Why Did Tim Davie Resign?

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1:53Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osman. and hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm very well, lovely to see you. Well Richard, we were going to be talking about some other matters today but news has broken on a Sunday. Yeah, Tim Davey, Director General of the BBC has resigned and Deborah Ternes who's the head of BBC News has also resigned. God bless them for resigning just in time for us to do the podcast though. Yes. That I have to say not everyone shows us the same respect. Same level of thought. Yeah, mentioning no names Claudia and Tess.

2:24We're going to handle that but it can't all be that sort of froth of course we have to deal with some serious service journalism and for that reason we will also be covering all's fair the new legal drama documentary documentary starring kim kardashian and others that some people have said is the worst television program ever made we will discuss but we'll start shall we with these two resignations what's happening at the bbc can i frame it in this particular way there's the two former newspaper editors have come out david yelland he used to edit The Sun, he said essentially there has been a coup.

2:56So Tim Davy has left, Deborah Turness has left, David Yellen said there's been a coup by people who've influenced the BBC board and they forced these people out. However, Charles Moore, who is the editor of The Daily Telegraph, says there wasn't a coup. Now between a former editor of The Sun and former editor of The Telegraph, you want them both to be wrong, but they can't both be wrong. It's the Argentina-West Germany final, you never knew you needed it. Exactly that. So what has happened and why do we think? As you say, two people have resigned from the only organisation in public life that people still resign from.

3:26Everyone else has to get sacked. Before we go on, by the way, I should say that my husband works at the BBC. He works in distribution and business development, so nothing to do with editorial. I actually didn't talk to him about this item at all because he was not around last night. But I did talk to other people who I don't actually have to disclose. But by way of background, last week... Is that what you call it? Yeah, by my background, it emerged last week that Michael Prescott, who is an advisor to the BBC on editorial standards, a former advisor, that in October, he'd circulated a memo to the BBC board with serious concerns about impartiality that wasn't handled quickly.

4:04In fact, there was disagreement amongst the board. I know about how to handle it. And somehow or other, this memo was leaked to The Telegraph, who ran with it last Tuesday, I think it first came out. And there are three planks to its serious complaints about impartiality. And I'm just going to go through them because all of them will become relevant in the discussion. So the first and the most significant for these resignations was about a Panorama documentary, which was broadcast in the run up to last year's presidential election, in which two moments of a Trump speech were spliced together to make it appear that he had followed one statement about his MAGA supporters going to the Capitol on January the 6th, 2021, by immediately telling them to fight like hell.

4:47So as we know, we all saw those scenes on the Capitol. And so it appeared much more directly that he had incited. And those moments were, I think, 50 odd minutes apart. Yeah, he's a guy who likes to make a long speech, Richard. So they resigned on Sunday. Samir Shah has made an apology on Monday for the Panorama edit. And on Wednesday, Michael Prescott will appear before the DCMS Select Committee in Parliament to discuss his memo and other matters. And I saw some people saying that Samir Shah has not defended the corporation correctly as well. So whether that's another scalp that people want, it feels unlikely to me.

5:25It feels like Tim Davin, Deborah Turner. That is like Jonathan and Stephen both leaving the traitors at the same time. It feels like maybe the bloodlust has been sated. I started by saying that the former editor of The Sun had called this a coup. He talks about the BBC board and he says, the elements close to it have worked with hostile newspaper editors, a former PM and enemies of public service broadcasting. So Michael Prescott, who is the guy who did this report, he has ties with Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson appointed him to advise Ofcom. Robbie Gibb, who is on the BBC board, was a former comms advisor to Theresa May.

6:02If you were on the side of people who suggested there is a coup, there is certainly a cadre of people who've been in and around Boris Johnson, all of whom seem to be coalescing on this story. I do notice that people have said that. And I have to say that I think everybody has sort of become a citizen journalist over the last few, you know, decade and sits on social media and makes connections in a kind of you join the dots way. And I always feel like, no, I'm terribly sorry. If you want to make that connection, you must explicitly join the dots rather than just sort of say, well, there you go, because that is a form of conspiracy.

6:39There may be some concerted effort here amongst these people. There have also been concerted efforts on the other side before to defend people to do different things. and I think it's probably really unhelpful to get into talking about this as some kind of coup, some kind of like war, anything like that. Then you're playing on their turf. Once it's a war, it's something that you or they can win and it won't be you if you're the BBC. And I think that it's much more useful to talk about it in the terms I hope I tried to talk about it as an inflection point for some of these issues which have been bubbling and festering for a long time and not actually gripped.

