4:00

who got a director general who

4:02

is himself not a very experienced

4:04

journalist or broadcaster. He's more comfortable

4:06

commercial background. I think having someone

4:09

to balance him who has got that

4:11

editorial background. But he's going to

4:13

be stress tested in this job almost from

4:15

day one. And I think the

4:17

truth is we don't know enough about

4:20

Sami Aisha and whether he's had that

4:22

kind of bruising experience and how he's

4:24

going to stand up to it. What

4:26

we do know is perhaps the selection

4:28

process was a little less tilted than

4:30

it was when they thought of

4:32

getting Paul Dacre into Ofcom and

4:34

former... Glad you mentioned that. And

4:39

former Telegraph editor, Sunday Telegraph

4:42

editor, spectator editor to Charles

4:45

Lord Moore in as chairman of

4:47

the BBC. That was under the

4:49

Johnson. Well that segues nicely to

4:51

the latest knockback in my campaign

4:53

to get the BBC to acknowledge

4:55

that Theresa May's former press secretary

4:57

and BBC director did try to

5:00

interfere in the process to get

5:02

the chair of the BBC's regulator

5:04

Ofcom fixed. And

5:07

I had a very dismissive letter

5:09

the end of last week from

5:11

Dame Ellen Closstevans who's the acting

5:13

chair of the BBC, which

5:17

basically said, look, I've asked Robbie Gibb about

5:19

this and he's told me everything is fine.

5:21

So can we please move on? And I

5:24

don't think that's a very satisfactory answer. We

5:27

now have to move on to the next phase of

5:29

the campaign. Well Alan, I read that letter

5:31

and it was pretty dismissive,

5:34

very short. And if

5:36

I could stretch the metaphor and you

5:38

are the terrier with some trousers in

5:40

your mouth, bits of trousers, because you're

5:42

not going to let go. Basically, Dame

5:45

Ellen gave you a pat on the head and

5:48

said, now, now don't get

5:50

too excited and please go back to your

5:52

kennel. The reason

5:54

I'm keeping going with this is that the

5:56

BBC swears by the Nolan principles which are

5:59

all about Oprah. us on accountability

6:01

and they explicitly say we shall

6:03

be open about everything unless there's

6:05

an overriding reason

6:08

not to be. It's clear that

6:10

nobody has now denied that Robbie

6:12

Gibb tried to fix this appointment.

6:15

And I just think the BBC has got

6:17

itself into a terrible position of covering

6:20

up for whatever Robbie Gibb did. And

6:23

it would be much better to just come and explain what

6:25

Robbie Gibb did if there's a good reason, then

6:27

we should hear about it. Anyway,

6:29

I'm now approaching various media shows,

6:32

various BBC shows and I've started

6:35

with the media show and I

6:37

tweeted Katie Rassell yesterday on

6:39

Twitter. So I'm waiting, baited breath to see if the

6:41

BBC will allow me to go on to the BBC

6:44

to talk about that. But

6:46

moving on from that, Lionel, is the

6:48

latest twist in the Telegraph story. Explain

6:51

it. Yeah, well,

6:53

I'll try very briefly. But the

6:55

good news if you're a banker

6:57

and work for Lloyds Bank is

7:00

that you've actually got your billion

7:02

pounds back, which you

7:05

basically never thought you were going to get

7:07

the whole money back, which half of which

7:09

was lent to the Barkley twins back

7:11

in 2004 when they

7:13

bought the Telegraph group. And

7:16

of course, as I've said before on this

7:18

distinguished show, we are talking

7:20

about walking bankrupts. They may have owned

7:22

the the Ritz, but they got massively

7:25

extended and they couldn't pay back this

7:27

debt. And that

7:29

now, thanks to the

7:31

Gulf investors, notably

7:34

from Abu Dhabi, that's where they this

7:37

IMA in media investment group, they

7:39

basically teamed up with the Americans,

7:42

Jeff Zuker, ex-CNN called Redbird,

7:45

and they put the money up to

7:48

pay off the loan, the delinquent

7:50

loan to Lloyds. And then

7:52

they will convert that loan, which

7:54

they essentially given to the Barclays to pay it back

7:56

into equity so they can buy the Telegraph. So you

7:58

may have heard that. understood that, haven't you?

8:01

I'm not going to give you an exam

8:03

paper. So debt for equity spot, Barkley

8:06

twins bailed out essentially by Gulf

8:08

investors and Jessica, who then

8:10

want to buy the telegraph. But the

8:13

government has intervened to say,

8:15

well, actually, we need to look at this

8:17

bid because a Abu

8:19

Dhabi investment group is essentially part

8:21

of a state agency. And

8:24

what's the record of the Abu Dhabi government

8:27

towards a free press? And

8:29

on those grounds, they're going to refer

8:31

it under a public interest notice. The

8:33

Culture Secretary, Lucy Fraser, wants a

8:36

recommendation or a ruling, an

8:39

opinion by January. Now,

8:42

then it could go to a

8:44

deeper investigation by the Competition and

8:46

Markets Authority. So to sum

8:48

up, I think good news if you're a banker,

8:51

bit disappointing if you're the Barkley

8:53

family, because you've lost your newspaper

8:55

group. And slightly

8:58

frustrating if you're Jeff Zucker and

9:00

the Abu Dhabi people because the

9:02

government's ordered a review. That was

9:04

clear as Crystal, Lionel. Your

9:07

lineage is a great editor. Explanation.

9:13

So the overall timeline is going to

9:16

be how long before we know,

9:18

I'm assuming the CMA to take a deeper

9:20

dive into this. How long is it going

9:22

to be before this is decided? I think

9:24

it's till the end of the year, maybe

9:26

even after the election. I mean, the

9:29

way I read it, I'm interested in

9:31

what you think, Alan, but the current

9:33

state of the ruling Conservative Party is

9:36

such that even though they

9:38

will be worried, the government will be

9:40

worried about offending the

9:42

UAE, the United Arab Emirates,

9:45

which is Abu Dhabi.

9:48

They're big investors in the UK. I

9:50

just think that the campaign waged by,

9:53

we were mentioning earlier, Lord Moore, Charles

9:56

Moore, you've got Ian Duncan

9:58

Smith, the regular contributor. down the

10:00

Telegraph, they've got their

10:02

readers all whipped up to write in

10:05

saying you can't possibly hand over the

10:07

Telegraph group to a foreign state entity

10:09

that doesn't believe in press freedom.

