The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Chris Patten: BBC has more senior managers than the communist party

The chairman of the BBC Trust added that Rupert Murdoch's newspapers "were bound to question" his position, but the crisis could be solved by better management.

By Helen Lewis Published 11 November 2012 10:57

Chris Patten on Andrew Marr's programme.

Chris Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, today told Andrew Marr that the BBC was facing its worst crisis since the Hutton Inquiry.

He said that "awful" journalism had "disgraced" Newsnight, and therefore he understood why the director-general, George Entwistle, had resigned.

Marr asked him whether Entwistle's "car-crash interview" with John Humphreys on Radio 4's Today programme had contributed to his decision to leave. "You don't go on an interview with John Humphreys and expect the bowling to be slow full tosses," Patten replied.

"We're a news organisation and our credibility depends on telling the truth," he added.

Marr asked whether Entwistle's "lack of curiosity" about the incorrect Newsnight story was the problem. Patten agreed partially, adding "from the beginning… he was implicated in the crisis. He was director of vision when that first Newsnight programme went out".

However, he said, Entwistle was "cerebral, decent, honest, brave".

Asked about his own position, Patten said that it was "bound to be under question by Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, let's be clear about that".

But he later added that opponents of the BBC "are fairly cagey about the way they talk about it" because of the corporation's wide public support. "It is one of the things which defines Britishness."

As for the suggestion that Newsnight was "toast" - as presenter Eddie Mair suggested on Friday's programme - Patten said: "That's a rather quick judgment … at the heart of our journalism is good investigative, uncompromising journalism, and Newsnight been part of that tradition. We want to hold on to that. We want to make sure that Newsnight and other programmes are properly managed.

"It's obviously been compromised by the fact that senior executives were recused from involvement . . . [but] decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer [of management]".

After Andrew Marr complained about the existence of an out-of-touch "senior management group" at the corporation, Patten said that he had always joked there were "more senior leaders at the BBC than in the Chinese communist party" but that it had worked to change itself.

The BBC Trust chairman promised to appoint a replacement for Entwistle within weeks, and not to let the corporation become too risk-averse.

Tags: Newsnight

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17 comments

Mon, 2012-11-12 20:32 — Mbrecker (not verified)

A big part of the problem is the BBC's trying to be all things to all people. Do you want to be a commercial or a state network? On the news side they're following the commercial network's approach of right wing makes big money. Think of all the prime time BBC news presenters. Can you name one that takes an openly left wing view? No, you can't. I once read that Paxman was very left wing in his university days. Can you imagine "Newsnight" with an openly Socialist Paxman?

Considering the average licensing fee, the BBC does need radical change.

Sun, 2012-11-11 22:40 — Davidaslindsay (not verified)

I do not agree with Chris Patten about the EU, especially, because on that he remains faithful to the record of the Prime Minister who signed the Single European Act and who appointed him to the Cabinet.

But a practising Catholic former Director of the Conservative Research Department, former Thatcher Cabinet Minister (in charge of the Poll Tax), former Chairman of the Conservative Party when it won a General Election which it had been expected to lose, and living reminder that that party was once strong in the provinces, is now a figure of the metropolitan liberal elite? Being chaired by him proves that an institution is left-wing? Seriously? Come on!

If Patten is somehow not a proper Conservative, then nor is the Prime Minister who put him the Cabinet. It really is quite extraordinary to read the comments on right-wing sites where this story is concerned, as it is when, for example, the NHS or the Middle East is being discussed. The once-mighty Conservative Party has become the weirdest of fringe sects, membership of which is conditional on subscription to a dozen or more shibboleths poles apart from mainstream, normal opinion.

Those include that the BBC should be abolished, that the NHS should be abolished, and that Britain should adopt an Israel First ultra-hawkishness far in excess of the position of Mossad or the IDF. A fantasy version of history is constructed and idealised, a combination of the 1950s without the first half of the twentieth century, and the 1980s without almost anything that really happened during that decade.

This sort of thing, and that relating to nothing more than PBS and ObamaCare rather to the BBC and the NHS, has just failed to win the Presidency of the United States and has just lost or failed to gain Senate seats in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, North Dakota and Montana. How much appeal does anyone honestly imagine that it might have in Britain?

As it was put to me yesterday: "I might as well have backed Gingrich-Palin, for more fun, less money, and the same result." Today's Republican Party could never have nominated any of its past Presidents. Not a single one. The Conservative Party is heading the same way. It will get there more or less immediately when it is defeated in 2015. From that year onwards, all previous Conservative Prime Ministers will be as unimaginable as all previous Republican Presidents already are.