7:12The second problem was an institutional problem he alleged with the suppressing of stories about the trans issue with gender critical views being stifled, negative stories or stories asking difficult questions, not being offered as balance to stories which were much more positive. And the third problem is an institutional problem with the coverage of the war in Gaza by BBC Arabic. So there were three different things. The first of those is ultimately what forced the resignations. The Trump one. Trump and his White House have crowed over the resignations already. And I think his part in them is very, very significant.

7:46What he has shown is that he is utterly willing to sue news organisations. He's sued CBS, ABC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. Those are just a few of them. ABC ended up having to settle for 15 million, CBS for 16 million. Now, that's under US libel laws, which are almost, in most people's view, non-existent. If he were to be a libel tourist, which I don't see why he wouldn't, you can see the nature of the man. If you came to London, he would sue the BBC and given our laws would probably win. So that I think was a really, really significant factor in seeing how this would play out. The other thing I would like to say before we go on, because I think it's extraordinary that we don't talk about this and the backdrop to all of this I read this morning, it's the front page of every single newspaper, everyone says it's an existential crisis.

8:35Here are some facts, not alternative facts as Donald Trump would say, but actual facts. The BBC is the most trusted news organization in the entire world. This is a world where 70 % of countries don't even have a free press. Its existence is the single and proven reason why we in this country do not have the damaging polarized news market that they have, say, in the United States of America. They have a huge polarized news market and a massive problem with distrust for all different news organizations because people are siloed into their different ones. no news organization in the US gets more than 25 % of people frequently consuming it.

9:10Now, in the UK, more than 60 % of the population frequently consume BBC news, okay? Primarily through the World Service, the BBC is the country's most recognized cultural export, okay? I mean, I think it's something quite good. That's quite good. But you don't hear that now, because every single sort of senior politician has said, this is completely in crisis. It's like, a lot of people would like to have that sort of crisis. I'd like to have the BBC crisis more than I'd like to have the crisis, say, at News International. Now, all of those things are incredibly precious, OK? And they are loathed by the BBC's enemies.

9:47And they're definitely worth fighting for more than ever in an atomised and polarised world. But that's why it really matters when things are wrong. And these are all mistakes. These are all big mistakes. And I think you've just got to say that. You have to remember that this is an organisation beset by political enemies for all sorts of reasons. Yeah, outside and inside, by the way. And worst of all is BBC News. I think Tim Davy said it's very difficult to run the BBC in the current febrile cultural climate. And I suspect there's a fairly febrile cultural climate within BBC News as well, less so within entertainment and what have you.

10:20So Tim Davy leaves and ostensibly he's leaving, as you say, because of that Trump edit. And this was brought up earlier last week and nobody apologised and as you say we're trying to work out why nobody made an immediate apology because that's the simple thing to do there because those things definitely happen and you know the simple thing to do is you put a little white wipe in between. Well I thought that was really significant all of last week that they weren't. Yeah exactly no one no one could come together to agree a line on that. Now the last time I saw Tim Davy it was at an event I'd say a couple of months ago and it was the height of all the um all the Gaza stuff and Bob Villan and all these things and Tim Davey is if nothing else very very irrepressible and a very irrepressible defender of the BBC and will absolutely always goes to bat and always on the front foot always positive always making the case for the sort of things that you were talking about and the last time I saw him in the midst of all of that for the first time ever I thought oh my god you you there's something slightly broken about you here.

11:21I feel like you have had enough. And this feels to me, because I think that his resignation was a surprise to people, it feels like he was waiting for the next open door to just go, I do not need to do this anymore. Somebody who could, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's all sorts of people who work at the BBC, but he's someone who could get pretty much any job he wanted in any industry he wanted. He's very good. He's very good at what he does. You might not want him to be the DG, but he is definitively his market value is very high but he's got to wake up every morning and deal with these things like constantly as you say people from the inside people from the outside people calling him all sorts of names and there comes a point where as a human being you just think well why why would i put myself through this all day every day and he's probably stayed at the bbc longer than he should have done he's been there 20 odd years in various roles but i think he's there because he believes this is the right thing to do you know he took it through the you know the end of the last tory government he took it through boris johnson who we'll talk about later because his paw prints are over this as well but you know took it through his prime ministership and essentially sailed it to where we are now I think probably he just had enough no one will ever like you if you're the DG and program makers will never like the DG and you know every program maker I know says oh he used to be a Tory councillor and this out of the other and you just want to go you know what half the people in Britain are Tories you might just have to get used to that sort of thing and you know if you think that Tim Davy is your enemy and the enemy of broadcasting in Britain.

