On BBC self-congratulation

Also on this week's Radio 4 Media Show, Roger Mosey talked of the need for “a broader accountability” and how the BBC needs to prove it, rather than just asserting it and simply patting itself on the back:

Of course, Tim Davie has said there is problem, so the BBC does believe there is a problem. And I think when you refer back to Brexit and the BBC making statements saying it's all jolly good, I'd just like the accountability about that. I'd like some examination of it. And all we see in the BBC annual report is 'the Brexit coverage was rather marvellous, and so's the 2019 general election coverage'. And my question is: Was it? If you believe public service really matters, as I do, you have to make it better. And the BBC's supposed to be, not just where the market is, it's supposed to be better than the market.

And Ofcom's Kevin Bakhurst - the BBC's regulator - agreed, saying:

I don't think it's always really helpful that the knee jerk is 'we're already doing a brilliant job'. I think it's better sometimes to look at the evidence, which is what we do as an independent regulator, and see where you could make improvements.

Into the Labyrinth again

Just checking through our archive for our use of the word 'labyrinthine' - plus 'labyrinth' - to describe the BBC's tortuous complaints process, I find I've used it in five posts over the years - in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2019.

So it's gratifying to find that a former BBC head of news, Roger Mosey, and Ofcom's Kevin Bakhurst, both used exactly the same term to describe the BBC complaints process on this week's The Media Show on BBC Radio 4.

It feels like vindication.

Roger Mosey described the BBC as being “rather bad at accountability”:

Roger Mosey: And now I'm outside the BBC you see that accountability is really important, and it's very crucial for the BBC that it is accountable. I think it's rather bad at accountability really. The complaints process is very complicated. I've only ever...Since I've been outside I've made one complaint in eight and a half years. And I know the system. And you just got stuck in this labyrinth of not being able to work out how it was that you got anyone to acknowledge that there was a genuine issue there. 

And former BBC high-up now their regulator Kevin Bakhurst said that people get lost in the process and don't like the tone of the BBC's responses and “give up the ghost” - and also rather deliciously skewers a BBC 'defence' here:

Ros Atkins, BBC: But help me dig into the detail here. And, Kevin, you're the one making the request. So let me ask you, if I Google now 'BBC Complaints' I'm quite easily gonna end up on a page which says 'What would you like to say to us?', so the problem is presumably not that. The problem for you is what happens after that? 

Kevin Bakhurst: I mean, our research shows audiences can Google it and find their way in really, really easily and quickly, and they approve of that. And, by the way, in general they approve of BBC First as the right way to deal with complaints. However, once they get into that system, they get lost. And, as Roger says, it is really labyrinthine for audiences. That's what our research shows. They are not quite sure where they are in the process, they don't like the tone of language they get in responses from the BBC, many of them...when we were discussing this with the BBC, the BBC said, well, you know, it's a measure of our success that people don't come through to Ofcom that much at the end. Our research shows people don't come through to Ofcom because they've given up the ghost going through the BBC complaints process, and don't really understand where they are or how to advance them.

 As we've long said.

The Media Show

I've belatedly caught up with this week's The Media Show where Ros Atkins talked to Ofcom's Kevin Bakhurst; Owen Meredith of the News Media Association; former BBC head of news Roger Mosey; and Alice Enders of Enders Analysis.

Various thoughts flitted across my mind while listening to it, e.g. I tutted when Ros said:

But on the broader issue of complaints. Here's a statement today from the BBC - and, by the way, we did invite the BBC onto the programme, but they've sent us a statement.

It's always a little daft when the BBC declines to speak to itself.

This led into my next thought, concerning Ros's role in the programme. One admirable quirk of the BBC, especially during John Humphrys or Eddie Mair's interviews with BBC people during times of crisis for the BBC, was that BBC interviewers can go in surprisingly hard on the BBC. One DG, George Entwistle, had to go after a particularly high-temperature John Humphrys roasting. Maybe it was because the BBC weren't there to stick up for themselves that Ros played the part of BBC defender so strongly - i.e. for professional reasons, and reasons of fairness and balance - but he did seem to take certain things personally and put considerable energy - and what sounded like conviction - into sticking up for the BBC.

Anyhow, there were some interesting exchanges during the programme...which will follow in the next few posts...

Is Ofcom biased?

On the dreaded trans issue...

