Why did the BBC back down so quickly over Cummings? Emily Maitlis hits out at Beeb for apologising over her Newsnight monologue about PM’s then-chief adviser’s Barnard Castle trip during Covid lockdown
- Former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis said the public felt ‘like fools’ in 2020
- BBC chiefs decided she had breached impartiality rules in her broadcast
- Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival she said the BBC ‘sought to pacify’ No. 10
Former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis has accused the BBC of caving in too quickly to Government complaints over her controversial monologue about Dominic Cummings’s lockdown trip to Barnard Castle.
Miss Maitlis, pictured, was at the centre of a row after BBC chiefs decided she had breached impartiality rules in her broadcast about Boris Johnson’s then chief adviser in 2020.
She had introduced Newsnight’s coverage by saying that the public ‘feel like fools’.
Last night Miss Maitlis, 51, who left the BBC this year to join media group Global, told the Edinburgh TV Festival that the corporation had ‘sought to pacify’ No 10 by issuing an apology ‘within hours’.
She asked whether the BBC was ‘perhaps sending a message of reassurance directly to the Government.’
Former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis (pictured) accused the BBC of caving in too quickly to Government complaints over her controversial monologue about Dominic Cummings’s lockdown trip to Barnard Castle at the Edinburgh TV Festival
In her first major speech since she left the BBC, the presenter said the row had ‘got way more attention than in truth it ever deserved’ and was neither the best or worst opening she had ever done.
She also confirmed that a phone call of complaint was made to BBC news management by Downing Street the day after she had given the monologue.
The row erupted in 2020 after Miss Maitliss introduced the programme’s coverage of the Cummings controversy with a highly-critical speech, in which she said the public ‘feel like fools’ and accusing Boris Johnson of showing ‘blind loyalty’.
The BBC received more than 40,000 complaints in two days about the broadcast – both from those angry at her comments and those annoyed at the BBC’s decision to say it had broken rules.
When Miss Maitlis quit the BBC earlier this year insiders had said she had decided to leave because she was ‘frustrated’ at being repeatedly ‘ticked off’ by bosses.
Last night Miss Maitlis, 51, who left the BBC this year to join media group Global, told the Edinburgh TV Festival that the BBC had ‘sought to pacify’ No 10 by issuing an apology ‘within hours’
She told the TV Festival of the Cummings row: ‘It was only the next morning that the wheels fell off.
‘A phone call of complaint was made from Downing Street to the BBC News management. This – for context – is not unusual.
‘It wasn’t unusual in the Blair days – far from it – in the Brown days, in the Cameron days. What I’m saying is, it’s normal for government spin doctors to vocalise their displeasure to journalists.’
But, she added: ‘What was not foreseen was the speed with which the BBC sought to pacify the complainant. Within hours, a very public apology was made, the programme was accused of a failure of impartiality, the recording disappeared from the iPlayer, and there were paparazzi outside my front door.’
Miss Maitlis, who interviewed Prince Andrew pin 2019 (pictured), said the row had ‘got way more attention than in truth it ever deserved’ and was neither the best or worst opening she had ever done
Focusing on the speed of the BBC’s response to Government, she said: ‘Why had the BBC immediately and publicly sought to confirm the Government spokesman’s opinion? Without any kind of due process? It makes no sense for an organisation that is admirably, famously rigorous about procedure – unless it was perhaps sending a message of reassurance directly to the Government itself?’
But she said Cummings had actually contacted her directly the same evening it aired apparently to offer his ‘wry support’.
She pointed to the BBC board and singled out member Sir Robbie Gibb – Theresa May’s former director of communications – describing him as ‘another active agent of the Conservative party’.
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