I came a cropper yesterday on the Priti Patel/Sir Philip Rutnam story, but I'm returning to the fray today regardless.
The BBC's involvement in the story intrigues me, because they have been absolutely at the heart of it.
Here's what we know: Sir Philip's resignation was choreographed in tandem with the BBC. On resigning, he contacted the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. BBC cameras and the BBC's political editor were then present to film his resignation speech. A BBC staffer even held an umbrella over Sir Philip's head to protect him from the rain.
Today, the BBC's home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw entered the fray, unhelpfully for Priti Patel, piling on more pressure with 'breaking' news. BBC News "has been told", he said, that Priti was formally complained about while serving as a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. The complaint "is believed to have been made by a member of her private office".
So what's going on here? And what's the BBC's role in all of this?
The BBC are obviously being used - by Sir Philip for starters, and also by that person who "told" them about the DWP complaint - but is that in any way wrong if it's a neutral journalistic scoop? After all, who'd look a gift horse in the gob?
Is being fed stories like this, even if the feeding is very obviously being done by people on a mission to bring down Priti Patel, actually part and parcel of proper, decent journalism?
Or is it not neutral journalism at all? Might not the BBC itself be on a similar mission?
Is being fed stories like this, even if the feeding is very obviously being done by people on a mission to bring down Priti Patel, actually part and parcel of proper, decent journalism?
Or is it not neutral journalism at all? Might not the BBC itself be on a similar mission?
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Meanwhile, Charlie's comment at the top of the latest Open Thread prompted me to check out who the BBC has invited on to discuss this story since it first broke yesterday morning.
Using TV Eyes to track them down, but only checking Radio 4's politics programmes and the BBC News Channel, here are the results.
The colour coding is simple: Those in red were pro-Sir Philip/anti-Priti. Those in blue were pro-Priti/anti-Sir Philip. Those in green were neither one nor the other.
Broadcasting House - Lord Kerslake
The World This Weekend - Jonathan Powell; Lord Butler
PM - Dave Penman; Yvette Cooper; Crispin Blunt
BBC News Channel - Lord Kerslake; Owen Jones; Cindy Yu; Sir Anthony Seldon; Yvette Cooper; Sebastian Payne
Of course, the Government isn't putting up people to speak on its behalf, but - still - this is quite an unbalanced list, don't you think?
