A former BBC executive has claimed he was blocked from a top job at the broadcaster due to fears his background in Labour politics would anger Boris Johnson’s government.
James Purnell spent almost a decade at the BBC in a variety of executive roles, before leaving two years ago after the arrival of Tim Davie as director general. He had previously been an MP and served as a cabinet minister in Gordon Brown’s government.
He has now claimed he was blocked from joining the corporation’s board in June 2020 out of concern it would prompt the Conservative government to up its attacks on the BBC.
“Tim Davie had offered me a job on the board but the non-execs [non-executive directors] decided they didn’t want someone with a Labour background,” he tweeted.
He said that at the time “the organisation felt it was dealing [with] an existential risk” due to threats from Johnson’s Conservative government to slash the licence fee so “went into hyper-cautious mode”.
As a result Purnell said the BBC board concluded that his political background ruled him ineligible for the role, even though he believed people needed to leave their personal politics at the door when they join the BBC. The executive subsequently left the broadcaster and is now vice-chancellor of the University of the Arts London.
His comments were made in response to a speech by the former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis about political interference in the BBC. She complained that the corporation had been too quick to apologise to Downing Street after she criticised former adviser Dominic Cummings’s breach of lockdown rules.
She also alleged that current BBC board member Robbie Gibb – who has close links to the Conservative party, served as Theresa May’s director of communications, and helped found GB News – is an “active agent of the Conservative party”.
In January 2020, six months before Purnell claims his appointment to the broadcaster’s board was blocked, political journalist Robert Peston reported that Cummings had pledged to ensure he would be “dead on arrival” if he went for a top BBC job.
The BBC declined to comment on staffing matters.
With the BBC’s entire future and funding model up for debate ahead of its next royal charter, which is due to be finalised in 2026, Purnell called for new independent checks and balances to stop Downing Street exerting control over the corporation.
He said: “In the BBC’s case, part of the answer to Emily Maitlis’ concerns is getting to the root cause of that caution: namely that the government of the day has almost untrammelled power over setting the licence fee and reviewing the charter.”