According to James Kirkup in The Spectator, Ofcom, the BBC's regulator, has written “a report about impartiality that is not itself impartial” - which he describes as “quite an achievement”. 

He argues that Ofcom's lopsided methodology is at fault, relying on 6 hours-worth of interviews with trans people, and that by listening to only one side of the trans debate Ofcom thereby distorted and skewed its own findings. 

He says the report “not only fails entirely to mention women’s legitimate and legally-protected concerns, but effectively tells the corporation that its coverage doesn’t lean far enough towards one side of that contested issue” and worries this will tilt the BBC towards an even more biased position. 

Methodology certainly counts. If you conduct focus groups and interviews and significantly overrepresent one side with “loud voices” and don't even talk to the other side then, yes, you are going to get a biased report.

On the background to this, I think this pair of tweets puts it in a nutshell:

Emily Kate: Not surprised by this. Ofcom only left Stonewall a year ago. But I think organisations employ Stonewall to entrench existing views anyway. So leaving the scheme isn't going to change much, ideologically speaking. It won't make the organisation fairer or more balanced, necessarily. 

The beautiful symmetry of the national broadcaster being investigated for bias by a regulator who agrees that Position Normal is the one taken by the broadcaster! It's perfect.

Ofcom complains about the BBC's complaints process

The BBC's regulator Ofcom reports its own findings pretty clearly in the following four headlines: 

• BBC must transform the way it serves audiences, Ofcom warns
• Too many people lack confidence in BBC complaints process, which must improve
• Audiences consistently rate it less favourably for impartiality
• Ofcom introduces new regulation to make the BBC more transparent and open

Of the BBC's tortuous complaints process, Ofcom have this to say: 

Fewer than one in five complainants told Ofcom they had a satisfactory complaints experience, and over half reported a bad experience. Others were concerned about the tone and detail of response; and that the BBC took too long to respond. Fewer than half of complainants said they received an initial substantive response within two weeks, the BBC’s target response time. Furthermore, around two thirds of UK adults who have cause to complain do not go on to make one at all, with 42% feeling it would not make a difference and 29% feeling it would not be taken seriously.

Who regulates the regulator?

  

It's over five years since News-watch first rang alarm bells at the fact that of the 13 members of Ofcom's Content Board at the time 10 had close BBC links. 

Ofcom is, of course, the BBC's regulator.

That was in 2016. Now, as we start 2022, The Mail on Sunday's deputy political editor Anna Mikhailova reports that this figure now stands at 10 out of 14, as there's been another member added to the Content Board.

Anna writes that:

Nadine Dorries is planning to review Ofcom's structure following concerns over bias towards the BBC, The Mail on Sunday understands.

The Culture Secretary is expected to examine the regulator's role as part of an upcoming review into the Corporation's complaints process.

Officials have raised concerns that out of the 14 members of Ofcom's Content Board, ten are ex-BBC employees. The regulator is the ultimate authority to which complaints can be escalated.

The next two paragraphs show why it's important that something is done:

Over the past two years, only one complaint about the Corporation was investigated by Ofcom, out of 418 referred to it by the BBC.

This is a fraction of the 830,632 viewer complaints made in total to the Corporation over the same period.

Isn't that extraordinary?

The piece continues: 

A Government source said: 'Fundamentally this needs to be looked at.'

It's very much to be hoped that Nadine Dorries isn't just talking about it but going to do something about it. There's been rather too much talk.

More from Ofcom

Also as per Charlie's comment, Ofcom reports that audiences “consistently rate the BBC less favourably for impartiality” than they do on any other measure and that many viewers and listeners don't believe that the BBC obeys impartiality rules. 55 per cent of BBC television news viewers rate it very highly  - a figure which strikes me as surprisingly high. 

Ofcom was also critical of the BBC’s lack of transparency over its complaint process. Ofcom wants the BBC to be more transparent, especially over its complaints process, as the corporation doesn't give details of rejected complaints. Ofcom says: “Given the importance of the BBC to many people in the UK, we have consistently called for the BBC to be more transparent. For instance, in how it explains its decision to the public.”

I'd add that they're getting very tardy at adding to their Corrections and Clarifications page. It's well over a month since they last publicly corrected or clarified anything, the last time being about ragworts on 20 October...

In honour of which fact, and though the BBC's Mark Bell might disapprove...

