George Entwistle’s BBC: The Bloody Big Crisis

As the BBC is engulfed by ‘fratricidal chaos’, Stephen Robinson asks whether DG George Entwistle and Chairman Lord Patten are capable of restoring public confidence in Auntie
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23 October 2012

Just as the minor drama of the shelved Newsnight report into Jimmy Savile’s predatory sexual activities was metastasising into a full-blown Hutton-style crisis, Lord Patten of Barnes, the chairman of the BBC Trust, was at a drinks party.

As the wine flowed, Patten was heard pronouncing to a group of senior BBC staff: “It’s probably good for George to have his first crisis early.”

Patten’s seeming insouciance about the predicament of George Entwistle troubled the new director-general’s allies at the BBC. They are asking why the chairman has failed to throw a protective cloak around his personal choice as the man to succeed Mark Thompson.

And Entwistle today can be in no doubt how lonely and isolated the DG can suddenly become. One minute you are earning praise for the excellence of the Hollow Crown Shakespeare season and for bringing a difficult Ford Maddox Ford novel to the small screen; the next you are forced to watch your own reporters tearing the BBC’s reputation apart in an hour-long Panorama special to be aired tonight.

And then tomorrow, after watching Panorama, Entwistle has an extremely uncomfortable 10.30 appointment with the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, some of whose members are already venting their anger.

One journalist tells the Standard of a sense of “fratricidal chaos” descending over sections of the BBC as individual reporters and executives defend their own corners.

Now Newsnight editor Peter Rippon “is stepping aside” while the inquiry takes place. He had said that the Newsnight investigation was into police practice rather than Savile’s predatory activities, a claim that will be challenged on Panorama by two journalists who worked on the report, Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones.

The most incendiary Panorama claim, however, is one that seems to question the DG’s denial that he knew of Savile’s sex offences. The programme is believed to reveal that Entwistle, then head of Vision, was told at an awards lunch on December 2 last year by Helen Boaden, then head of News, that two tribute programmes about Savile would have to be shelved.

It is not clear how this potentially lethal claim was passed to Panorama. The conversation between the two executives is said to have lasted no more than 10 seconds, and clearly does not reflect well on the DG. “George is a very decent man and has a great grasp of television but even his best friends would say he is inexperienced in the political side of being DG,” explains one former, very senior BBC journalist.

Though he has been at the BBC nearly half of his 50 years, Entwistle does not personally carry the scars of any of the recent set-piece battles such as fallout over the Hutton Inquiry, and the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross fiasco. Allies suggest this might explain why he was slow to realise how serious the Savile affair would become.

But increasingly the question being asked at the BBC is why Patten was seemingly so blithe as the storm clouds gathered above the expensively refurbished Broadcasting House, and why the chairman and DG have failed to develop a co-ordinated response.

Patten was last week spoken to by the new Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, to be told that the Government was less than impressed by the BBC’s handling of the affair.

“Patten is a political bruiser who has seen it all before, so I don’t understand why he hasn’t taken the initiative, set up the inquiries, rather than let George blunder around,” says one BBC insider. “Appointing George was a risk, given his lack of political experience, but the assumption was Patten would take care of all that.”

Patten’s political connections and antennae have rarely been questioned before. A former Conservative Party chairman, he went on to navigate the treacherous rapids of Chinese politics as Britain’s last governor of Hong Kong before the handover.

Patten’s failure to sense the danger ahead, and his inability to protect his DG, is also causing friction — one source says — within the Trust, which has met in emergency session twice in the past fortnight to discuss the crisis. “It is definitely affecting Patten’s standing with other trustees,” says the source. “He will pay a price for this in terms of the perception of how the Trust functions.”

Diane Coyle, the vice-chair, is a long-standing Labour supporter so does not see eye to eye politically with Patten, while Alison Hastings, a former regional newspaper editor, is said to have expressed her irritation that the BBC has blundered into another public relations shambles.

It is not exactly clear what the new DG had in mind when he took over in mid-September. He pledged to move the BBC on from its recent troubles over huge salaries, often paid at benefical tax rates through service companies, and concentrate on programming excellence.

