Latest news with #ex-BBC
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'My TV show was so outrageous it was banned by the BBC and Government' says Michael Aspel
Mild mannered presenter Michael Aspel is now 92 but caused uproar in his younger presenting days Veteran broadcaster Michael Aspel has revealed how one of his TV shows was banned by the BBC and the Government. The mild-mannered presenter - who found fame hosting Ask Aspel and This Is Your Life - was invited to front a documentary about the horrors of nuclear war but it was deemed too graphic and realistic. The 92-year-old star now admits: 'I had no idea about the uproar that was to follow.' Aspel was invited to be part of a mini-film called The War Game in 1965 to mark the 20 th anniversary of the American nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Director Peter Watkins wanted to show Brits the realities of what could happen if the same happened here. The show used actors to play the victims of an atomic attack and it gave gory detailed descriptions of what would happen to their bodies before death. Aspel was asked to narrate the project which would air on the BBC and he happily agreed. He recalls in a new BBC 4 documentary: 'Now I had done a few of those before but little did I know the furore this particular film would cause. 'It was made to reflect what had happened in Hiroshima and Peter wanted to see what life might have been like in this country if we had been the victims of an atom bomb. 'Although newsreaders used to do odd jobs away from the BBC with medical films and stuff like that, I was particularly interested why the director and writer of this film would want me to be the narrator. 'And I could only suppose, because being a newsreader and perhaps being familiar to listeners as well as to viewers in that role, it would suit his film very well. 'The idea was to give the film authenticity. The director wanted to present a very ordinary community of people in this country with all the foibles of the time such as casual racism. 'The film was made to be as realistic as possible so the viewer would believe what they wee watching it as though it was a Government warning.' However, the programme was pulled from broadcast. The BBC claims it was their decision. It had given some members of Harold Wilson's Government a copy of the violent and graphic documentary in advance as it feared it might be seen as an advertisement for nuclear disarmament with a pacifist CND agenda. Even the ex-BBC head of documentaries – the late Huw Weldon - branded it 'a political hot potato'. The BBC maintains it was told it had to make the decision over whether to broadcast the show itself. And the director general at the time - Hugh Carleton Greene - shelved the show saying it was 'so shocking and upsetting' that he could never forgive himself if someone 'threw themselves under a bus' because of it. However Aspel reveals another side to the story. He claims Peter Watkins felt 'betrayed' by this decision and always believed it was really The Government who banned his documentary. The TV host – who also presented Aspel and Company and Give Us A Clue and Crackerjack - adds: 'He was always sure it was Government interference that stopped the film.' And archive footage is shown from a 1998 interview with the late Labour MP and former postmaster general Tony Benn. He admits: 'Frank Soskice, who was the home secretary, ordered me to ban the programme... because it was argued this would lead to panic. 'I was only his master's voice and had nothing to do with it (the decision) so I had to send a directive to Carleton Greene saying 'You must not broadcast it'. I greatly regret it. I never believe in censorship.' It took another 20 years for the film to see the light of day. The War Game was finally broadcast on the BBC to mark the 40 th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ironically it even won an Oscar for best documentary feature. Aspel now says: 'It is now 80 years since the bombings in Japan and 60 years since I sat in that little recording studio with no idea of the uproar that was to follow.' * Michael Aspel Remembers.. The War Game will air on BBC 4 on Wednesday July 30 at 10pm followed by a screening of the 1965 film.
