Thompson brands New Statesman claims 'nonsense' (Media Guardian)
I read that BBC Director General Mark Thompson has sent news staff an email denying today's New Statesman report that chairman Michael Grade tried to sack Radio 4's Today presenter John Humphrys after an after-dinner speech earlier in the year, calling the article "utter nonsense" and denying that the BBC is "muzzling its journalism in an effort to keep government ministers happy."
Now there are are a few reasons why Grade might have wanted to fire Humphrys. The latter is a bigger pedant regarding the English Language than I am, for example, which is saying something: he even believes the old saw about never splitting infinitives, which Fowler somewhat grudgingly allowed in 1926. However I am not entirely certain that this is a sufficient or even likely reason for Mr Grade to declare a jihad against you, allegedly calling up several executives to hurry along said apparently desired demise.
It might also be that Mr Grade does not take kindly to employees doing public speaking on the side - though Humphrys is still apparently doing so, and with permission. So that's not it.
No doubt more to the point, however, is the fact that in the speech referred to above, at the Communication Director's Forum in June (though it came to light in early September), Humphrys apparently cast aspersions upon the truthfulness of some politicians and even went as far as to light-heartedly criticise some Labour ones. We might note at this point that he is the only central character in the Gilligan Affair who is still in the same job as before the event, Gilligan, Dyke and Davies all having gone, and Sambrook having been moved sideways. I think, were I John Humphrys, I would be not a little concerned about this.
Fairly inescapably, therefore, one would assume that this is the smell of some further fallout from that affair - but as a result of further Government bombshells going off at the BBC? Perhaps; perhaps not. On the one hand we have it suggested that Grade may have been more concerned about staff doing after-dinner speaking on the side, than what the speaker might have said about the Government at such an event.
On the other hand, however, we find PR man Tim Allan. He was the one who brought Humphrys' speech into public view by passing it to that well-known organ of New Labour, Mr Murdoch's Times, having requested a copy of the tape of Humphrys' speech from the organisers. And lest we be left wondering who Mr Allan might be: apart from apparently being under consideration at one time for the post of Tony Blair's Communications Director, he is a former aide of that well-known friend of the BBC, Alistair Campbell (apparently referred to by Humphrys in his speech as a "pretty malevolent force" - far be it for me...). Allan left Downing Street in 1998.
Humphrys is apparently still doing public speaking on the side; he would appear to have retained his post at Today; but he has been reprimanded for some of the content of his speech. It would seem that Humphrys is suitably cynical about politicians as a whole, which to the rest of us might seem a quite reasonable position to take. But among the "inappropriate and misguided remarks" for which he has been censured, were his views that Gilligan's report was essentially true, and that the BBC got it right. These days, there would be few who would disagree with that either - indeed, it looks even more to be the case than seemed possible at the time.
Of course, there are two points here. One is that the BBC must stand up to the Government - any government: that's what we expect, deserve and pay for. The other is that the Government shouldn't be behaving like bullying kids. Thus I agree with Sir Menzies Campbell too, when he said, "It really is time this Government grew up. John Humphrys gives us all a hard time. The Government should be big enough to take it on the chin."