The BBC press office went into overdrive, emphasising that Entwistle would be paid just £450,000 a year, 40 per cent less than his predecessor. Rather than use the plush fifth floor White City DG’s office, he would perch at a plastic-covered desk in an open-plan section of Broadcasting House.

Entwistle would not be taking over Thompson’s chauffeur as he was to commute by Tube from his home in south London. “George is looking forward to getting out and seeing as many programme teams as possible,” a spokesman said. Some chance, these days.

That Entwistle is in serious trouble is no longer in doubt. “At the very least, this is a huge distraction when he should be improving output, and getting on with the next licence fee battle with the Government,” says one BBC executive. “And it will require a complete relaunch of his director-generalship, once the dust has settled, assuming it settles.”

One senior BBC insider is dismayed that the Savile affair seems to show, once again, that the governance structures are not, to use a phrase popular at BBC management seminars, fit for purpose.

When Patten succeeded Sir Michael Lyons as Trust chairman last year, Jeremy Hunt, then Culture Secretary, fought to impose changes to the structure of the executive board, which is responsible for editorial and day-to-day aspects of the BBC, and is chaired by the DG.

Hunt, the insider maintains, suggested that Thompson’s successor as DG should not head the board. Instead, the board should be led by a senior non-executive who is not part of the BBC hierarchy, to avoid what is known in management speak as “regulatory capture”.

Patten put his foot down, apparently fearing that any non-executive figure with the title of chairman would compromise his position as the sole, pre-eminent figurehead leader of the BBC.

This meant that Entwistle, who is also the editor-in-chief of BBC output, became executive head of the board and was forced just weeks into his job to find his own way out of a crisis in which BBC journalism, and indeed his own conduct in his previous role, was under increasingly public scrutiny.

On October 8 he said there could be no internal inquiry into Savile’s behaviour at the BBC while the police investigations continued. Two days later, the DG was contradicted by Patten, who — making his first public intervention since the crisis blew into the open 10 days before — said there would be an “independent inquiry” into the “cesspit” of allegations surrounding Savile.

BBC journalists were surprised Patten used the word “cesspit” for it handed hostile newspapers perfect headline fodder. And, strikingly, Patten seemed to pre-empt any inquiry by inviting anyone who thought there had been a cover- up at Newsnight to “join the real world”. That confident dismissal of those who question BBC standards seems less robust today.

Entwistle in turn was forced into a humiliating U-turn, announcing at a chaotic press conference on October 12 that he and the board had decided after all that two inquiries were necessary.

A spokesman for the BBC Trust tells the Standard that Entwistle will recuse himself from deliberations about the inquiries. But the potential conflict of interest has already been established.

“The point about the Trust’s relationship with the executive board is that the former is sovereign. Patten was far too slow getting involved, and taking charge, and he should have set up the inquiries, not the board,” the insider says.

Part of the problem is the woefulness of the BBC press office, which always seems to be chasing any story about the BBC rather than setting the agenda.

One journalist explains that the BBC makes the mistake of dismissing criticism in the early stages of a crisis. Over Hutton and the Andrew Gilligan report that should not have been broadcast, the institutional view was that it was just Alastair Campbell causing trouble. With the row over Brand and Ross’s infamous telephone call to Andrew Sachs, that was initially dismissed as a non-story whipped up by the Daily Mail.

Patten may have had his wish that Entwistle be tested early into his tenure. But within 24 hours, after tonight’s Panorama and the DG’s performance before the Select Committee tomorrow, we may have a better idea whether Entwistle will see out his term, and whether the Savile affair has the potential also to wobble the perch of Lord Patten of Barnes himself.

When he explained 15 months ago why he had rejected Hunt’s suggestion to impose a non-executive head of the board, Patten said: “I doubt there was ever a golden age of BBC governance.” Patten is a seasoned politician and a decent man. Can he draw on his renowned diplomatic skills and nerve to steer the Corporation through these turbulent waters?

A spokeswoman for the BBC Trust declined to comment on suggestions that Lord Patten had failed to be sufficiently protective of his D-G.

She added: “We have overseen the establishment of two independent inquiries, one by a former judge and one by the former head of Sky News. It would be wholly improper to add a running commentary day by day."

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