12:45Maybe you choose your enemies a little bit better. So I think it's one of those things where he probably was the right person to lead the BBC into this next charter renewal. But it's impossible. The difficulty with the role is that you are two different roles. One, you have a business role in which I think people widely think he's done very well at. And then you have the editor-in-chief role. And that is where people, that is where all of the scandals in recent times have come from. But you know, whatever it is, Greg Wallace, the news, all of these news things, Bob Villan, these are sort of editorial roles.

13:17We will talk in a minute about runners and riders and why there maybe aren't any. Yeah, I mean, who would want to do that job? I mean, literally, who would want to do it? It's like being an England football manager. Everyone else can do it better than you. Everyone else can tell you how to do it. And it always ends in failure. Yes, well, let's come to that in a minute. But I do think that Deborah Turnis did want the BBC board to respond to this memo much more quickly and to respond last week, but they couldn't agree. And this sense of drift or whatever happened. But I totally agree with you that it's one battle after another and eventually you don't want to have any more battles.

13:55One of the things Tim Davey mentioned in or alluded to in his resignation letter was the sort of fact of being a director general at this time. The role of the director general in the current era every single mistake is yours you don't get to stand up at the dispatch box like david lammy to pick another example from last week and just say oh this is everyone else's fault this is my predecessor's fault this is you know blame on my opponents and really just go back to being potentially quite inept or whatever it is and and waiting to be sacked which is what as i said every single other person in public life does No one resigned anymore except from people from the BBC.

14:33You've got to take it if you're Director General all the time. Greg Wallace is your fault. Bob Villain's your fault. Now, this isn't the case in lots and lots of other companies. And there are some people who say, well, should he have appointed a deputy who was more front facing in some different way or reconstituted that sort of senior thing so that you have someone who, so it's not, you're not always the lightning word for every single tiny bit. but when I hear people like Nigel Farage who's obviously thrilled about this saying you know this is an existential crisis for the BBC brackets the most trusted news organization in the world but okay and saying we need to get someone from business and Richard Tice saying we've got to get someone from business to clear all this out okay I always just think okay you sweet summer child okay you don't understand anything about your precious business okay because the only people who caught this much flack in public life are either politicians or tech bosses right that's it politicians it's a non-political role so you'll have to discount those people tech bosses get paid literally billions for companies they effectively have ownership over and they have shown that because of those two things they don't actually have to care about any of the criticism they take and they're not going to do anything about it you know tim davy gets paid a lot he gets paid 547 000 pounds a year okay but in terms of like how much flack you get and yes it's a form of public service and it's a form of power and whatever and i'm sure but having to listen to nigel farah I talk about, you know, people in business.

15:54Let me explain. If Nigel Farage is the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, as he keeps telling us he's going to be, there will be no BBC that will be acceptable for him other than a dead BBC. Now, he is a politician. He is a leading politician. He is a party leader who presents a nightly, we have to call it a current affairs show because he knows it would be in breach of all sorts of Ofcom rules if he presents a current affairs show, which is on a channel called GB News and contains news. He doesn't think that's a conflict of interest. I mean, I've heard enough from Mr. Ethics. I have heard enough from Mr.

16:27Ethics, but there is no BBC that will satisfy him. It's very interesting who is on, who is crowing about this. Donald Trump, we've got to listen to him crowing about it. Boris Johnson, when he let down the public trust, it took 57 ministers to resign over 36 hours before he finally accepted that maybe he wasn't the public servant he was telling everybody he was. So it's rather difficult having to take it from these type of people. And no one here has blinkers on. We're aware of waste in the BBC. We're aware of issues in the BBC, problems in the BBC. We definitively are. I think all of these things are very, very serious breaches and are big problems and they do need to be dealt with.

17:05And the fact that incredibly senior people have gone is actually it can and should be turned into a great inflection point to deal with a number of these issues. And if people within the BBC, some of whom will have been a drag on dealing with these issues, don't wake up and realise that this is a huge moment, then that is going to be a big problem. But that will require strong leadership. And it's quite, as you say, it is quite difficult. In the old days, every time a director general resigned, and you know, they resign quite often because, as I say, they're the only people who still resign. There would be immediate lists of runners and riders that really, you really thought, well, there's lots of different people.

17:45now there are so few and I think it's so significant that people are saying what about Charlotte Moore you know Charlotte Moore is a former director of programme she's brilliant but she's left and she once applied for a director general job and Tim Davey got it that round and I think that people even when she left felt well maybe in a few years she'll come back and be director general because she was she's lots of people's hope but are you asking me whether I think she'll do it I do not she's gone to a big drama company left bank and she's having the time of her life because you know what it's she's not she's not being hounded every five seconds by the way every single person listening to this myself included we make mistakes all the time now these are serious mistakes but we all make mistakes and the whole point of any organization is how do you deal with mistakes how do you move on from mistakes how do you learn from mistakes and what have you if you are charlotte moore if you're anyone who's left the bbc look at lineker every time i see him now it's like he's walking on air because like you know he's he can say what he wants he can do what he wants and you know people are not um you know firing at him all the time but But we should remember that public service must remain a kind of lodestar in our national life and that people should still want to put themselves forward for difficult...

