to move up a gear:- 

Sir Robbie Gibb has been appointed to the Board of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as the England Nation Member for a term of three years from 7th May 2021 to 6th May 2024. Under the terms of the BBC Royal Charter, appointment of the BBC Chair and Nation Board Members is made by HM The Queen, on recommendation from Ministers.

Sir Robbie Gibb had a long career as a broadcast journalist in BBC News - he was head of BBC Westminster and Editor of Live Political Programmes, as well as Deputy Editor of BBC Two’s Newsnight. He left the BBC in 2017 to become Director of Communications at No10 Downing Street, stepping down in 2019. He also previously worked as an Editorial Advisor to GB News, until October 2020. Sir Robbie now works as a senior communications adviser at Kekst CNC and is a Director of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper.

The base fee for all BBC non-executive directors is £33,000 per annum. A committee chair fee of £5,000 is paid on top of the base fee for chairing one of the permanent committees of the Board. This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Sir Robbie Gibb declared that between 2017 and 2019 he was Director of Communications at No10 Downing Street.

This from BBC website:-

Sir Robbie Gibb: Former Downing Street communications director joins BBC Board

Sir Robbie Gibb, a former Downing Street communications director, is joining the BBC board as the board member for England. He will start on 7 May. Prior to working in No 10 for the Conservative Party between 2017 and 2019, Gibb had a successful 25-year career at the BBC, culminating in his role as head of Westminster. Before that, he was deputy editor of Newsnight and editor of The Daily Politics and This Week.

It was in those latter capacities that Gibb worked closely with Andrew Neil, the broadcaster and publisher who is chairman of GB News - a new British news network due to launch in the coming months. Gibb played an important role in the early stages of that project, but stood down as editorial adviser in October.

His main job is working as a senior communications adviser for the consultancy firm Kekst CNC. He is also a director of The Jewish Chronicle. He will continue in these roles. Gibb was a prominent supporter of Brexit. He was in No 10 during the tumultuous leadership of Theresa May, which was dominated by the effort to secure the UK's departure from the European Union.

Since leaving front-line politics, Gibb has written several articles about impartiality in broadcasting - not least at the BBC. In one of these articles, he said the election coverage on Radio 4's Today programme was "a masterclass in why the BBC is losing the trust of its audience". He said he thought the programme was "trapped by its own 'woke' group think", and that his friends had dubbed it "Radio Misery".

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, he wrote: "The BBC has been culturally captured by the woke-dominated group think of some of its own staff. There is a default left-leaning attitude from a metropolitan workforce mostly drawn from a similar social and economic background..." In the same piece, he continued: "Almost as soon as Britain's verdict [in the EU referendum] was delivered, the rigorous rules were relaxed and anti-Brexit bias and metropolitan 'group think' crept back into the corporation's coverage."

In another article for the Telegraph, Sir Robbie made clear that the "endemic" bias he sees at the corporation extended beyond news coverage to entertainment, and especially comedy. He strongly endorsed director-general Tim Davie's firm commitment to impartiality: "I have faith that Mr Davie will make this work," Gibb wrote. "His decisive early intervention over the farcical banning of singing Prom favourites and his clear understanding of why impartiality must be the number one priority for the BBC have won him praise from ministers and BBC staff alike."

While critical, Sir Robbie has been consistently supportive of a reformed BBC, arguing publicly and privately that it is a national jewel that urgently needs to address its disconnect with conservative and non-metropolitan audiences. Interestingly, he backs the principle of universality behind the licence fee, even if the practicalities of how the fee operates may need to evolve. His appointment clearly strengthens the BBC's links not just with Westminster, but with the Conservative Party specifically.

Earlier this year, Richard Sharp replaced Sir David Clementi as the BBC's chairman. Sharp, a former banker, investor and philanthropist, is close to Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, who he worked with during the pandemic. Sunak previously worked with Sharp at Goldman Sachs. In testimony to MPs, Sharp said that the licence fee may be the least bad existing option for how to fund the BBC, though he is open to discussion about reforms.

The pandemic has highlighted both the strengths of the BBC and the severity of the challenges it faces. Covid-19 inflicted a terrible financial hit - well over £100m - at a time of already strained budgets. Yet ratings and web traffic surged as viewers, listeners and readers flocked to the BBC for trusted news. BBC News remains one of the most trusted news sources in Britain, and indeed the world. During the pandemic, the BBC also put on extensive educational programming to support home schooling, which rated well.