10:11

It's a strong argument and that's why

10:14

I think the government will refer and

10:16

there's going to be a longer investigation.

10:19

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10:42

So

10:47

we're now joined from Mexico

10:50

City by Nick Davis, an

10:52

old colleague from the Guardian who broke

10:54

the original phone hacking revelations beginning in

10:57

2009. Nick, yesterday in the High

11:02

Court in London there was a

11:04

settlement with Chris Hoon, a former

11:06

Lib Dem MP and

11:09

other politicians and people. What

11:13

caught your eye in this

11:15

case involving Chris Hoon? I

11:17

thought there were two big headlines. First

11:20

that the Murdoch people carried

11:22

on hacking voicemails for

11:25

many years longer than we have

11:27

previously understood and did so in

11:29

a way which was so

11:32

reckless if the evidence

11:34

is reliable as to suggest

11:36

they're just mad. It was just bonkers what

11:38

they were doing if indeed we can rely

11:40

on the evidence. And there's a

11:42

second headline in there which is that

11:44

whereas all of the hacking we knew

11:47

about already was about trying to get

11:49

stories about people's personal lives, this

11:51

or at least a significant part of it

11:54

appears to have been devoted

11:56

to advancing Rupert Murdoch's commercial

11:58

interests. his attempt

12:00

to take over all of B Sky B.

12:03

And the implication of that is

12:06

that if there were senior people organizing

12:08

it, it wouldn't be the familiar names

12:10

from the News of the World Newsroom.

12:12

It would be somebody high up in

12:14

the hierarchy on the other side of

12:17

the company. And somewhere up there, there's

12:19

not only Rupert Murdoch, but more immediately on the

12:21

scene, of course, his son James. So

12:24

in all of this, we need to keep a health

12:26

warning in mind that we

12:28

can talk about the evidence. But the bottom line is,

12:30

I would describe it

12:33

as a strong case of

12:35

circumstantial evidence, which falls short

12:37

of anything like a smoking gun. There

12:39

isn't an email from A to B

12:42

saying, guess what? I just hacked Chris

12:44

Hume's email and discovered the following info.

12:46

So as circumstantial cases go, it's strong,

12:48

but it's not, I think, it's

12:50

not without that. So just

12:52

to remind people of the chronology, 2009,

12:55

you published the revelations that it

13:01

was not just one rotten apple. The

13:04

phone hacking was widespread, and

13:07

indeed the board of News

13:10

International, if I've got the

13:12

right entity, agreed

13:14

a really a million pound payoff

13:16

to keep the secret. So at

13:19

that point, it became known that this was a

13:21

more widespread problem. 2010,

13:23

coalition government comes in, and that's

13:25

the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.

13:27

So that's the significance of people

13:30

like Vince Cable and Chris Hughes

13:32

swimming into view. Can I, at the

13:34

risk of interrupting like a rudely dog,

13:36

can I take you down a slightly

13:38

different route? In order to make sense

13:40

of this, you're going to have to understand two things

13:42

about the circumstantial evidence. And we

13:44

need to get that in place before we can make

13:47

sense of the timeline. Go on. Okay,

13:49

so when we talk about the circumstantial evidence here,

13:51

some of it is kind of familiar stuff where

13:53

people say, Oh, yeah, I remember my mobile phone

13:56

would go and when I picked it up, there

13:58

was nobody there. If

14:00

you're going to hack someone's voicemail, you have

14:02

to get through when they're not answering the

14:04

phone. So there's stuff like that and people

14:07

saying, I would show up for some meeting

14:09

and there would be a photographer there. How

14:11

the hell did they know I was going

14:13

to be there? And they're publishing stories. How

14:16

on earth did they get this information? So

14:18

there's that kind of foundation layer of circumstantial

14:20

evidence. And then there are two things which

14:22

they've extracted, two types of evidence which they've

14:25

extracted from the Murdoch company on

14:27

the orders of the judge hearing the case. Now,

14:29

the first of that is records of

14:32

payments to private investigators. And

14:34

the second, which is the most important, is

14:37

the records of phone calls made

14:39

from Murdoch HQ in

14:42

Whooping to the three senior Lib

14:44

Dem MPs we're talking about here,

14:46

Chris Hune, Vince Cable, and Norman

14:48

Lam. Now, the

14:51

key thing is that the private investigators and the

14:53

calls, because what you see over a period of

14:55

time is dozens and dozens

14:57

of calls. There's nearly 900 calls

15:00

come from the Whooping Murdoch

15:03

building to these three MPs. And

15:05

the three MPs say that we were getting

15:07

calls from the Sun or the News of the World, which

15:10

the people involved here, what are these calls

15:12

for? And some of them are

15:15

suspiciously short. A reporter calls

15:17

a politician. It's going to be a

15:19

complicated conversation, at least 10 minutes, maybe

15:21

longer. This is a minute or two

15:24

over and over again. And the key

15:26

thing is these two interesting bits of

15:28

evidence, the private investigator invoices and

15:31

the calls from Whooping, happen in

15:33

clusters. OK, so

15:35

if we apply that circumstantial

15:37

evidence to a timeline, you

15:40

see a very interesting picture developing. So

15:42

first of all, come to late 2005,

15:44

early 06, Charles

15:49

Kennedy is the leader of the liberals.

15:51

There's a problem with alcohol. And

15:54

he loses the leadership. And

15:56

there's an election with four candidates.