18:49Public service, you wouldn't want to do it. I agree with you. No reason to do it. You know what? You wouldn't be a politician. You would not be director general of the BBC. You would not do any of these things. That's the true crisis. Well poisoned. That is the true crisis. It is so much bigger than all of this, is that the idea of going into public service in any of these roles, and it doesn't mean on the kind of layers below where lots of people might still, and I think that the real serious crisis is that this morning, despite full spectrum coverage of this issue, there's like these half-hearted things like maybe Charlotte Moore will come back and do it.

19:21My God, 10, 15, 20 years ago, you'd have had a list of 10 people. I mean, listen, Director General has always, they've always, as you say, resigned. Greg Dyke resigned over the Hutton Inquiry into David Kelly. so George Entwistle who people might not know but he was Roger Mosey was talking this morning said the problem with Tim Davie is not a journalist you need a journalist in charge of the BBC and like ever you sort of have a journalist in charge of anything and the last time they had a journalist in charge was George Entwistle who'd come up through the ranks at the BBC Newsnight all that kind of stuff and he lasted just under two months and he had all the stuff about Savile and he had the Lord McAlpine stuff on Newsnight so he they got rid of him after two months they get rid of everybody.

20:02Every Prime Minister wants to get rid of the Director General of the BBC. Going back, going all the way back. You look at Alistair Milne. Thatcher tried to get rid of him for Death on the Rock. Well, she did. She brought in Marmaduke Hussey as the Chairman of the BBC. So they got rid of him. You've got Churchill and Eden. They both had run-ins with Sir Ian Jacob. I mean, this is how far back all this stuff goes. You know, Wilson complained about Charles Curran. He complained about Huey Green. You know, it's always the case that politicians on the left and on the right want to get rid of whoever is at the BBC.

20:32But it's nothing like it is now. Even so, it is nothing like it is now. I genuinely believe that the only comparable flack, as I say, is like being a tech boss. And every time, you know, we see Mark Zuckerberg saying, I'm not even going to bother saying sorry anymore. These people don't care. This must be an inflection point because it's happened, it's bad, and you might as well try and make some lemonade. What's your take on BBC News? And because from my perspective, and I come at almost everything from from the world of you know entertainment and documentaries and these things and the bbc seems to be a fairly healthy place certainly you know creatively in terms of ratings in terms of personnel you know it seems to be on i can't believe we're not talking about like last thursday this is the sadness you're not talking about last thursday night on bbc where you just had this unbelievable run of shows the new series of like you know celebrity race across the world that lovely hamza yassin show that's on the moment i mean they they are on a run of form and you know I think Tim Davey, by and large, has always let people just run things like Charlotte Moore, like Kate Phillips.

21:28That's one of the things that he was good at. You're the program maker. I will sit here and take the flack, which felt like the job that he was doing almost nonstop until now where it's got too much for him. But BBC News seems to be the thing where the real issues come up. Greg Wallace is an issue, but that's an HR issue at any company you're at. you know there are always going to be those things especially when you've got you know hundreds of suppliers and you know just hundreds and hundreds of hours of content but BBC News constantly seems to be this suggestion of some sort of institutional bias from one side or the other and some kind of and different siege mentalities and internal and sometimes you know aggressive siege mentalities from different groups I would say that in the case of the the Trump edit I mean really it's extraordinary that it's got all the way up to the very top and those people have gone because really you should just say to the people who made the program you're not making any more programs you can't do that but because nothing was done about that in the end it got to such a pitch that the people who are going are the two most significant people I certainly think that in terms of people's perception of how the gender debate has been covered I think that there is definitely you know there are suggestions that there's a desk that people had to run stories through and they weren't allowed to write run gender critical stories in any way absolutely people are furious when they say see male rapists described as women simply because of what they claim is their gender identity now they're within the prison system there was this issue with martine croxall where she refused to say pregnant people she said pregnant women with an eye roll and i think that has an awful lot of sympathy from an awful lot of people yes the bbc remains an organization better capable of lacerating itself and beating itself up publicly than anyone else in the world.