Moreover, a consensus inside No 10 and the government more broadly now accepts the view that decriminalisation of the licence fee is a bad idea. This follows - but is of course not exclusively the result of - an extensive and effective charm offensive on Westminster by Davie. 

   
There is a view in some quarters of the media that Dominic Cummings' departure from No 10 has removed much of the animus toward the public broadcaster. This is wrong. On the Conservative back benches, and particularly among some of the new intake of MPs, there remains strong feeling against the BBC, which is derided there as out of touch with majority opinion.

Gibb's first duty as a board member is to support the institution to achieve its public purposes. That includes advocating reforms that address the concerns felt by some of his former colleagues in politics; but also being prepared to tell those people when they're wrong about the BBC.

--oo00oo--

Addendum 

1st May 2021

From FT:-

Charles Dunstone quit museum post over government ‘culture war’

One of Britain’s best-known entrepreneurs has resigned as chair of a prestigious museum group in protest at ministers purging his board as part of a culture war being waged by the government. Sir Charles Dunstone, the billionaire founder of Carphone Warehouse, quit as chair of the Royal Museums Greenwich after the government refused to reappoint a trustee whose academic work advocates “decolonising” the curriculum, according to several people familiar with the events. 

The dispute is the latest in a concerted campaign by Boris Johnson’s government to reset the balance of opinion at the top of Britain’s cultural and media institutions, largely through an aggressive approach to board appointments. Royal Museums Greenwich oversees some of Britain’s most popular cultural destinations including the Cutty Sark, the Royal Observatory and the National Maritime Museum. 

Dunstone warned Oliver Dowden, culture secretary, that he would resign as its chair unless he lifted his veto on a second term for Aminul Hoque, a Bangladeshi-British academic in education studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, according to people close to the situation. Hoque told the Financial Times he was “shocked, disappointed and baffled” by the minster’s unexplained decision. Colleagues at the Royal Museums Greenwich described him as a “devoted and conscientious” trustee.

Dunstone, who left as chair with immediate effect in February after Dowden refused to reconsider his decision, declined to comment. A government spokesman said: “All reappointments are considered in line with the government code for public appointments. There is no automatic presumption of reappointment, and indeed in the vast majority of cases, fresh talent is added with new appointments made.” In the latest full reporting year (2019/2020), ministers in Dowden’s culture department announced 92 appointments in total, of which 31 were reappointments. 

With the enthusiastic support of Downing Street, Dowden has so far blocked multiple reappointments at top institutions, with the explicit intention of replacing them with more like-minded allies. This has included vetoing a second term for two female board directors of Channel 4, the state-owned and privately funded broadcaster. Dowden this week nominated Robbie Gibb, a former Downing Street director of communications, to the BBC board. Allies of the prime minister say Paul Dacre, the former long-serving editor of the Daily Mail, is frontrunner to become chair of Ofcom, a decision expected in coming weeks. Nicky Morgan, the former Conservative culture secretary, is also tipped as the next chair of Sports England.

One chair of a big institution likened the Johnson government approach to “cultural cleansing”. Another person who has negotiated appointments with Dowden described him as treating boards like “a fiefdom”. Peter Riddell, the commissioner for public appointments, noted in a speech on Thursday that the government, had for 18 months “actively sought to appoint allies to the boards of public bodies”. “This is not the first time this has happened. Such attempts tend to go in waves,” Riddell said. “What is different now is the breadth of the campaign and the close engagement of 10 Downing Street.”

Last September, Dowden wrote to museums and galleries warning that their government funding could be cut if they removed statues and other objects associated with the slave trade and colonialism. Dowden acknowledged that some objects represented figures who had “said or done things which we may find deeply offensive”, but insisted that they played an important role in understanding the past. 

One leading Conservative said there was “an expectation that members of a board should have a similar attitude to that of the government” on such issues. “The general ethos is you should put things in context, not tear them down or remove them,” said one leading Conservative, who added that the culture department remained committed to targets for board appointments covering gender, race and disability. 

Hoque was told about the veto by Dunstone in January but was never contacted directly by the government. After he sent two emails requesting an explanation, the culture department wrote to him on Friday to say there was no “automatic presumption” of reappointment.