Novaya Gazeta Europe
6 days ago
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russia moves to enable year-round conscription for men under 30 — Novaya Gazeta Europe
Young Russian marine recruits attend a departure ceremony to join the army in front of the Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia, 23 May 2023. Photo: EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV A new piece of legislation has been proposed by the Russian lower house of parliament that, if passed, would expand the country's military conscription period to a year-round basis, Russian state-run news agency TASS reported on Tuesday. All men in Russia aged 18–30 are required to perform a year-long period of military service, with call-ups currently taking place during two periods spanning approximately half the year: from 1 April to 15 July, and from 1 October to 31 December. According to the legislation proposed by the Russian State Duma, those periods would remain the only times when conscripts could be 'sent' to military service, but supplementary conscription processes, such as appearing for medical examinations and psychological evaluation, would be held year-round. Despite Vladimir Putin vowing that inexperienced conscripts would not take part in combat operations, there have been numerous reports of conscripts being sent into combat or coerced into signing contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry. Human rights groups argue the bill would effectively codify what has already become standard practice: authorities routinely summon non-reservists to enlistment offices outside the official draft periods, citing the need to 'clarify personal data' before sending them for medical examinations. The changes are designed to distribute the workload at military recruitment stations more evenly, the bill's sponsor Andrey Kartapolov, chair of the State Duma Defence Committee, told RBC, a state-affiliated business outlet. If passed, the legislation would ensure that draft offices no longer have 'such storming and rushing every six months' and can work more 'calmly' year-round, Kartapolov said. Kartapolov proposed the legislation with the Defence Committee's deputy chairman, Andrey Krasov. Due to the seniority of these two lawmakers, the legislation is very likely to be adopted, according to Faridaily, a Telegram news channel founded by ex-BBC Russian journalist Farida Rustamova. As the State Duma begins its summer recess on Thursday, the bill will not be considered until the autumn. If approved, the law would come into force on 1 January 2026.
Spectator
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Tim Davie isn't fit to lead the BBC
Those within the BBC might be afraid to say so, but an ex-producer like me has no such qualms: Tim Davie, the BBC's Director-General, isn't cut out for the job. For the good of the BBC, Davie must go. The last few weeks have been painfully bad for Davie. The Masterchef saga, which led to the departure of not one, but both main presenters, is the final nail in the coffin, after blunders over Glastonbury and Gaza. A review of the BBC's February documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which was released last week, found the programme had breached editorial guidelines for accuracy, having failed to disclose that its child narrator was the son of a Hamas agricultural official. The review didn't, however, find any breaches of impartiality. The BBC exonerated, then. Except Davie himself wasn't. Because instead of having backed the filmmakers over the row, he and the BBC Chair, Samir Shah, ran for cover as hard as possible and let them take all the incoming flak. The feeling within the BBC is that both Davie and Shah have been hopeless and craven in their response to this saga. The programme was not 'a dagger to the heart' of the BBC's claim to impartiality, as Shah jumped the gun by saying in March. But don't hold your breath for Shah to apologise for those comments, and to reassure filmmakers that, as their boss, he is protecting their backs. Or for Davie to do so. BBC management's main concern has been to put the blame on somebody else. Some hapless line producer will be made to walk the plank – and the independent company that made the film hung out to dry – so they can retain their crowns, as happened at Glastonbury, where the BBC failed to cut the live stream of an act leading an anti-IDF (Israel Defense Forces) chant. Part of the problem stems from Davie's background. As Ben de Pear, director of another film, on Gaza medics, which Channel 4 screened after the BBC refused to show it, said recently: Davie is 'a PR person' who doesn't understand journalism. 'Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making,' said de Pear. It's hard to fault that analysis: Davie has never made a programme in his life. When he worked in PR, the only thing he is remembered for is his role in helping Pepsi turn their cans blue (sales went up by 0.1 per cent, so that went well). As an ex-BBC producer, I know things would have been different under Davie's predecessors. BBC Chairs like Michael Grade would have been bullish in their defence of their staff. Alasdair Milne resigned as DG rather then let the government walk all over the BBC in the 1980s. Both men had been filmmakers themselves. Unlike Davie, they had served on the front line. They knew what it means to make difficult editorial judgments. And they knew, above all, they would only retain the loyalty of their own staff if they defended them when it was right to do so. Davie doesn't. If things were going fine for the Corporation, having a lightweight at the helm wouldn't matter. But there are some weighty issues the BBC needs to address and is conspicuously