EXCLUSIVE: BBC chair Samir Shah has told staff that talk of a Conservative coup at the UK broadcaster is “fanciful” during a town hall where there was unrest over a Donald Trump-shaped crisis.
As Deadline reported on Monday, a theory has taken root at the BBC positing that board member Robbie Gibb, a former press secretary to Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, has been working to undermine the corporation and call into question its impartiality.
BBC insiders feel it is a perilous moment for the corporation following the resignations of director general Tim Davie and news boss Deborah Turness over a botched edit of Donald Trump’s January 6 speech.
The concerns bubbled up during an all-hands call on Monday morning, during which staff openly questioned Gibb’s actions. In written comments, employees asked how Gibb can be a standard bearer for impartiality, given his political connections. They questioned it the BBC can be free from Conservative bias if Gibb remains on the board. One insider said there was a “huge number of anti-Gibb comments.”
Per several sources, Shah snapped back at the concerns, telling staff it was “disrespectful” to attack individual board members, saying they are “people who care about the BBC and its values.” One insider said Shah dismissed concerns of a right-wing plot as “fanciful,” and referred to “conspiracy theories.”
A friend of Gibb’s told Deadline that the coup theory “is absolute nonsense.” This person added that Gibb did not want Davie to resign, and he remains a supporter of the BBC and its license fee funding model.
Gibb has served on the BBC board’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, where he worked alongside external advisor Michael Prescott. Prescott penned the excoriating memo that is ground zero for this crisis. He exposed the botched Donald Trump edit and skewered the BBC’s perceived anti-Israel and pro-trans rights bias.
The argument goes that, from his seat on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, Gibb orchestrated the content reviews that helped inform Prescott’s memo. These reviews were led by David Grossman, who overlapped with Gibb on BBC show Newsnight in the noughties and acted as an advisor to the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee.
Prescott’s document made its way into the hands of The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper that is no friend to the BBC, prompting days of ugly headlines, social media rage, and political attacks, not least from Trump’s White House. Among those agitating for Davie’s head was Boris Johnson, the former British PM who ultimately signed off on Gibb’s appointment to the BBC board.
The BBC’s paralysis in responding to Prescott’s conclusions last week has only fuelled the conspiracy. Sources said Turness, the BBC News chief, was blocked by the board from making a statement, a turn of events that is said to have left her furious.
While the idea of a coup is being talked up by some, others think it only reinforces the notion that the BBC is not listening to critics who complain about its institutional bias. “We’ve got to stop this right-wing plot talk — it plays into their hands when we take on a victim stance,” said one presenter.