John Clare, The Ragwort (1832)

Ragwort, thou humble flower with tattered leaves
I love to see thee come & litter gold,
What time the summer binds her russet sheaves;
Decking rude spots in beauties manifold,
That without thee were dreary to behold,
Sunburnt and bare - the meadow bank, the baulk
That leads a wagon-way through mellow fields,
Rich with the tints that harvest's plenty yields,
Browns of all hues; and everywhere I walk
Thy waste of shining blossoms richly shields
The sun tanned sward in splendid hues that burn
So bright & glaring that the very light
Of the rich sunshine doth to paleness turn
& seems but very shadows in thy sight.

Ofcom 'does a BBC' over Emily Maitlis

 

In news that's unlikely to surprise anyone hereabouts, we learn today that Ofcom won't be pursuing the BBC over Emily Maitlis's infamous Dominic Cummings monologue on Newsnight. 

An Ofcom spoke says:

We consider the programme's opening monologue could be perceived as Ms Maitlis's personal view on a matter of major political controversy. 

But, having assessed the programme as a whole, we also found that a range of different viewpoints were given appropriate weight, including those of the UK government. 

Given this, and taking into account the BBC's acceptance under its own complaints processes that it fell short of its editorial guidelines, we won't be taking further action. 

We have, however, reminded the BBC that when preparing programme introductions in news programmes, to capture viewers' attention - particularly in matters of major political controversy - presenters should ensure that they do not inadvertently give the impression of setting out personal opinions or views.

It's the gentlest of raps on the knuckles. 

Ofcom is famously staffed with ex-BBC people. The language of that is pure BBC.

It "could be perceived" as Ms Maitlis's personal view? Presenters should ensure that they do not "inadvertently give the impression" of setting out personal opinions or views?

Whether or not it was solely Emily Maitlis's personal view, or the Newsnight team's point of view, it's absurd to claim that it wasn't a contentious point of view. 

And there was nothing "inadvertent" about it. It was meant.

A Modest Proposal

 

Champagne may be being readied at the BBC with the news that Ofcom wants to give the corporation much greater freedom to set their own programming targets free from the 148 quotas which presently require them to provide certain amounts of public service programmes - i.e. arts, religion, documentaries, etc. 

This would allow the BBC to to set it own targets and mark its own homework, and to use its £3.5 billion a year in licence fee funding to become even more like its commercial rivals and even less like a public service broadcaster.

Last Saturday, BBC One viewers saw Celebrity Mastermind followed by Celebrity Catchpoint followed by Celebrity The Wall followed by Pointless Celebrities. With any luck, thanks to Ofcom, they could soon be enjoying Celebrity BBC Weekend News read by Michael McIntyre. The news department could select ten stories to cover and 'spin the wheel' to decide which ones are covered and the order they're covered. BBC reporters like Mark Easton and Orla Guerin could then emerge through dry ice and talk about how awful things are and then wave goodbye to the audience at the end of their reports to lift viewers' spirits again.

Bottom of the League

This is the chart in Ofcom's latest annual report on the BBC that looks at public perceptions of impartiality, as highlighted by Broadcast:

 

The BBC is fond of cherry-picking opinion surveys when it comes to impartiality. They use them to defend themselves against criticism. But this one shows the BBC in 2019/20 as falling below Sky News, Channel 4 News, ITV and even Channel 5 when it comes to impartiality:

'Is impartial'

Sky News - 69%

Channel 4 News - 66%

ITV - 63%

Channel 5 - 61%

BBC TV - 58%

All of those figures might surprise you - they certainly surprised me, in that I wouldn't rate any of them as being that high on the impartiality front - but for the BBC to be bottom of the league, and behind Channel 5, must surely come as a heavy blow to the BBC.

The Papers

 

Good morning. Here is the news. Beginning with Jeremy Paxman in The Daily Telegraph:

For so long a world leader, the BBC has grown fat and metropolitan, increasingly scorning the views of the parochial people who are forced to pay for it. When given its head, the BBC can still produce brilliant shows like Strictly Come Dancing but, at an institutional level, it behaves more and more like an embarrassing relative deciding to dance with the kids at a wedding. It’s hard to resist the impression of smug people who think they know better than the rest of us. The consoling glory is that none of us has to tune in any more. 

