When the country is divided, the BBC is on the rack.” So said a BBC executive at the time of the Suez crisis in 1956, which led to the resignation of the then-prime minister, Anthony Eden. That crisis was over the Middle East.
Today, the corporation is on the rack again over its coverage of that region. This time, there are calls not for the PM to go, but for the BBC’s director general or one of his senior executives to, first, explain themselves to MPs, and then perhaps walk the plank.
The reason this time isn’t a war – it’s the Glastonbury Festival.
It follows criticism of the BBC broadcasting a performance on Saturday by punk duo Bob Vylan, whose lead performer led crowds in chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF”.
The set went out live, with an on-screen warning but without other editorial interventions – no edits, no bleeping out – and remained available to watch on the iPlayer for five hours, until it was eventually expunged.
Festival organisers were quick to apologise, saying they were “appalled” by the band’s conduct, and that the apparent call to incite violence went against its ethos of “hope, unity, peace and love”. On Saturday night, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, telephoned Tim Davie, director general of the corporation, to demand an explanation. The prime minister believes the punk duo’s call-and-response chant to be “appalling hate speech”. Police in Somerset are reviewing footage of the tirade.
For its part, the BBC has – some might say belatedly – apologised for the episode, saying it regretted broadcasting the “utterly unacceptable” words, and “with hindsight, we should have pulled the stream during the performance”.
Some have suggested that the public service broadcaster ought to stop covering Glastonbury. On the first day of Wimbledon – another jewel in the corporation’s crown – I am attempting to go full John McEnroe: You cannot be serious.
I think the heat is getting to some people. The BBC certainly has questions to answer about this year’s Glastonbury coverage. Broadcast regulator Ofcom has said that it “clearly has questions to answer”. It beggars belief that Bob Vylan’s set was ever allowed to go out live on the iPlayer, given the BBC was already alert to possible problems relating to Kneecap, the Belfast band, whose controversial set – which included pro-Palestine chants – was not aired live by the broadcaster.
The corporation must take decisive action to discipline those responsible. But we are also in danger of straying into “shoot the messenger” territory.
When issues such as this arise, politicians are always among the first to aim at what they see as an open goal. But rather than call the director general personally, Nandy, quick off the mark, should have talked to the regulator and the BBC chair, not its chief executive. What would she have said if Conservative ministers had talked directly to the DG on such controversial matters?
The shadow home secretary has since called for the BBC to be prosecuted over the broadcast. Should that not be a decision left to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service?
This particular controversy will blow over, though it remains just as difficult to report accurately what is happening in Gaza, as the Israeli government will not let independent journalists have access.
Glastonbury is a glorious event, bringing together different generations, all of whom can find the music they love and be introduced to music they will never hear otherwise. That sounds like public service to me.
It costs the BBC some £7m, which – given the hundreds of hours of coverage it generates – is extremely good value. You could argue that the BBC should spend more since its iPlayer coverage needs an upgrade: the ability to search for all acts by name, rather than having to fast-forward through hours of broadcast footage, would be an obvious improvement.
However, as the licence fee has lost around 40 per cent of its value in real terms over the last decade or so, that is a big ask.
One of the roles of the BBC is to bring the nation together, says its director general.
Glastonbury does. When it returns in 2027, after a fallow year, it will have been broadcast on the BBC for three decades. Don’t stop covering it.
Roger Bolton is a former BBC executive and presenter. He now has a podcast called ‘Roger Bolton’s Beeb Watch’