15:59

And there is tremendous. this activity by

16:01

the news of the world in the sun

16:03

hiring private investigators, we can see the payments

16:05

going through and these calls,

16:08

these short mysterious calls and

16:10

there's a particular feature of these calls. If you're

16:12

making a call from the whopping building out, you

16:15

can use your direct line, but that means that number

16:17

is going to show up on your

16:20

target's phone. What you can also do

16:22

is to phone through what they call

16:24

the hub number. That means

16:26

that all that's going to show up is

16:28

the main switchboard number, which is risky, but

16:30

at least it doesn't come to you. The

16:32

overwhelming majority of these nearly 900 mysterious

16:35

calls are coming through the hub

16:37

number. So it's short hub number

16:39

calls suddenly in a cluster around

16:41

the Charles Kennedy story and the

16:43

election bid. That's important

16:45

to us because we know for sure they

16:48

were voicemail hacking at that time. And

16:50

two of the targets of that hacking,

16:52

Simon Hughes and Mark Oton have separately

16:54

settled and it's been accepted that

16:57

they were being hacked. So that means

16:59

that we know what hacking looks like

17:01

in terms of those two kinds of

17:04

key evidence. Later that year,

17:06

everything goes wrong when the police bust

17:08

the news of the world's role correspondent,

17:10

Clyde Goodman in August 2006, seven months

17:14

after the election. And

17:17

we understood that at that point

17:19

they were so traumatized by Inspector

17:21

Knuckert coming through the door that

17:23

they stopped doing this. But we

17:25

need to just focus on the

17:27

politics here because as you

17:29

say, this is an intervention

17:32

in order to, I'm using

17:34

Chris Hunes very lively word

17:36

here, compromise. I think

17:38

he's probably wrong actually. Well,

17:40

you could correct me. But the point

17:43

is these tentacles that trying to influence

17:45

the political process by holding

17:47

damaging information against key people. Yes.

17:49

The difficulty here is that you

17:51

understand the evidence is only circumstantial

17:54

and the Murdoch company are paying

17:56

out a settlement, but as ever

17:58

denying liability. this didn't

18:00

happen, but we'll pay Chris Hume to go

18:02

away. If you see the evidence

18:04

in the way I'm laying out, you can see

18:06

how powerful it is, albeit it's not quite 100%.

18:09

So the point is, come to the spring of

18:12

2009. As

18:14

far as the official version of events is

18:16

concerned, all of the phone hacking has stopped.

18:18

And suddenly, the news of the world

18:21

in the sun pick up on Chris

18:23

Hume as a target. He's seeing somebody

18:25

he's not married to. And suddenly,

18:28

you've got this cluster of PI activity,

18:31

and mysterious short phone calls

18:33

from the whooping hot number.

18:36

So that suggests, amazingly, to

18:38

me, that they were still doing

18:40

it, even though they knew the trouble it caused. So

18:43

then what's what suggests to me that they

18:45

really do think the Murdoch company really does

18:47

think it's above the law, and it can

18:50

do what the hell it likes, is

18:52

that they carry on doing that. At

18:54

various moments when you have these clusters, after

18:57

the Guardian starts publishing these stories that

18:59

cause them such trouble, in within days

19:01

of the Milly Dowlah story in July

19:04

2011, there are clusters of

19:06

PI activity and mysterious hubcalls

19:08

going into Vince Cable. It

19:11

continues. There's a phase in December

19:13

2011, when

19:15

Lord Justice Levison is sitting

19:17

hearing evidence. And based

19:19

on the material that's come out here,

19:21

they're still hacking phones. While

19:24

that's going on, do you see this is

19:26

reckless to the point of madness? What do

19:28

you think you're doing? Okay, on

19:30

the way through that phase of

19:32

this evidence suggesting the hacking continue,

19:35

there's a really, really interesting phase

19:37

around Murdoch's attempt to take over

19:40

B Sky B. So what

19:42

happens here is that we have

19:44

the election in May 2010, the

19:46

coalition is now in government. On

19:49

June the 10th, the

19:52

Murdoch's very smooth French

19:54

lobbyist, Fred Michel, do you remember him from the 11th?

19:57

Know him well. He's

20:00

our spokesman for President Macron. I

20:02

understand. So

20:05

he goes in to see Norman Lamb,

20:07

senior Lib Dem MP. And at

20:09

this point, he is the parliamentary

20:11

private secretary to the deputy prime minister,

20:14

Nick Craig. And if you're Fred Michel,

20:16

Nick Craig is your target. You've got to stop

20:19

him getting in the way of this bid. So

20:21

five days before the bid is announced, Fred Michel

20:23

goes to see Norman Lamb. And

20:25

guess what? There are six short

20:27

hub calls to Norman

20:30

Lamb's phone on and around that

20:32

day, June the 10th. And there

20:34

are six others to Vince Cable. And

20:36

Vince Cable is important because

20:38

he's the business secretary. He's the

20:40

guy who's going to decide whether

20:43

to issue an intervention notice and

20:45

start investigating the competition implications of

20:47

the bid. And they don't want

20:49

that to happen. So that

20:51

cluster of phone calls at that moment

20:53

looks very much like somebody on the

20:55

commercial side, not looking for blackmail stuff

20:58

and compromise, but just trying to find

21:00

out which way the ball is bouncing

21:02

so that Fred can do his better

21:05

than perhaps he might be able to at the

21:07

meeting with Norman Lamb. Okay, so

21:09

then an interesting thing happens. courtesy of

21:11

Allen's initiative, the New York Times at

21:13

the beginning of September publish a big

21:16

story. And everybody in Murdoch Towers is

21:18

running around yelling because it makes them

21:20

frightened. And Rebecca

21:23

Brooks writes to Fred Michelle an email

21:25

saying, what can we do? Fred

21:27

Michelle writes back, in terms of slightly chilling,

21:29

as you will see, he says, the

21:32

key will be for prominent Lib

21:34

Dems like Clegg and Hugh to

21:36

stay silent on it. And I

21:38

think they will. Matthew, that's

21:40

Matthew Anderson, head of PR at Murdoch

21:42

company. Matthew and I are meeting

21:44

with Colin Myler, that's the news of the world

21:47

editor to talk about it this afternoon. That

21:51

meeting itself, Professor Bursa

21:53

short calls from the NGN hub to our

21:55

Lib Dems targets. What then

21:58

happens is this a few weeks later, who

24:00

was one of the lawyers and

24:02

also Tom Watson who was

24:05

on the DCMS committee. Yes,

24:08

but A, we already knew about that

24:10

and B, the targeting of those two,

24:12

that little character called Derek Webb who

24:14

specialises in following people without being seen

24:17

and he calls himself, I think it's

24:19

Silver Shadow, something very dramatic and groovy.

24:22

But we haven't got the mysterious hubcalls with

24:24

those two. No, no. No.