And here's Simon Heffer, also in The Daily Telegraph: 

No-one over the age of 55 who tries to watch BBC television or listen to its radio services will be surprised to learn, from Ofcom’s latest report on the Corporation, that people in their demographic are gradually giving up on it. As one in that age group, my own consumption of what the BBC offers is largely restricted to Radio 3, which shines like the proverbial good deed in a naughty world. 

Elsewhere, Radio 4 appears to have become Victim Radio, with an endless stream of programmes featuring people, usually from minorities, complaining about some injustice, usually inflicted on them by the state. This schedule of gloom is punctuated by profoundly unfunny Leftist comedians (I use that noun in its broadest, often unintentional sense). My wife likes Gardeners’ World, but that is becoming ostentatiously woke and in any case is now off for the winter. Other than that, little else appeals: the world our age group really wants to see on television is best represented on the Talking Pictures channel, whose success, believe me, is not coincidental to the BBC’s decline. 

Incidentally, in the same article, Simon Heffer laments the state of BBC drama and blames it on "the virtue-signalling of overpaid, self-righteous white executives", but BBC News is hardly immune from that. Head of Newsgathering Jonathan Munro, for example, recently said, "We don’t want all our editorial meetings to be dominated by what white people think" - despite some 85% of the UK population being white. He also complained that when he joined the BBC in 2014, every person on his team was a Caucasian male - including him. Their predecessors he'd previously blamed for creating “male, pale and stale” output. As others have pointed out, it's staggering how people like Mr Munro can say this kind of thing yet cleave to their own jobs, as if doublethink allows them to be doubleplusgood while all the rest are part of the problem. He's been in place for six years now. Why doesn't he lead by example and resign?

Anyhow, in The Times today we hear that "an influential group of peers" - The Lords' Communications and Digital Committee - is recommending that Ofcom has its remit expanded to cover the BBC News website and that it should also have a role in monitoring the accuracy and impartiality of social media posts from journalists employed by public service broadcasters. That will keep the ex-BBC folk at Ofcom busy!

Meanwhile, as Charlie noted yesterday, the papers are reporting that TV licence evasion accounts for one in three women's criminal convictions, according to new figures, with women being convicted for non-payment of the licence ten times more than men. There were 84,000 licence fee offences by women, representing 74% of 2019 convictions for this type of offence. One for Newsnight and Woman's Hour?

...and statistics

I read a piece by Matthew Moore in The Times yesterday noting those ex-BBC folk at Ofcom's findings that the BBC is starting to lose support among its most loyal viewers and listeners - older viewers. 

For the purposes of this blog though, it was the following which stood out for me:

Only 54 per cent of adults believe that the BBC provides impartial news and around 20 per cent rate the corporation badly for impartiality.

I must admit that I was surprised at those figures. Matthew thought they reflected badly on the BBC, but I found them unbelievably high (with the emphasis on 'unbelievably'). 

Even that dubious 54% wasn't high enough for the BBC evidently. I smiled on reading their own write-up. It didn't mention the impartiality findings at all, and just stuck to the identity stuff (as ever).

Today I read an interesting new angle on the Ofcom findings from Broadcast. Its headline reads Impartiality: BBC News slips below C5. It adds that the BBC is also now behind ITV and Sky News and Channel 4 too as far as public perceptions of impartiality go. 

Crikey! Goodness knows how to unravel those findings!

More of the same

Both News-watch and us here at ITBB have been watching the watchers for a while. 

The BBC's watchers are Ofcom's Content board. 

Back in 2016, eight out of thirteen of them were ex-BBC. 

So I read today, via an old friend of the blog over at our cousins, that some new members of Ofcom's Content board have been announced today. 

It's the same old song.

There's former BBC World Service boss, editor of Panorama, Newsnight and the BBC's elections coverage Peter Horrocks for starters - a very familiar name to BBC watchers. 

Then there's former Controller of BBC2 and BBC4 Kim Shillinglaw. 

And Dekan Apajee, who worked for the BBC from 2002-2012.

And Rachel Coldicutt, who has been "working at the cutting edge of new technology" for the BBC among others.

The two others, Anna-Sophie Harling and Tobin Ireland, don't appear to have any BBC connections.

I bet the BBC is intensely relaxed about these latest appointments.

And there's even more...

David's latest piece also notes that Ofcom has carried out an expensive, year-long review of the BBC's news and current affairs output, and guess what the recommendations of the Ofcom report were?