23:22And it's sort of extraordinary that, I mean, it's really interesting watching the American reaction to this. Obviously, they didn't have the same type of news organization. As I say, this is a precious treasure and I agree that this is a big mistake. That's the point. It has to be held to a much higher... It has to be held to higher standards than any of their news that everyone hates and is polarized and what have you. Of course, it sort of sticks in the craw that Nigel Farage is willing to appear on Fox News all day long, even though he knows very well what those presenters did on January the 6th.

23:52And by the way, it's okay to do all that. You can be a hypocrite because he has a certain political view which he wants to prevail. We just have to take it as what it is. That's the job. That's what he is doing. He wants to dismantle all of this stuff. That's what he wants to do. So there's no point pretending that something isn't happening that is happening or something or the other way around. That's what's happening. If there's a culture war, it's the war against culture and it's the war against the BBC and all of that stuff. That's what he's doing. He's allowed to, people are absolutely allowed to support him.

24:21He's allowed to do it in whatever way he wants. Other people are allowed to fight back and disagree with him. And, you know, that's what we're doing here. We're just saying it's in plain sight now. Those people are pointing at a coup. And again, you can always point to these things. But Michael Prescott himself was the chief political correspondent of the Sunday Times and I think the political editor of the Sunday Times, Robbie Gibb, who was Theresa May's press secretary, he's on the board at the BBC. So there are people in high places at the BBC who were your conspiracy theorist. You think, well, I could see why you might team together and do things.

24:55So that is the case against... I think it's much more complicated than that. Would you agree? I certainly would. And if you were on the other side, I would say that people will say, oh, look at this, there's a sort of leftist conspiracy at the BBC and they can point to cherry pick all sorts of different other things and they may have a case in some of those with some of those arguments. Funnily enough, Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Tidograph, he said there's a metropolitan left bias at the BBC and by the way, I'm sure there is, but there's both. As I say, that's always been the case is people arguing both ways and you can argue both ways.

25:29All we want really is to have this incredible organisation at the heart of our culture making great comedy, great documentary, making television that people care about and television that makes us a better country and a better place. There are people who don't want that. And being the most trusted news brand in the world. And that is something worth hanging on to. And I do think there is no other organisation like it. It's so interesting. You just go into so many parallel worlds when you're looking at the reaction to this because there are people like Nigel Farrow saying, this is an existential crisis.

26:03I can't, you know, we've been saying for so long, it's completely rotten. And there's a whole other group of people saying, well, all they've done is serve me Nigel Farage, the BBC, for how long? So you think, or there's people who are saying the BBC is completely biased towards Israel. And then there are other people saying the BBC have taken anything Hamas says as gospel. And there are these just complete parallel worlds in even within this argument. And there is no other organisation in the world like that, where all of those realities are perceived to be definitely true by different groups of people.

26:33so nonetheless despite all of that I think it's very unhelpful to get caught up in these kind of conspiracy things you can cherry pick all sorts of these things the fact is that these were mistakes and they are in probably all cases indicative of larger problems that do need to be gripped it's also it's worth just keeping our eyes open as to what's happening and why who's happy about it who's not happy about it and where we go next and acknowledging that the true crisis I'm afraid is in public service and that why would anyone wish to go into it and fewer and fewer people of high caliber do well i think that this is why now they they're talking about the next director director general having a sort of journalistic background in some way i always used to think that the archbishop of canterbury you'd have an atheist and then like a gibbering idiot who actually believed it then an atheist and a gibbering idiot who actually believed it that was the one-on-one-off principle um also applied to quality of ridley scott movies um but in this case with director generals they're always course correcting as to how the last one went so yeah you're always dressing for yesterday's weather yeah in this case i think people are thinking that tim davy did absolutely brilliantly on positioning the bbc in terms of um business and the future and all those sorts of things but in terms of as an editorial role the fact is it is such an enormous role to do both of those things and crazy to be the only person that it's always you in front of the cameras it's always you on the stage it's always you at the podium and it's always your fault whatever happens I think is very difficult and I wonder whether the next person will think I want to empower maybe more senior people to be a bit more front-facing in that way because I think otherwise it is really very very difficult to exist in this era which all of these resignation letters made clear that this era is something particular.

28:16If you're an actual business person then the first thing to do would be you would gut it for parts and sell off loads of it and then not worry about public service broadcasting and uh uh line your own pockets speaking around i talked to all the people who as you say five years ago 10 years ago would have been on the list of who would do it and nobody seems interested i mean maybe alex mahon from from channel four because she's left channel four but i don't i don't know why she would want to do it she's out in business now but she could you know she'd understand the political side of it she understands how to run an organization if you're any of the big creative you know any of the big dogs and I don't mean Jonathan or Stephen but if you're any of those people, how about Joe Marler?