Sun, 2012-11-11 19:55 — perry mason (not verified)

utter, utter filth at the bbc.

why have they not been shut down? why are the police not raiding them? and where are the huge investigations and various political inquiries etc? where is the 24/7 rolling news coverage and hundreds of articles about this in the guardian etc?

and for them to say the issue has been blown out of proportion by Rupert Murdoch and his papers is downright sickening and an insult to all the victims of the bbc.

Mon, 2012-11-12 08:44 — RH47

Brilliant! I love your satire imitating the sort of bug-eyed, brain-dead opinions that get into rags like the Sun and Mail and infest phone-ins and the web. You have, with great humour and succinctness shown how much we need the BBC!

Mon, 2012-11-12 08:54 — perry mason (not verified)

it is not satire and i worry about you if you think it is.

you can have the perversion, corruption, lies and scandal at the bbc - civilized law-abiding people don't want any part of that filth.

Mon, 2012-11-12 13:13 — bill23 (not verified)

RH 47 is a cop, civil servant, or both which explains his 'out of the ball park' remarks.
Don't burn a poppy, he'll have you in jail, sell arm to whoever and you'll get an invite to the Palace.
I think as we slip in the world rankings, we just have to accept that people like this eventually destroy all business (big blue) and empires.

Mon, 2012-11-12 10:56 — Herbert (not verified)

Some of us worry about you Perry. But as you are a fictional character perhaps we shouldn't bother ourselves.

Sun, 2012-11-11 15:09 — Lucidus (not verified)

Total Numbers of Chinese Communist Party

Year Total CPC Members
2011 82.602 million

chinatoday.com/org/cpc/

I think the BBC has some catching up to do!

Anthony (Little Englander and Proud)'s picture

Sun, 2012-11-11 14:55 — Anthony (Little Englander and Proud) (not verified)

BBC - Boy Buggering Central should be disbanded and operate on a subscription only basis.

Boy Buggering Central went after the Murdoch's big time, now the tables have turned, oh the joy that brings to me. What with the odious Macshane being busted for fiddling expenses and now this, it's been a great couple of weeks.

How you like them apples ?

Sun, 2012-11-11 15:03 — Lucidus (not verified)

Savile's tastes were for young girls. Some of his acts may have been at the BBC and others were in hospitals and care homes.

Do you have any evidence of homosexual paederasty at the BBC?

Sun, 2012-11-11 21:38 — Tosh Posh (not verified)

Do you forget that there are enquiries into young boys abused going on as well with him?

Have you seen the latest outburst of David Mellor grand old man of sucking toes of night women.

He is so pure!

Sun, 2012-11-11 14:02 — Barrie J (not verified)

When in the past the BBC's news coverage has been heavily slewed in favour of the establishment, i.e. the conflict between the police and striking miners at Orgreave, there has been no concern expressed over their position.
The problem with the BBC goes back long before Hutton.
There is little doubt that it is seen as a bloated, arrogant and contemptous organisation; try writing and complaing about their coverage/programme content and you'll see the response.

Fri, 2012-11-16 10:00 — Livers (not verified)

Agree, sadly. I love the BBC, but when you raise issues, especially regarding editorial bias their tone is condescending and arrogant.

I complained about comment sections moderation and adjustments made when the comments section became heavily critical of the government. In response I got 3 different reasons why they made changes, and that was because I was persistent in not accepting their fob off answers.

This, for me, is part of the cultural issues at the BBC.

Sun, 2012-11-11 21:43 — Tosh Posh (not verified)

The BBC were aslo a slight different when reporting scenes at Llanwern, where we stood to stop the dismantling of the British Steel plant there, a few years before it was 'trimmed down for global export prudence along with the rest of the UK's industries.', and the machinery sold to India.

Sun, 2012-11-11 13:53 — harryhart (not verified)

Not sure whether that old political saying is also true that the NHS is bigger than the Chinese Red Army. We seem to lead the world in teenage pregnancies and layers of management.

Sun, 2012-11-11 13:05 — Lucidus (not verified)

The error occurred at a low level. One would think a journalist would have shown Steven Messham a photograph of Lord McAlpine at some point.

According to the Daily Mail: "The person Steven Messham apparently mistook for Lord McAlpine was allegedly a member of a different branch of the family who lived in North Wales, and who is indeed dead."

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230788/BBC-Scandal-TV-bosses-desperate-atone-humiliation-Savile.html

People working on the story simply weren't doing their jobs properly.

Sun, 2012-11-11 11:50 — bill23 (not verified)

This gets to the core of the British/EU problem. We have become a nation of managers, and third rate ones at that. I blame the Guardian, with its support for non-job managers who really do think they are doing something useful, and would urge people to unload as much abuse as possible on these parasites. Bureaucrats beget more bureacrats, and they all have employment contracts; so the only way is to attack their mindless rule-bound ignorance.