24:28

And this is what is very shocking. You know what, Nick, was you and I

24:30

were in the middle of all this and I don't

24:32

think it ever occurred to us that they would

24:34

be so bold, so reckless, so bonkers as

24:37

to carry on doing it while they were lying

24:39

to the world about the fact that they had

24:41

been doing it and we were snapping at their

24:43

heels. Well, reckless but

24:45

not bonkers, Nick, because what

24:48

you've described very clearly is

24:50

corporate espionage on

24:52

an extraordinary scale

24:54

but with a view to

24:57

completing, they wanted that deal. I

25:00

know that because we went through this covering

25:02

this bed. We know the amount

25:04

of pressure that Ed Richards was under as

25:06

head of Ofcom at the time. This

25:08

was a high, high stakes deal.

25:11

So what you've described is a

25:13

completely new dimension, if

25:16

it's all true, and we can

25:18

be pinned down, but a completely new dimension

25:21

of the phone hacking scandal. Yeah, that

25:23

is exactly how I see it. And

25:25

you might build in some evidence, of

25:27

course, that came out at the Leveson

25:29

Inquiry that once Vince Cable was ousted

25:31

from his position with the assistance of

25:33

the surveillance, he was replaced

25:35

by Jeremy Hunt. Fred

25:38

Michel then constructed a

25:40

secret section to Jeremy

25:42

Hunt's special advisor. It was called Adam Smith.

25:45

At the Leveson Inquiry, we were able to

25:47

see Fred Michel's messages back to HQ. He

25:50

knew everything that Jeremy Hunt was

25:52

up to and thinking, and it

25:54

was extremely tempting to consider that

25:57

Hunt knew that back channel was big.

26:00

clearly, clearly, this is not a likelihood, this

26:02

is clear in the evidence. He wanted that deal

26:04

to go through and there's another thing here. We

26:06

haven't quite got to the end of this subject,

26:08

but we're only just beginning this aspect of it.

26:10

Were they also hacking Jeremy Hunt and

26:13

Adam Smith? Why wouldn't they? If they're, in

26:15

my language, mad enough to do this, why

26:18

wouldn't they complete the picture and try and find out

26:20

what Jeremy Hunt is saying? Well, we know

26:22

it was systemic because the previous Culture

26:25

Secretary, Tessa Jowell, was also being hacked.

26:27

But back along, that's all pre- Yeah,

26:29

I know, but it's part of a

26:32

pattern in which the

26:34

Murdoch organisations just decides they will

26:36

hack anybody who might be- Apparently,

26:38

yeah. You catch my

26:40

assumption, I don't have

26:42

the kind of Murdoch magnet in the megalovania.

26:44

I reckon if your main man gets busted

26:46

and logs up, you're inclined to walk away

26:48

from committing the crime. Wrong again. The final

26:51

question, Nick. I mean, Prince Harry has

26:53

got to go ahead to continue his

26:55

actions. Do you think

26:57

that any of this, at the moment,

26:59

as you say, the Murdoch organisation is

27:01

just paying out huge sums to keep

27:03

this from getting into court? Do

27:05

you think the truth will ever be

27:07

revealed? Well, I think the litigation is

27:09

being remarkably effective, the drinking bits of

27:12

the truth out because although each time

27:14

the case is stopped, we lose the

27:16

fine detail and the opportunities across examine

27:18

people. We're getting evidence in open court.

27:21

Apparently, Murdoch has now paid

27:23

up £1.2 billion in

27:25

dealing with the phone hacking saga.

27:29

My worry about it all

27:31

is that this litigation, while

27:33

fascinating, will never develop the

27:35

political clout we need if

27:37

we're to set up an independent regulator who

27:40

might stop the feral newspapers

27:43

spraying the public domain with falsehood

27:45

and distortion because it's too easy

27:48

for the bad guys at the dark

27:50

end of Fleet Street to say, well, okay, these

27:52

bad things went on. But it was all a

27:54

long time ago before we set up a lovely

27:56

new regulator, Ipso, which I don't trust at all.

28:00

I think we can get quite a lot of truth out in this

28:02

way, but I don't think we're gonna get the political change we so

28:04

desperately need. Well, Alan, I know

28:06

that you worked with Nick for

28:09

years on the phone hacking story. I

28:11

was following it from a slight distance, but I have

28:13

to say I was just blown

28:16

away by what Nick was saying, because

28:19

this is not celebrity phone

28:21

hacking. This is not the

28:23

news of the world working

28:25

with underground PRs. This is

28:27

operating at the heart of

28:29

politics and business and

28:32

showing how it appears,

28:34

gotta be a bit careful here, but

28:36

News International employing private detectives

28:40

to listen in or contact

28:42

politicians who were involved or

28:44

could be useful when

28:46

it came to the bid to take

28:48

over full control at Beast Guy B.

28:51

And this was a deal I know that

28:53

News International and Mr. Murdoch's company, Rupert Murdoch's

28:55

company, were desperate to complete, and they put

28:57

tremendous pressure on the government. But what we

29:00

didn't know was this level of, well,

29:02

frankly, corporate espionage. I

29:05

think it's confirmed what we have always

29:07

known about Rupert Murdoch, that he's interested

29:10

in the power of being a publisher.

29:13

He's interested in the power he has over politicians

29:15

when it comes to the deals that he wants.

29:18

So his business interests are crucial there. But

29:21

this is, I think, the curtain

29:24

being drawn back on how

29:26

the relationship between the newspapers,

29:28

how he can use his tabloids, he

29:31

can involve private investigators and criminal

29:33

methods in order to get the

29:35

dirt on people, in

29:37

order, as you say, to spy on people

29:40

who are involved in the deals. And

29:44

it's a bit like the Fox Dominion

29:46

story. It's a very ugly

29:48

picture of what

29:51

the Murdoch organization does and how they

29:53

really don't care what people do in

29:56

terms of the law, in terms of

29:58

policing, in terms of scrutiny for the law. from other

30:00

media, they feel they're above it

30:02

all. And they feel that they're above it

30:04

all, even after the revelations

30:06

that led to the Leveson inquiry. And

30:09

indeed, Alan, again, took my breath

30:11

away. The phone hacking

30:13

was going on during the Leveson

30:15

inquiry. Going on during the Leveson

30:18

inquiry, they were bugging the lawyers

30:20

who were suing them. They

30:23

were bugging the politicians who were sitting

30:25

in on the select committees that were

30:27

interrogating them. They

30:29

didn't care. It's a very

30:32

stark picture of the

30:34

monopoly power of Rupert Murdoch and the

30:36

way that he uses it. And

30:38

even when we come to talk

30:41

about the telegraph and

30:43

why plurality in the media matters,

30:46

you can't allow the buildup of

30:48

these huge forms

30:50

of power, these huge blocks of

30:53

power in the media because you

30:55

can see what happens. Everyone just gets frightened.