failing to do. The BBC strategy over recent years has been to compete with streamers like Netflix and Amazon by producing its own prestige dramas as justification for the licence fee. This strategy has been failing, and licence fee avoidance growing, because it simply does not have the same deep pockets as its rivals. The BBC couldn't even afford the proper shooting of a sequel to Wolf Hall, which should have been a shoo-in. Producer Peter Kosminsky has revealed that many scenes had to be cut because there simply wasn't the money. Instead, the BBC needs to regain its ambition when it comes to factual television. That this can be hugely successful has been shown by both Netflix – their recent Trainwreck series on disasters – and HBO. It also has the signal advantage of having become far, far cheaper. While drama has got absurdly expensive, technology allows documentaries to be shot by just a handful of people these days and edited on a laptop. There is a real and unfulfilled appetite for knowing how others live in our increasingly compartmentalised world. Yet not only is the BBC failing to meet this challenge, Davie seems blithely unaware it's a challenge at all. The BBC's Annual Report last week – top-dressed with bland words that read as if written by AI, like 'Our goal is to deliver outstanding value' – didn't bother even to properly quantify their documentary output. Davie and the BBC are in a unique position to make factual programmes about Britain for a British audience very cheaply, if they wanted to, and secure the corporation's place as a national treasure. But that would need a huge reset to direct resources away from the current dull schedule of occasional marquee drama projects and police procedurals, bulked out with endless repeats ('Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?' – for the thousandth time). It would need a Director-General with vision and drive and the confidence of his staff to make this change. Instead, 100 BBC staff recently wrote to complain about the behaviour of BBC management over the Gaza medics documentary, but had to do so anonymously. It's hardly the sign of a happy organisation. Davie has had five years in post, with nothing to show for his £547,000-a-year salary (executive 'remuneration' is another issue at the BBC that needs addressing). It is simply not enough for Davie to manage decline and deal with the regular upsets which broadcasting, like politics, will always provide; particularly when he is reacting to them so badly. Never has the BBC needed to have a visionary in post more if it is to survive. And never has it had someone so clearly inadequate for the job. Davie needs to go. Not just because of the MasterChef and Gaza and Glastonbury mistakes, but because, in five years, he has shown no vision for the direction the BBC needs to take to reclaim its position as a broadcaster worthy of the licence fee. When the BBC comes to replace Davie, as it soon surely will – and should – perhaps they might choose somebody who's actually made a programme in their lives. Or Netflix will be making 'Trainwreck: The BBC'. Hugh Thomson won the Grierson Award and has been BAFTA-nominated for his series for the BBC
The National
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
I called out BBC Radio Scotland for bias – here's how it went
As the paper notes: ECONOMIST Richard Murphy clashed with a BBC Radio Scotland presenter as he ripped into the corporation for being 'biased against the nationalist cause'. Murphy took part in the phone-in on the Mornings show presented by Connie McLaughlin on Wednesday when the pair got into a spat. Midway through an extensive discussion on impartiality at the BBC, Murphy came onto the programme to say he did not have confidence in the BBC, highlighting that the 'nationalist community' does not trust the broadcaster because it is 'so absolutely pro-Unionist'. After former BBC political editor Brian Taylor was brought back into the discussion – having spoken on the programme already – alongside ex-BBC Radio 4 presenter Roger Bolton, Murphy and McLaughlin then got into a heated back-and-forth. Eventually, after many interruptions from the presenter, who seemed totally unaware that the producer had invited me onto the programme because, apparently, they could find "no one in Scotland" who had a word of criticism to make about the BBC, I was allowed a word in edgeways and got to say: The BBC is biased in favour of big business, it is biased in favour of the right wing media because it uses that as its news sources in the main for discussion, it is biased against the nationalist cause in Scotland, it is biased against the Palestinian cause in its claim and its right to have a state, [and] it is biased in favour of Israel very clearly. The bias was staggering. In a supposed discussion on bias in the BBC, which had BBC employees or ex-employees appear one after the other to sing its praises, including the fact, as one suggested, that in 35 years he had never seen editorial bias, I was interrupted from the moment I began to criticise it, as if to prove that everything I had to say about bias was justified. READ MORE: Zarah Sultana restates 'We are all Palestine Action' in parliament Even more bizarrely, when they introduced me, they said I was a "columnist" but would not even mention The National newspaper that I write for – so biased are they against it. I had to correct them. Never doubt that the BBC is biased. And most especially, never doubt that it is very biased in Scotland, where Unionism is the only cause that it represents. No wonder no one wanted to go on: The odds were grossly unfairly stacked against me as a critic. And that, apparently, is an absence of bias in the BBC lexicon.
