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BBC 'excessively deferential' to pro-Brexit case, says Lord Patten BBC 'excessively deferential' to pro-Brexit case, says Lord Patten
(about 1 hour later)
The BBC is being “excessively deferential” to the pro-Brexit case because of concerns over the pending renewal of its charter, a Lord Patten has said. The BBC may be giving “excessively deferential” treatment to the Brexit campaign because its charter is under review by a culture secretary who wants to leave the EU, Chris Patten has said.
The Tory former chairman of the broadcaster said it was sometimes going too far to demonstrate “balance” because the shadow of the process led by anti-EU culture secretary John Whittingdale was “hanging over it”. Lord Patten, a Conservative peer and former BBC Trust chairman who is in favour of the UK staying in the EU, said it raised eyebrows when weighty figures from the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund were given equal billing with “some backbencher no one has ever heard of”.
“The BBC has an extremely difficult job. It is having to cover this referendum with the shadow of a charter review and Mr Whittingdale hanging over it,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Patten said it was extremely difficult for the BBC having to cover the referendum “with the shadow of the charter review and [John] Whittingdale hanging over it”.
Related: Channel 4 could be better off in private hands, John Whittingdale saysRelated: Channel 4 could be better off in private hands, John Whittingdale says
“I think that may make people excessively deferential when trying to produce balance. “I think that may make people excessively deferential when they are trying to produce balance,” he said, but added that it was better for the BBC to be criticised for being too fair than anything else.
“You have the governor of the Bank of England on, or the IMF chief, so you feel obliged to put up some Conservative backbencher that nobody has ever heard of on the other side of the argument. The senior Conservative also predicted that the remain campaign was going to win the referendum and appealed for the party to pull together afterwards. He said it would require a “spectacular quantity of magnanimity” from David Cameron after the result, and called on leave campaigners, if they lose, “not to go down the Alex Salmond route” of refusing to accept that a constitutional question has been settled by a referendum.
“It does occasionally raise eyebrows. But I think I would prefer the BBC to be being criticised for being excessively balanced rather than for doing anything else. It comes after a week of particularly pronounced and acrimonious splits at the top of the Tory party that have strayed beyond the issue of the EU.
“It is a very great broadcaster which is dedicated to telling the truth and that is an unusual thing in the world of the media.” Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, claimed the junior doctors’ strike could have been settled with money saved from leaving the EU, while the government claimed the dispute was not about money.
No 10 was then frustrated by an intervention by a cabinet minister on its own side, Theresa May, who argued the UK should stay in the EU but leave the European convention on human rights.
Senior Tory sources said this argument would harm Cameron’s intended plan of trying to bring the party back together after 23 June by pressing ahead with a British bill of rights to reform human rights law, while staying in the ECHR.
Cameron’s campaign was also criticised by leading Brexit figures on Wednesday over reports that his aides are using Whatsapp messaging to discuss strategy in order to avoid being subject to future freedom of information requests.