30:59

They're too frightened. I saw it when we were

31:01

reporting that story. The police

31:03

were too frightened to do a proper investigation.

31:06

The rest of the media were too frightened to

31:08

report it. The politicians were too frightened to

31:11

intervene and the regulator was too frightened

31:13

to do anything about it. I

31:15

mean, if that's not the biggest threat

31:18

to democracy that you can have, I

31:20

don't know what is. The good news

31:22

is though slowly but surely, the

31:24

full truth is coming out through these court

31:27

cases. The claims are being settled out of

31:29

court but the details are seeping out and

31:31

now we are seeing the bigger

31:33

picture. The full picture. Yeah,

31:35

it's an alliance between the reporting and

31:38

the court cases. It was Nick's reporting

31:40

that set this all off which

31:42

was one of the most remarkable

31:44

pieces of reporting. It was my privilege

31:47

to be associated with and

31:50

then the law takes over. I'm

31:52

slightly disappointed, I have to say, in

31:54

the reporting of the

31:57

ongoing cases in Focaine. like

32:00

the media's got border phone hacking and things. So

32:02

we're bored with that. And they can't see the

32:06

importance of the developments this

32:08

week. Next on Media

32:10

Confidential, we'll hear from Pat Young on

32:13

the future funding of the BBC. Check

32:27

out the current edition of the magazine and

32:29

the prospect podcast that's out now. Samuel

32:54

Moyn is Chancellor Kent Professor of

32:56

Law and History at Yale University.

32:59

And in the podcast, he discusses the article

33:01

he wrote for the cover of Prospect Magazine

33:03

this month, focusing on the

33:05

way that Joe Biden's foreign policy in the

33:07

Middle East is flawed. Our

33:09

leaders, Joseph Biden, in my case,

33:11

leading all the leaders, tried,

33:14

if you like, to get a

33:16

kind of Cold War ban back together again.

33:18

They framed the conflict in

33:20

the Middle East around the

33:22

defense of freedom in

33:25

the face of barbarity and

33:27

evil. And the point

33:29

of the piece is to

33:31

say, actually, that maneuver worked in

33:34

Ukraine, at least for a while,

33:36

maybe because the framework fit the

33:38

facts better. But as

33:41

the events in Israel-Palestine unfolded,

33:43

very quickly it became hard

33:46

for Biden and others to sort

33:48

of sustain the idea

33:50

that just moral clarity is all

33:53

that's required to think through the

33:56

situation. And the results, I think,

33:58

have involved a lot of push

34:00

back to these leaders because

34:03

ordinary people, especially young

34:05

people, reject the idea

34:07

that the defense of freedom is

34:10

what's really at stake in

34:12

our policy towards this new

34:15

bloodshed. To hear the full interview,

34:17

download this week's episode of the

34:20

Prospect Podcast and subscribe and

34:22

follow wherever you get your podcasts so that

34:24

you don't miss an episode. This

34:28

is media and

34:30

Alan Rusberg here and

34:32

Lionel Barber. The issue of funding the

34:34

BBC is back in the headlines with

34:37

the Culture Secretary saying that the projected

34:39

licence fee rise of £14.30 is

34:42

too high. Lucy Fraser says

34:44

she's concerned about cost of living pressures on people.

34:46

The licence fee has been frozen at £159 for

34:48

two years, but is due to increase in April

34:54

in line with inflation. That

34:56

is what had been agreed between the government and

34:58

the BBC. But Ms Fraser

35:00

says she's considering using a different

35:03

measure of inflation to calculate any

35:05

increase. Perhaps September's Consumer Price Index

35:07

CPI rate instead, which was 6.7%,

35:11

which would see the licence fee rise by £10.65 to £169.65 per year.

35:19

So now we welcome Pat Yeung,

35:21

a TV executive consultant, non-executive director

35:23

for ITV Studios, formerly Chief Creative

35:25

Officer for BBC Television Production.

