The BBC's Plan to Appease Nigel Farage

News that BBC executives plan to alter their programming in order to win over Reform voters is the latest sign of a corporation that has become dangerously cowed by the right

“I don’t remember anyone ever saying to us ‘Oh I just don't think we're properly reflecting the Green Party view, or the liberal-left view on this story’,” one former BBC journalist told me last year, when I asked about the political pressure that was exerted on them by senior management.

“It was always just slanted in one direction – which was basically the nativist, authoritarian, Conservative direction.”

Further evidence of this came earlier today after I revealed for Byline Times how BBC executives have drawn up plans to win the “trust” of Reform voters, by altering their news and drama output.

Minutes of a meeting of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee in March reveal that the Director General Tim Davie, and other executives, discussed plans to change their “story selection” and “other types of output, such as drama” in order to win over supporters of Nigel Farage’s party.

When pushed by Byline Times on whether the BBC had ever drawn up similar plans to win over voters of any other parties a spokesperson was unable to do so, saying only that they were dedicated to ensuring “due impartiality”.

So does the BBC really show “due impartiality” towards Nigel Farage and Reform, or is this just another step towards attempting to appease the very political forces which are most determined to destroy them?