A falling-out

Those with sufficient popcorn at hand might savour the following transcription of a Twitter exchange between various present-day BBC people and certain ex-BBC people which took place three days ago. (If only it had gone on longer!):

Sir Craig Oliver: Saying you want “a managed no deal Brexit” is like saying you want a managed motorway pile-up. You can’t control it - and the point is to avoid it, not bring it on.
Hugh Sykes, BBC: Does your rather Delphic comment imply support for another referendum? If so, your old boss' attempt didn't go the way he expected, did it? (For those in doubt - who he? - this guy use to spin for David Cameron).
Sir Craig Oliver: Delphic? Think you need to brush up. It’s pretty clear. And btw don’t think 2nd ref answer. Have a sensible and polite conversation if you want to be taken seriously.
Hugh Sykes: PS. But it remains true that history is likely to settle on your old boss as the one who gambled with the national interest in order to try, unsuccessfully, to resolve conflicts in his own party and the threat that UKIP posed to it.
Sir Craig Oliver: I guess history will at least consider him. Not sure you’ll even be a footnote at the BBC.
Giles Dilnot, ex-BBC (to Sir Craig): You’ve always had an unfortunate habit of being snide about ex colleagues. Including, I seem to remember, the one that now replaces your old job in No10.
Jackie Leonard, BBC (to Sir Craig): Woah there. Hugh is a BBC legend, as you must be aware. No need to be rude.
Sir Craig Oliver (to Jackie Leonard): Hardly. But he certainly checks his impartiality in at the door when he goes onto social media.
Hugh Sykes (to Sir Craig): I'm happy with what I already have - several awards. including a Sony Gold Award for Journalist of the Year.
Sir Craig Oliver (to Hugh Sykes): Good for you Hugh - but where’s the bitterness coming from?
Nicola Careem, BBC (to Sir Craig): Wow, that's a really horrible comment.
Hugh Sykes (to Nicola Careem): Er, yes, and strange to assume that I even want to be 'a footnote at the BBC.' And odd (or maybe not? - very Spin Doctorish) that he resorts to insult instead of counter-argument. Thanks Nicola!
Sir Craig Oliver (to Hugh Sykes): Hilarious - I’m insulting you, but what you wrote isn’t insulting? You still aren’t answering the failure to be impartial point. Worrying you don’t get it, or avoid it.
Hugh Sykes (to Sir Craig): A mild insult in that first tweet, yes. And when you complained, my response was: 'Fair enough'.
Humphrey Hawksley, BBC (to Sir Craig): Hugh is one of the finest radio journalists of his generation. He is already far higher ranked among his peers than Cameron is among his.
Sir Craig Oliver (to Humphrey Hawksley): Not sure their categories are comparable, Humphrey (Sony Award vs General Election) - not that I accept your points. Regardless, BBC correspondents shouldn’t be scoring political points and pretending to be impartial. That includes you.
Humphrey Hawksley (to Sir Craig): So right, Craig. Trying to be impartial with peer group ranking. A great journalist will not try to be the story. A sourced footnote is a good place to be, while a great politician does need to be the headline. Cameron and Sykes have both made indelible marks on their trades.
Sir Craig Oliver (to Humphrey Hawksley): Sorry Humphrey. You are massively over-reaching here. I’m sure Hugh has done well - but the scale just isn’t comparable. By all mean defend your mate, but try to have a little perspective.

Twitter may not be the most edifying medium but without it would we, the BBC's public, ever have got to to hear such revealing exchanges? Both sides score palpable hits (which, given that they're basically on the same side, is even funnier). 

Sir Craig Oliver gets it wrong

On this week's The Media Show, Sir Craig Oliver got to complain about BBC 'false balance' during the EU referendum campaign and used the following specific example:

One of the stories that I tell in the book is: George Osborne and I were standing outside the Prime Minister's office on Sunday evening watching the BBC News, about to go into a meeting. And in the morning Penny Mordaunt, who was a government minister, had said that Britain does not have a veto on Turkey joining the EU. It does. It's a straightforward fact. And yet all day long on BBC bulletins, on BBC online, we were struggling to say, "But why can't you just say 'It's not true' right from the off? Help people understand this story because she's just got it wrong". 