35:28

Welcome to Media Confidential. Thank

35:31

you for having me. We're going to talk about future

35:33

funding models and cuts to Newsnight in a moment. But

35:36

first on this issue of the licence

35:38

fee rise, what was your reaction when

35:40

you heard this and were you expecting

35:42

it? I'd heard scuttle, but I was

35:45

hoping that it was untrue because the

35:47

government signed a deal. I mean, Nadine

35:49

Norris made a great deal about the

35:52

deal. Just to remind us

35:54

what the deal was. So the deal

35:56

that Nadine Norris announced was a two

35:58

year licence fee freeze. followed

36:00

by inflation for the next four years. It's

36:03

not a great deal for the BBC because

36:05

two years at zero increase

36:07

was not great but

36:10

at least they had certainty they could plan

36:12

and it also the reason we have these

36:14

long-term deals is it takes the license fee

36:17

negotiation out of the day-to-day battle of

36:19

politics. It's a long-term deal. So the

36:21

BBC have gone through the two years

36:24

of pain you know and

36:26

coming out of that we have you know

36:28

regional radio I don't think you can call

36:30

it local radio anymore we've just

36:32

seen the cuts to Newsnight we know there are

36:35

more cuts to come they've cut the number of

36:37

hours of television that they're commissioning and

36:39

they're also dealing with a war in the Middle

36:41

East which certainly wasn't in the business plan. So

36:44

the BBC have gone through the pain and

36:47

now they're meant to get inflation and

36:49

suddenly the government want to reopen the

36:51

deal. Well not even reopen

36:53

the deal they just don't want to honor the

36:55

deal that they've entered into and I just think

36:57

you know it's not great for British politics

36:59

that we have a government that freely enters into a

37:01

deal and then you know after you try to step

37:04

out of it. It's also not

37:06

great for the independence of the BBC and

37:09

whilst 9% increase in

37:11

the license fee may sound like a very significant

37:13

number the license fee is so low relatively

37:16

speaking we're talking about 15

37:19

pounds over the course of a year. One

37:21

pound fifty per month is

37:24

the increase which I think you know I

37:26

come from working class single parent free school

37:28

meals household you know one

37:30

pound fifty a month I think most families

37:32

can manage but compared

37:35

to the damage that cumulary does to the

37:37

BBC it's significant so I'm not

37:39

that was surprised but I'm

37:42

more disappointed than I am surprised because

37:44

I thought a deal was a deal and I think they should

37:46

honor it. Pat when you read

37:48

the right-wing editorials they give a very different

37:51

impression they get the impression of a

37:53

BBC that is bloated that is out of

37:55

control that there's forgotten

37:57

what it's like to be competitive. Why

38:00

do you think they're wrong on that? Well, they're

38:02

wrong on that because first of all if I

38:04

look at the Price of

38:06

the Daily Telegraph for example one of the BBC's

38:09

most trenching critics Profit Daily

38:11

Telegraph has gone up 200% since

38:13

2010. It was one pound. I

38:15

think it's now three pounds the license fee

38:17

has gone up from 145

38:20

pounds 259

38:22

pounds if the license fee had just

38:24

kept pace with inflation today, it would

38:26

be worth 230 pounds So

38:30

the BBC has already had

38:32

significant cash and real-term cuts

38:34

to its budget And

38:37

despite that not only is it continuing

38:39

to deliver quality content

38:41

We've also moved into an era

38:43

where we have tech platforms owned

38:46

by American billionaires Which are also

38:48

see themselves as news platforms. We

38:51

have a British press which is almost now

38:53

entirely owned By people who

38:55

don't live in the UK. I mean news internationals

38:57

owned by an American Australian Yeah,

38:59

the FT is owned by the Japanese and the

39:01

Telegraph about to be owned by the Qataris, you

39:04

know None of our major nea the

39:06

non BBC broadcasters sky

39:08

is owned by Comcast ITV's

39:11

biggest shareholders an American Channel

39:13

5 is owned by the Americans So

39:16

who actually owns the platforms that give us

39:18

the news that we rely on in an

39:20

age when I think we

39:22

can all see That news and information is

39:25

the new front line of how war is

39:27

conducted the war for information misinformation

39:30

Disinformation is really real. So to have

39:32

a BBC that's so infable that it

39:34

can't deliver on that front is

39:37

not just an issue Of broadcasting policy. It's almost

39:39

an issue sort of National infrastructure

39:41

do we want to live in a world

39:43

where we're reliant on everybody else for

39:45

where we get our news and current affairs from Pat

39:48

I just want to say the although I don't

39:50

work for the FT anymore the Japanese may own

39:52

the FT but they have no control Influence

39:55

over what is actually reported

39:57

on so I wouldn't put

39:59

us in total in

40:01

a separate camp. But I wanted

40:03

to ask you about value for money. The

40:07

BBC's budget is several billion

40:10

pounds and

40:12

yet many people feel, and we'll

40:15

talk about news in a minute,

40:17

but overall that the creativity and

40:20

the range of drama and more

40:23

is not what it was 20

40:25

years ago. Do you agree with

40:27

that? No, I would disagree.

40:30

Those people come from many

40:32

different perspectives. You

40:35

just had Happy Valley on the BBC.

40:38

Look at the programs which win the awards. I

40:41

actually was at the BBC when the

40:43

BBC was the co-production partner for Game

40:45

of Thrones. It was going to be

40:47

a BBC HBO co-production, but when

40:49

the cost per hour went above

40:51

I think three or four million pounds

40:54

an hour, Jane DeBennett said, I can

40:56

no longer justify spending public money at

40:58

this scale on this sort

41:00

of content. So

41:02

the BBC has always had to work within

41:04

the confines of its funding model, even

41:07

though these big signature dramas, the successions or

41:09

whatever, cost many millions of pounds an hour

41:11

more than the BBC is ever going to

41:14

be able to pay. But

41:16

I think the BBC stands for

41:18

quality, still, in current affairs. I

41:21

think it stands for quality in drama. Beyond

41:23

strictly, I think the entertainment slate has got some

41:25

questions to ask. I for one are not happy

41:27

that the BBC has put money

41:30

to buy a format like Survivor

41:32

or Gladiators. I'd much rather

41:35

see the BBC taking a

41:37

chance on new, fresh

41:39

UK formats when UK producers

41:42

and try to do something different as opposed

41:44

to just picking up a format that works.

41:47

So I'm not saying that they don't make

41:49

mistakes and missteps. Look how

41:51

little livesport we have on the BBC

41:53

now, because it's all disappeared behind

41:55

the paywall and then everybody says, why does nobody

41:57

play cricket? Why have the numbers planned not to

41:59

be common

44:00

values about the information that we're

44:02

getting. When it comes to

44:04

the question about the future of the license

44:06

fee, when the Dean Doris announced

44:08

this deal, the thing

44:10

that she said is we will also start a

44:12

review of what the mechanisms are for,

44:16

in her view, replacing the license fee. But

44:18

let's say alternatives to the license fee.

44:21

Now I haven't seen anything about that review,

44:23

unlike Peacock and others, there have been no

44:25

public hearings that I've been aware of. The

44:28

way this government works, I wouldn't be surprised if we're

44:30

just going to get something announced a bit like the

44:32

Rwanda deal that somebody's worked out in the back of

44:34

an envelope, and it's just going to be

44:36

presented to the House. But where has

44:39

the public consultation discussion been about

44:42

what do we replace the license fee with? Because

44:44

we all know the other models, the

44:46

German household model or some form of

44:48

subscription, or even as Alan did

44:51

at the Guardian, you have a license fee and

44:53

you invite people to just donate. But

44:56

there's been no discussion. I haven't been invited to a

44:58

single, I don't think any of you have been invited

45:00

to a single session. We

45:02

do know that Oliver Darden, when he was

45:04

Culture Secretary, set up a group of grandees

45:06

to advise him. He had a secret panel.

