Lisa Nandy has given a clear signal that time is up for political appointees on the BBC board’s political appointees’ time is up as she embarks on the corporation’s charter review.
“The political appointments to the board have undermined the sense of independence and trust from the public,” she the culture secretary told The Observer in an interview. “My job is to make sure that the BBC remains independent, remains free from political interference, but is far more accountable to the public.”
Nandy herself has previously been accused of leaning on the BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, to get rid of director general Tim Davie over the Bob Vylan Glastonbury episode, a move she denies. She insists “my job is to make sure that the BBC remains independent, remains free from political interference, but is far more accountable to the public that it belongs to”.
The charter review green paper – which is open for public discussion and will set out the terms for the next 10 years of the BBC’s future – was released on the day news broke that Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10bn. The US president is claiming damages over a 2024 episode of Panorama in which his 6 th January speech was edited in a way that, according to the BBC’s subsequent apology, gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
The edit sparked uproar only recently, following the leak of a critical memo sent to the BBC board by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the corporation’s standards committee. This in turn prompted a row over political board appointments, as Robbie Gibb, a BBC board member with links to the Conservative party, amplified the report, leading to the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness.
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“The BBC has consulted lawyers. They’ve been very clear that there is no basis for a successful claim. They’ve made clear today that they intend to contest this,” Nandy said, giving the government’s firmest backing yet to the corporation’s response to the Trump lawsuit.
The 33-page suit has been filed in Florida, where the courts’ jurisdiction will be contested, not least because the Panorama film in question was never broadcast there in the US and was viewable online only with the help of a virtual private network (VPN).
Trump has sued two major US networks so far this year for what he claimed was unfair reporting. Both CBS and ABC paid his foundation multimillion-dollar settlements rather than fight the White House, even though legal experts said both cases were without merit.
“We’ve been absolutely crystal clear that although the BBC has made mistakes in a number of areas over recent years, it remains one of the most important institutions in our country, alongside the National Health Service,” Nandy told The Observer. “Any legal action that the BBC faces will not affect decisions that we make about the future of our national broadcaster.”