The National
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Richard Murphy in huge spat with BBC presenter over 'pro-Union bias'
Murphy took part in the phone-in on the Mornings show presented by Connie McLaughlin on Wednesday when the pair got into a spat. Midway through an extensive discussion on impartiality at the BBC, Murphy came onto the programme to say he did not have confidence in the BBC, highlighting that the 'nationalist community' does not trust the broadcaster because it is 'so absolutely pro-Unionist'. After former BBC political editor Brian Taylor was brought back into the discussion – having spoken on the programme already – alongside ex-BBC Radio 4 presenter Roger Bolton, Murphy and McLaughlin then got into a heated back-and-forth. READ MORE: Media expert raises fears over BBC Gaza documentary review When Murphy was brought in to have his 'final word', he said: 'We've gone on for 40-plus minutes and all I've heard so far is pro-BBC propaganda from the BBC.' McLaughlin then interrupted to say: 'Well not really because they've allowed you to speak.' 'No, let me finish Connie please,' Murphy then said. McLaughlin then hit back saying: 'Richard, come on.' Murphy then said he had just heard a programme 'which is entirely about how good the BBC is from BBC editors and producers' which he claimed is 'bias'. McLaughlin interrupted him again saying: 'Have you not been speaking on the programme for the last eight minutes or so because I don't think then that's accurate?' (Image: Ian West/PA Wire) Murphy then said: 'Every time I do, you interrupt me Connie and you are not interrupting your BBC colleagues.' McLaughlin said it was 'not fair' for Murphy to make that accusation as she warned him that he had a minute and a half left to speak. 'The BBC is biased in favour of big business, it is biased in favour of the right wing media because it uses that as its news sources in the main for discussion, it is biased against the nationalist cause in Scotland, it is biased against the Palestinian cause in its claim and its right to have a state, it is biased in favour of Israel very clearly,' Murphy concluded. McLaughlin replied: 'Thank you for that, you've had your say and hopefully you think you had enough time there.' The squabble had been preceded by Murphy clashing with Taylor after the economist claimed Taylor had said he had never heard any complaints about BBC bias in his time at the broadcaster. READ MORE: Scottish Tories in cronyism row as THIRD ex-spin doctor gets public cash Taylor clarified that he had said he was 'never at any point asked within the BBC by managers to tailor a report to fit an agenda dictated by the BBC' adding that he had witnessed 'endless complaints' about BBC Scotland coverage. But Murphy hit back by claiming the BBC bases its news agenda on a printed press heavily skewed in favour of the Union. He said: 'You're saying there's never been an instruction but let's look at how the BBC constructs so much of its news output. 'Almost every day the BBC's news agenda is tailored by what is in the media, the rest of the media, in particular the printed media. 'Have you noticed the bias in the printed media in Scotland? There is one pro-independence newspaper and a raft of those who are opposed. 'So, if the BBC reflects equally each of the newspapers, the nationalist cause does not get represented.' McLaughlin said: 'The purpose of the BBC is not to reflect every newspaper out there.' The BBC has come under fire from a variety of angles after an independent review found it had breached an accuracy guideline in failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary on Gaza was the son of a Hamas official. However, the report also concluded that in terms of the programme's content, there were no issues with accuracy, fairness or impartiality. The BBC has also sacked both MasterChef presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode, following a review into the behaviour of Wallace. The report, commissioned by MasterChef production company Banijay UK and led by law firm Lewis Silkin, found 45 out of 83 allegations against Wallace were substantiated, alongside two standalone allegations made against other people, including one for using racist language. Wallace was sacked by the BBC last week. In a post on Instagram, Torode confirmed he was the person alleged to have used racist language but said he had 'no recollection of the incident' and was 'shocked and saddened' by the allegation. Torode has been told his contract on MasterChef will not be renewed on Tuesday.