45:09

I tried to FOI that and I was knocked back

45:11

and told it was none of my business. Yeah, we

45:13

tried to FOI it as well. But

45:15

all I'm saying is that the license fee

45:18

may have had its day, may have.

45:21

And the reason I say may have is

45:23

that income inequality in this country is now

45:25

so great that a universal fee may not

45:27

hold. But you have

45:30

to think about what you put in its place because

45:32

the one thing about the license fee is it was

45:34

universal and everybody paid

45:36

and everybody got something and everybody owns

45:38

it. One of the reasons debates about

45:41

the BBC are also hot

45:44

is because everybody feels they own the BBC

45:47

and they do if they're a UK license fee

45:49

payer. So I

45:51

would like to see a system

45:54

which is progressive but which remains

45:56

universal. Personally, I wouldn't like to see it tied

45:58

to the tax system because it gives the child that

46:00

too much sway in the

46:02

system. So I don't know what

46:04

the alternative is, but I'm more than happy to join

46:06

in the conversation. But I do think going

46:08

forward, the principle has to be more universal.

46:11

But as regards to this deal

46:13

now, when Doris announced

46:15

the two-year freeze and the four years

46:17

with inflation, it was alongside a review

46:20

of the license fee. So they can't

46:22

use the future of the license fee

46:24

to justify breaking the deal that

46:26

they struck two years ago. That doesn't

46:28

work. This was all part of one deal.

46:30

But Pat, to be clear, you don't think

46:33

that it's a good idea for Tim Davie

46:35

as director general or the new chair to

46:38

put something themselves on the table. No,

46:40

I don't. I think the new, you

46:43

need time to work through what these

46:45

things are. I think what the

46:47

new chair, let's hope it's Samir, should say

46:50

is on as a deal. Because

46:52

this is gonna be a fundamental challenge to

46:54

the independence of the BBC. And

46:57

he's never more powerful than on day one. So

47:00

on day one, he should say, honor the deal.

47:02

And then let's use the time that was in

47:04

the deal to talk about the alternatives. That's what

47:06

he should do in my humble opinion. You must

47:08

know Samir. Pat, is he tough enough for this

47:10

job? We don't know that

47:12

he's been tested in this kind of

47:15

brutal role that he's taking over. Well,

47:18

he was a head of BBC current affairs, which normally

47:20

means you take quite a lot of income in flack.

47:23

So he's probably quite battle-hard.

47:27

I actually met Richard Sharp, and personally

47:29

I found him engaged and I found him

47:31

supportive. And actually I thought that he

47:34

wanted to do the right thing. Unfortunately for him, all

47:36

this other stuff got in the way. And

47:38

if he'd only declared it, he'd probably still

47:40

be there. As for Samir, I mean, look,

47:42

he's a journalist, right? So the

47:44

one thing that Tim doesn't have is journalism.

47:47

So I mean, somewhere at the top of

47:49

the beam, we do actually have now a

47:51

journalistic instinct as part of those decisions. He's

47:53

a non-partisan, he's been a producer. He's been

47:56

on the board of the BBC before. He's

47:58

run an independent production company. He's

48:00

a proper journalist. So he's got

48:02

a good rounded sense of

48:05

everything. He's also been very involved in

48:07

the diversity debate. So

48:09

I think it's bizarre. I've seen Andrew Neale

48:12

welcome it and I've seen people on

48:14

the left welcome it. And

48:16

in an age of very politicized appointments

48:18

to these public roles, I think this

48:20

is potentially a breath of fresh air.

48:23

So I wish him well. But a

48:25

bit like Obama really, you

48:28

have to judge him on what he does. And

48:31

this is going to be the first thing in his

48:33

inbox and my personal advice to him would be

48:36

honor the deal. That was a

48:38

deal they entered into honor the deal. You've

48:40

warned that the effects, if this

48:42

deal is not honored, the effects would

48:44

be catastrophic. I mean, what

48:47

do you think that could look like in terms

48:49

of particularly of news and current affairs? Well, I

48:51

think we're seeing it already. I mean, I am

48:54

really disappointed about the changes made

48:56

to local radio and

48:58

local services because Netflix isn't going to provide

49:01

them nor is Amazon or Apple. And

49:04

especially for older audiences, they're a key

49:06

part of stand in touch with what's

49:08

going on. And it's an

49:10

area where local newspapers are failing. So I'm disappointed.

49:12

But when you've got the level of cuts the

49:14

BBC has had to make, I think in real

49:16

terms its income is down now 37 to 40

49:19

percent since 2010. Then

49:23

you're not cutting flesh, you're cutting bone. Newsnight

49:26

is going to be turned into late night

49:28

discussion programs. You know, on the

49:30

one hand, the space that Newsnight used

49:32

to occupy, 1030, immediately after

49:35

a parliamentary vote, first place

49:37

to unpick what

49:39

happened at the Commons or whatever, it

49:42

was well positioned. Now,

49:44

not only does Parliament not seem to sit all

49:46

that often and when it does, it doesn't seem

49:48

to vote very often. But also

49:51

we're getting the news instantaneously. We're

49:53

getting it on various other platforms as

49:55

others. So do we need more talk,

49:57

even BBC talk? I'm not sure. I'm

50:01

not sure that it's the answer to

50:03

the question. What we actually need is

50:05

more original journalism. Well, we actually

50:08

need just more people trying to find out stuff that

50:10

other people don't want us to know. What we

50:12

need is people following up on the Dean Dorris' exclusive

50:15

that you've been following up on, that

50:17

someone tried to cook the head of

50:19

Ofcom. Not gonna be very bad with

50:21

that. Attaboy, Pat. Attaboy. Keep

50:23

him encouraged. But this is really important

50:25

stuff. It is. I was in a

50:27

meeting yesterday. I won't say where it

50:29

was, but it was a meeting about

50:32

mental health. And somebody's saying, look,

50:34

here are all the issues that are feeding into

50:36

the mental health crisis we got today. We

50:38

have warfare. We got missing disinformation.