News and current affairs is largely tickety-boo – with one major caveat, the ‘D’ word. Wait for it: not enough diversity!

And the contents analysis done for the Ofcom review comes from...drum roll...the same people the BBC used for their own output reviews - our old friends at the School of Media, Journalism and Culture at Cardiff University, a department headed by Richard Sambrook, ex-BBC Director of Global News. 

So not only is the Ofcom content board stuffed with ex-BBC people and the Ofcom main and advisory boards stuffed with ex-BBC people, Ofcom uses the same Cardiff University as the BBC uses to carry out their output reviews. 

Circles within circles.

David writes: 

So how did the wise people of Ofcom decide that output was impartial? A main plank was that they had considered 300 complaints about BBC bias in 2018-19 and upheld none of them. Well, that’s okay then. Or maybe – more likely – it confirms the need for an urgent external investigation of Ofcom itself into confirmation bias – the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that affirms one’s prior beliefs or hypotheses. 

That's as bad as the BBC making a favourable opinion poll its main proof of impartiality.

As for bias and Brexit, well, this sounds very odd:

The second main plank of their approach was the PwC report mentioned above. A key element of this was based on 13 interviews and workshops around the country, each attended by a dozen consumers of BBC output. How precisely these were framed is not disclosed – it is assumed by Ofcom that PwC knew what they were doing. But a striking feature of the exercise, at a time when the news agenda was dominated by Brexit, was that those with strong views about the topic were deliberately excluded.

I find none of this remotely reassuring.

And there's more...

David Keighley, in his  latest The Conservative Woman article, notes that the ex-BBC-dominated Ofcom content board - which rules on BBC bias - has behaved as a cynic might expect such an ex-BBC-dominated board to behave: 

Despite the relentless tide of anti-Brexit bias, the Ofcom content board – eight of the 13 members are ex-BBC – has dismissed the vast majority of BBC complaints appeals referred to it with the same cavalier liberal-Left disdain as the BBC itself. 

Most strikingly, a meticulously researched complaint about the anti-Brexit bias of BBC1’s Question Time was dismissed on the basis that a single contribution from Theresa May crony Damian Green proved that the ‘hard’ Brexit perspective had been adequately represented in 25 editions. 

Whatever happened to Aaqil Ahmed?

Do you remember our old friend Aaqil Ahmed - the BBC's first Muslim Head of Religion and Ethics, and the man who took Songs of Praise to the illegal immigrants camp in Calais and compared the immigrants to Jesus, Mary and Joseph fleeing King Herod. 

He left the BBC in 2016. Guess where he is now?

Well, News-watch's David Keighley report today that he's among the latest batch of ex-BBC members appointed to Ofcom's various boards.

All three of the latest intake are ex-BBC.

Also, 8 of the Ofcom content board's 13 members are ex-BBC - and they're the ones who rule on BBC bias. 

It's an endless revolving door, isn't it?

Aaqil, if you're wondering, has been busy since leaving the BBC: I see from Linkedin that he's been a Professor of Media at Bolton University (no, me neither), a media consultant to various companies and a non-executive director at the Advertising Standards Agency. 

Circles within circles within circles

Long-term readers will recall that the BBC, for its landmark impartiality reports, called on Cardiff University to do its contents analyses. 

The various far-lefties and ex-BBC types in the mighty Media department there duly declared the BBC to be broadly impartial but too pro-EU, too pro-business, too pro-Conservative etc. 

We slammed Cardiff's surveys for sampling far too little output, and for limiting that even further to just parts of the Today programme over a single week - one-and-a-half-hours of the programme rather than the entire three hours.

Ah, well, we've got Ofcom now. 

They're looking into the BBC with fresh eyes. 

But, just as most of the Ofcom folk have had links to the BBC, so we now learn, Ofcom's own reports are drawing on content analyses from....

yes...

...Cardiff University. 

Yes, I know. You couldn't make it up. 

And, yes, though they covered three weeks this time (still far from enough), they's still continuing to sample just parts of the Today programme rather than whole editions. 

And this time it's even worse, because rather than examinng half of each edition they're they're looking at just one hour now of each three hour edition (and no Saturdays). 

Why? Because it was "beyond their resources" to to do more! (I kid you not.)

Yes, I know. You still couldn't make it up.

I wouldn't ever automatically trust any findings they come up with. 

