Huw Merriman accuses Art Attack presenter of BBC ‘bias’ in apparent gaffe – as he lays into comedy show

Published

10 months ago

January 24, 2024

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A government minister has hit out at a BBC satirical show for being “completely biased” in the latest allegation from the Conservatives about the corporation’s impartiality.

Huw Merriman also appears to have mixed up Art Attack presenter Neil Buchanan with BBC social affairs correspondent Michael Buchanan when challenged to give examples of unbalanced reporting.

The transport minister’s comments came after Downing Street was forced to deny it is pursuing an agenda against the BBC, following a “culture wars” row over its impartiality reforms.

On Monday, Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer told Sky News the BBC has “on occasion been biased”, but then struggled to give examples.

Mr Merriman, asked if he agreed with his colleague, told Sky News that an episode of BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz last Friday had struck him as “completely biased”.

“I was driving from my constituency office to home for 10 minutes and all I heard – and it wasn’t satirical – was just diatribe against the Conservatives, not the government,” he said.

“I did listen to it and think, for goodness sake, where is the balance in that?

“So, yes, I’m afraid to say, despite the fact I’ve always been a big supporter of the BBC, that struck me as completely biased.”

When it was put to him that this is a comedy show, Mr Merriman said it did not strike him as particularly satirical and challenged any viewer to listen to it and make up their own mind.

A BBC spokesperson hit back: “We’re confident our audiences know the difference between a longstanding and popular satirical comedy show and our news reporting.”

The News Quiz is commissioned by Radio 4 as a comedy programme and is not made by BBC News.

Mr Merriman went on to criticise the BBC’s coverage of universal credit, which he worked on during his time at the Department for Work and Pensions.

“There was an individual there who would report on it, Neil Buchanan, who I always felt gave one side of the story and not the other side, which was the government side.”

Neil Buchanan hosted the children’s TV show Art Attack between 1990 and 2007.

Mr Merriman may have been mixing him up with Michael Buchanan, a social affairs correspondent at the BBC.

The National Union of Journalists accused him of “scraping the barrel” and said it was “shameful” to single out individual journalists for criticism.

The debate on BBC impartiality has been brought to the fore by a series of reforms the government wants it to adopt.

As part of the mid-term review into the corporation’s Royal Charter, ministers want to give Ofcom, the media watchdog, more powers to investigate the BBC and a new legal responsibility to review more of the BBC’s complaints decisions.

Ms Frazer said the BBC “needs to adapt” to the reforms or risk “losing the trust of the audience it relies on”.

But when challenged to give an example of bias she was unable to provide one beyond the BBC reporting of an attack on a hospital in Gaza which was initially attributed to Israel but which Western intelligence later concluded was the result of a misfiring Hamas rocket.

When it was put to her that a mistake is not the same as bias, she went on to say there is a “perception among the public the BBC is biased” and “perceptions are important”.

The BBC said “no other organisation takes its commitment to impartiality more seriously”.

Labour branded her the “latest secretary of state for culture wars” and accused her of using the BBC “as a punching bag”.

Number 10 was later forced to deny it was pursuing an agenda against the BBC.

Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman, asked if this was the case, responded: “No. This is rightly about ensuring the BBC is able to continue to thrive long into the future.”

Politics

NY Supreme Court allows Greenidge to keep mining, but challenges remain

Published

33 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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NY Supreme Court allows Greenidge to keep mining, but challenges remain

The state Department of Environmental Conservation botched the permitting process, but it still gets a do-over.

Politics

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

33 mins ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the three month period.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Am I satisfied with the numbers published today? Of course not. I want growth to be stronger, to come sooner, and also to be felt by families right across the country.”

“It’s why in my Mansion House speech last night, I announced some of the biggest reforms of our pension system in a generation to unlock long term patient capital, up to £80bn to help invest in small businesses and scale up businesses and in the infrastructure needs,” Ms Reeves later told Sky News in an interview.

“We’re four months into this government. There’s a lot more to do to turn around the growth performance of the last decade or so.”

New economy data tests chancellor’s growth plan

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.