50:40

We've got a cost of living

50:42

crisis. We've got pandemics. We've got

50:45

high levels of unemployment. We've

50:47

got concerns about immigration. And

50:50

it's leading to two things. One is a

50:52

lack of trust in institutions. And the second

50:54

one is a feeling of hopelessness. And

50:57

I think one of the things that's happened over the

50:59

last 10 years, and in the last five years especially,

51:01

is our institutions have been hollowed out. You

51:04

know, the appointments to them, the people that

51:06

run them, they've been treated like campaign objects

51:08

rather than institutions that actually have value in

51:10

their own right. And I think

51:13

we're seeing some of the effects of that. The BBC is

51:15

one of the last great institutions

51:17

that we have. If

51:19

you look at the cesspit that is now

51:22

Twitter or X or whatever it calls itself,

51:24

and you look how that is so

51:26

easy to manipulate with misinformation, the

51:30

only organisation in the

51:32

UK that has any chance of providing

51:34

a real alternative to that is the BBC with all its

51:36

faults. And

51:40

so like most things, you know, you

51:42

don't realise what you've got until it's gone. And

51:45

I think this decision isn't just about the money. It's

51:47

also about the independence and

51:50

it's about honouring commitments. And

51:52

that's why it's so important. Pat, where

51:54

do you think Labour is on this position? And

51:58

on the BBC in general? We know that. once

52:01

they get into government there will be friction there

52:03

always is. But where do you

52:05

think they are on the license fee and in

52:07

general their attitude to the BBC? I

52:10

think they think it's a good thing. I

52:12

don't think they have the instinctive animus that

52:14

some Tories have towards it.

52:17

I think like universities like

52:19

many other things which are really important it will

52:21

be quite low down their list of things to

52:24

engage with because there's so many other crises

52:26

in all sorts of other places. At

52:29

the very least if they said now we would

52:31

honour the deal it's £1.50 per

52:33

month we think it's worth it that

52:35

would help but it's a game isn't

52:38

it that it's the sort of gotcha game. So

52:40

the Tories say well we're going to go to Rwanda

52:42

you're going to rip that up oh yeah so we're

52:45

going to restrain the license fee are you going to

52:47

let it rip. There's a childish

52:49

political game playground game going on there

52:52

and Starmra is very cautious but

52:55

I would hope that at the very least

52:57

they honoured the deal that was struck which

52:59

gives them all four years in

53:01

an imperfect window to try and work out what

53:03

to do next. Final question from

53:06

me Pat is how could the

53:08

in your thinking about the

53:10

BBC and its future how could

53:13

it insulate itself from the

53:15

kind of government interference that

53:17

it's had certainly from

53:19

the Conservatives but also to be fair

53:21

from from Labour

53:23

and the last government is

53:26

there a form of mutualisation or is

53:28

there a form is there a different

53:30

kind of constitutional arrangement where the BBC

53:32

while not being completely unaccountable

53:35

could be more arm's length from government.

53:38

So I chair a pressure

53:40

group called the British Broadcasting Challenge which

53:43

campaigns for public service broadcasting we think

53:45

it's a good thing we think it's

53:47

a valuable public good we

53:49

published a paper on the future of the BBC which

53:51

is on our website and that says that

53:53

we want to first of all separate the appointment of the

53:55

chair from the political process and

53:57

through that the appointment of the board We

54:00

should have a genuinely open public

54:02

appointments process without, because

54:04

if it's going to be Samir, well,

54:06

it's Rishi's choice. That immediately

54:09

adds something to this game that is, I

54:11

think, unhelpful. So we'd like to see the

54:13

appointment of the chair and the board

54:15

taken out of the party political process

54:18

and handled by a genuinely public

54:20

appointments process. We also think the funding

54:22

decision and the funding arrangement should be

54:24

taken out of party politics with a

54:26

funding body, which determines

54:29

how the BBC should be funded. I

54:31

don't know where that fits. I

54:33

wouldn't necessarily put it in off-com, but they're

54:35

regulating the BBC. But we

54:37

believe there should be an independent funding body that

54:39

decide how the BBC is funded with

54:42

a separate process for appointing the

54:44

panel. The final thing is we

54:46

want to see, promote, encourage more

54:49

public participation in the big decisions

54:51

that the BBC takes. So

54:53

the decision to, in my view, decimate

54:56

local radio was taken without

54:58

any public consultation meetings that most of

55:00

us are aware of. So

55:03

the use of people's juries and other democratic forms

55:05

to at least get some external

55:07

input into those decisions, we also

55:09

think, would be valuable. Well,

55:12

Alan, Pat Young was certainly eloquent

55:14

and forceful in his defence of

55:16

the BBC. And he gave some

55:18

serious advice, I think, to Tim Davie and

55:21

to the new chairman, Samir Shah,

55:23

stand up to the government. Don't

55:25

accept this forced redrawing of the

55:28

original agreement. My only comment would

55:30

be, I think Tim Davie and

55:32

his top team do need to

55:34

do some serious planning about what

55:36

comes after the licence fee and

55:38

not just stay on the back

55:40

foot waiting for this government or

55:42

the next to come up with

55:44

the new formula. I agree. I

55:47

thought there was an eloquent defence of the BBC and

55:50

really portrayed as part of the national infrastructure.

55:52

That was really important. But

55:54

I hope thank God, who's the shadow culture secretary,

55:56

who's likely to be in the hot chair in.

56:00

any starma government is listening. What is

56:02

listening today, if not, we'll send her

56:04

the link because it's time

56:06

that Labour think about the BBC and

56:09

how to protect it. I'm sure

56:11

Labour realises this, but any

56:13

Labour government lives in a hostile environment in

56:15

this country because most of the press is

56:18

tilted to the right. And

56:20

actually the BBC, because it's impartial, is

56:24

even more important to Labour than to

56:26

the Conservatives because it's duty banned to

56:28

give them a fair crack of the whip. So

56:31

if Labour can't see the importance of

56:33

the BBC, then they're not

56:36

paying attention. If

56:40

you've got any questions for us about

56:42

the media, email them to mediaconfidential, all

56:44

one word, at prospectmagazine, all one word,.co

56:46

dot uk, and we'll answer a few

56:49

of them in a future episode. Thank

56:51

you for listening to Media Confidential, brought

56:53

to you by Prospect Magazine and Fresh

56:55

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57:03

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