Looking for angles?

In response to an Ofcom ruling against RT and the possibility that the broadcaster's licence might be revoked in the UK, Russia says it will now carry out checks to determine if the BBC World News channel and BBC News website are compliant with Russian law. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the BBC was being targeted for its “biased” and “unfair” coverage of events in Russia and Syria. The BBC says it is fully compliant with Russian laws "to deliver independent news and information to its audiences". 

Meanwhile, the Guardian's reporting of this story brings another angle to the story:

RT last week published online messages it said were sent by a BBC Russian reporter to a local freelance journalist in France looking for a Russian “angle” to the “gilets jaunes” protests, such as Russian businesses benefiting from the protests or far-right Russians traveling to stir up violence. BBC Russian did not publish an article on the topic. The story has received ample coverage on Russian state television.

I was intrigued by this and read the RT report, written in French, via Google Translate (with the usual allowances for its foibles). It claims that BBC correspondent Olga Ivshina talked with a freelance journalist who was covering the protests of the 'yellow vests' and that she first asked the freelancer if there are "members of the National Front in the streets of Paris", and then added, "And if we find these ultra-right, will they talk about Putin and their links with Moscow?" The RT piece continues:

In the face of what appears to be a negative answer of the freelancer, Olga Ivshina asks if "Russians" participate in the demonstrations. Visibly faced with new denials, the BBC journalist does not give up and asks the freelancer about a possible presence of "Russian companies" on the spot, who would do "their headache during the riots". "But perhaps there is at least the ultra-right? And they can already be linked to Putin ... ", she asks again, determined. Still according to the conversation that RIA Novosti had access to, the BBC reporter explains her approach to the freelancer: "Yes, I'm looking for angles. Editorial wants blood."

It then says: 

Contacted by RT, the BBC - confirming the conversation highlighted by RIA Novosti - replied in these terms: "Inasmuch as the French Foreign Minister has publicly spoken about media reports about a possible Russian influence on demonstrations, it was perfectly reasonable for our correspondent to raise the subject. However, in their final state, her reports made no mention of a possible connection with Russia. We stick to impartial and independent journalism."

Now that does sound like a genuine BBC statement, so the RT story could be true. 

The BBC's response (as cited by RT) is a reasonable one, especially as they didn't run with suggestions of a connection anyhow. But, if true, it's still interesting that the BBC appears to have been focusing in so keenly on the far-right and Putin in connection to the “gilets jaunes” phenomenon. That would be a 'very BBC' thing to do. 

Postscript

On the same theme as the previous post, David Keighley's latest piece at TCW takes stock of where we are as far as the BBC being held to official account goes.

He puts the jigsaw together and lets us see the scale of the problem.

From successive post-John Whittingdale Culture Secretaries, through the present Damian Collins-headed Commons Culture & Media Select Committee, to Mrs May's (ex-BBC) Press Secretary Robbie Gibb, and the BBC's new Management Board (headed by the barely-visible Sir David Clementi), onto Ofcom itself, David sees allies of the BBC and enemies of Brexit as far as the eye can see. 

It's deeply dispiriting, and I think I may have been too optimistic in my previous post.

The BBC is, as least as far as the powers-that-be go, as unfettered and unchallenged as it's been for a long while. 

Tools and techniques

Panel show?

According to the UK Press Gazette, Ofcom is to review the depth of analysis and the impartiality of the BBC's news and current affairs output. 

Especially interesting for me is their intent to look at "the “tools and techniques” the corporation uses to deliver impartiality". I'll like the BBC pinned down on that, given their constant equivocation over the matter. They deny the value of measuring ('counting') from sources they don't like yet measure like mad themselves over things like diversity, and they count party politicians on programmes like The Andrew Marr Show, Question Time and the like, and they cite 'counting'-style studies in their impartiality reviews (usually ones from Cardiff University, so they can't have it both ways - despite having been allowed to have it both ways for years. 

Given the concerns many of us have about the composition of Ofcom's Contents Board, I'm not holding my breath just yet, but where there's life there's hope!

Incidentally, I'm not sure Rob Burley will appreciate Ofcom's voicing of concern that there's been an increase in the proportion of panel-style current affairs programmes shown on BBC TV. It said they “do not tend to reflect in-depth investigative journalism”. Are they thinking of his baby Politics Live?