And we watched the bulletin and there were two packages about Turkey in that bulletin that night. And at the end we just looked at each other and said, "What hope do the viewers have in understanding this?" because at no point was it made crystal clear that there are no international experts at all who think Turkey is going to join the EU in the next few years and Britain does have a veto and France, you know, I think, has to have a referendum. 

And I'm just saying that what needs to happen...and it's not just me that's saying this but Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who did a report for the BBC on this subject...when you speak to BBC viewers and listeners and readers online they feel incredibly frustrated because they feel they're just getting 'on the one hand, on the other' and saying 'Help me out!'. 

Well, it looks as if I'm going to have to do what Sir Craig demands on the BBC's behalf - as The Media Show didn't do it here - and 'help' people out by pointing out that Sir Craig himself 'just got it wrong'. 

What you've just read above from Sir Craig Oliver is simply not true, and I know because I wrote a piece about that very Sunday evening bulletin (including some transcriptions) and, as you will see, the former Downing Street spin doctor was wrong on several counts. 

He said the BBC didn't say that Penny Mordaunt was "wrong" when the BBC actually explicitly did say that she was "wrong" - and the BBC's Alex Forsyth even used the word "wrongly"!

And when he said that "at no point was it made crystal clear" about international experts saying there was no chance of Turkey joining the EU in the next few years, he 'forgets' that Alex Forsyth not only made that clear, saying herself "It is in fact some way off" but also featured Prof. Anand Menon (an expert) saying "it's not anywhere near becoming an EU member". 

The BBC could hardly have done Sir Craig's bidding better.

So, Sir Craig Oliver is behaving like Coco the Clown here and talking out of his newly-knighted behind.

Even his bit about BBC online is wrong. The BBC News website's Reality Check feature did rubbish Mrs Mordaunt's claims "right from the off" and "helped people understand this story":

So Sir Craig was comprehensively wrong.

On a related matter incidentally, why, whenever he uses this Turkish accession example on the BBC (as I've heard him do before), does no BBC interviewer ever ask him about his boss David Cameron's Turkey unlikely to join EU ‘until the year 3000’ claim? That claim was surely at least as worthy of a BBC 'reality check as Mrs Mordaunt's claims?

Anyhow, here's the relevant bit from my original post (from Sunday 22 May) in full just to show just how wrong Sir Craig was here. (I'll be charitable and put it down to 'confirmation bias' on his and George Osborne's part):

Wrongly claimed

Tonight's BBC One evening news bulletin began with the following headline:

Referendum battle lines are drawn over the Health Service and the chances of Turkey joining the EU. With controversy over what future migration levels might be David Cameron clashes with one of his own ministers on whether Britain could veto Turkish membership. The head of NHS England says the Health Service would be effected in a UK exit caused an economic slowdown. We'll be exploring the latest arguments from the two sides, with less than five weeks to go.

The bulletin (courtesy of BBC reporter Alex Forsyth) quickly - and explicitly - ruled who was right and who was wrong over that Turkey 'controversy': 

Sitting on Europe's south-east flank, Turkey's now at the centre of this referendum battle. Its role in tackling the migrant crisis has renewed talk of it joining the EU, and that's allowed those who want the UK to leave to raise questions about immigration and security. Like this minister [Penny Mordaunt] who today wrongly claimed the UK had no power to stop Turkey joining.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Penny! (according to the BBC).

We then got clips of Dave and Boris both saying (in the past) that Turkey should join the EU.

Then Alex did a 'Reality Check' for us. She 'made it clear' that Turkey wasn't going to be joining the EU any time soon. And blog favourite Prof. Anand Menon (the one who did that massively pro-EU series on the EU for The World at One) then duly appeared as Alex's 'talking head' to say (correctly) that the UK has traditionally been Turkey's biggest cheerleader as regards its entry into the EU and to emphasise the point that it's not "anywhere near becoming an EU member". And Alex then capped that by saying of Turkey's prospective EU membership, "It is in fact [emphasis hers] some way off..." (BBC message reinforcement on overdrive, I think, here!)

So relax about Turkey! (And don't, whatever you do, mention that Turkey has already been granted free visa access to the EU as part of the panicky EU-Turkey migrant deal!  {Edit: But see comments below}.)