Culture secretary Sajid Javid has accused the BBC of bias – calling one item “very, very anti-Tory” – and said the job of changing the way the press is regulated is done.
Warning that the upcoming charter review would include an investigation into bias, Javid said in a Daily Mail report that Labour’s commitment to revisit regulation risks interfering with press freedom.
The comments, come after the ambitious Conservative minister has already indicated that the BBC’s licence fee could be cut if the party returns to power.
In comments made more than a week after the flagship morning news show ended with a three-way debate in which Scottish comic Rhona Cameron calling the Tories a “cancer”, Javid said: “Last week, listening to the Today programme, there was a debate… they were all anti-Tory. It came across as very, very anti-Tory.”
In words set to be greeted with approval by the Mail and many other parts of the press, Javid confirmed that the Tories had no plans to change press regulation. After the Leveson inquiry into standards, much of the industry rejected the idea of a royal charter. Instead, the Independent Press Standards Organisation started last September.
Asked by the Mail if the Tories would back a Leveson-approved regulator, he said: “No, we won’t. But Labour will. It interferes with the freedom of the press. It goes fundamentally against one of the Leveson principles, which is independent self-regulation. I think we have achieved what we set out to do.
“Everyone accepted the old system, the Press Complaints Commission, didn’t work. Our job is done as a government. It’s up to the press.”
A BBC spokesman said the corporation believed it had “reported fairly and impartially on the policies of all parties”.
