Does the government want to sack the BBC boss?
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Labour used to be the party that leapt to the defence of the BBC. So why was the Culture Secretary this weekend calling for heads to roll, saying she was "exasperated" at the broadcaster, and refusing to express confidence its director general Tim Davie?
The BBC has admitted to failings in its Glastonbury coverage, which saw it stream one act chanting "death to the IDF" - despite the corporation later admitting it had deemed them "high risk" before the festival. But those admissions don't appear to have satisfied the government. Is Labour falling out of love with the BBC? And should the BBC be worried? Jon and Emily discuss with Sir Craig Oliver, former BBC News editor turned Downing Street director of politics and communications.
Later, on the twentieth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, which killed 52 people, injured more than 700, and led to the largest criminal investigation in British history - have we learnt the lessons from the tragedy? Yasmin Khan, a human rights campaigner and friend of the de Menezes family, appears in the Netflix documentary 'Attack on London', and came in to News Agents HQ.
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.6 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.1 | Let me turn now to the role of the BBC. |
| 0:16.1 | On Saturday afternoon, just after the broadcast, I called the Director General to ask for an explanation |
| 0:22.0 | and what immediate steps the BBC leadership intended to take. |
| 0:27.7 | As the Prime Minister said yesterday, it is essential that the BBC explains how these scenes |
| 0:33.8 | came to be broadcast. The BBC has rightly apologised and took the immediate decision not to put this content on IPlayer. |
| 0:42.3 | I welcome that. |
| 0:44.3 | However, key outstanding questions remain, including why... |
| 0:48.3 | ...was the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandi, speaking a week ago. |
| 0:53.3 | This weekend, she was asked a question that was far simpler. |
| 0:58.8 | Does she have confidence in the Director-General of the BBC Tim Davy? She wouldn't say. |
| 1:05.3 | But is it government overreach for the Culture Secretary to call for the DG to go. And has this government, the Labor |
| 1:13.4 | government, fallen out of love with the BBC? Welcome to the newsagents. The Newsagents. It's John. |
| 1:24.9 | It's Emily. And the mood music has been there, I think, for the last few months. |
| 1:30.7 | There is not, in other words, a lot of love between Lisa and Andy personally and Tim Davy, |
| 1:37.3 | the Director General. But this weekend, the Culture Secretary gave an interview to The Times, |
| 1:43.6 | and she repeated her demand for an explanation |
| 1:48.0 | as to what happened at Glastonbury, what happened around that Gaza documentary that is still |
| 1:55.3 | under investigation that has still not produced any answers even though it goes back to February. |
| 2:02.0 | And what Lisa Nandy says in this interview is, I want an explanation as to why not. |
| 2:07.8 | If it is a sackable offence, then obviously that should happen. |
... |
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