The BBC
allowed MI5, Britain’s intelligence service, to vet its applicants
in a bid to stop potentially “subversive” people from influencing
the broadcast material, new files have revealed.
The
documents reveal the extent to which MI5 worked with the broadcaster
to politically vet thousands of employees – except for “personnel
such as chairwomen” – right until the early 1990s.
According
to an account by Paul Reynolds, one of the first journalists to see
the BBC vetting files, the broadcaster adopted a policy of “keep
head down and stonewall all questions.” For five decades, the BBC
had in fact not only failed to admit but in some cases also lied
about the existence of political vetting, which could lead to
applicants not being called in for appointments or promotions being
blocked.
An
interview by BBC Director General Sir Hugh Greene reveals how the
vetting worked. “We have a staff of 23,000 and in that community we
have people of all descriptions, including what you call pansies” –
the word had apparently been used by the reporter – “and also
communists,” Greene said. “But that’s none of my business. We
don’t conduct an inquisition on people who join the BBC,” he
added.
There
was a “fear,” Reynolds wrote, that “evilly disposed”
engineers might sabotage the network at a critical time, or that
conspirators might discredit the BBC so that “the way could be made
clear for a left-wing government.”
The
first collaboration between the BBC and MI5 took place as early as
1933, when a BBC executive, Col Alan Dawnay, began exchanging
information with the head of MI5, Sir Vernon Kell, at Dawnay’s flat
in Eaton Terrace, Chelsea. They deemed the meetings necessary as it
was then the height of political radicalism and the BBC needed
“assistance in regard to communist activities.”
Banned
organizations included the Communist Party of Great Britain, the
Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Revolutionary Party, and the
Militant Tendency. On the right, the National Front and the British
National Party were also of concern.
A banned
applicant did not need to be a member of these organizations –
association was enough. Isabel Hilton, who then went on to win an OBE
for her reporting, was refused a job in BBC Scotland in 1976 because,
she believes, she was guilty by association with a member of the
Communist Party at Edinburgh University.
“I
still feel indignant. It’s the lack of accountability that bothers
me and the fact that nobody in the BBC ever apologised, explained –
or made any public statement in my defence or to acknowledge their
error,” she said, according to Reynolds.
Source:
How extraordinarily ironic. The BBC (and Channel 4) is infested with a left-liberal mindset and the postmodern tropes that come with it. This bias has become so normalised that the MSM no longer questions the Establishment but actively supports it.
ReplyDeleteMI5 must be twiddling their thumbs these days since editorials and BBC "rules" conform very well to the official narratives they are tasked to uphold. The BBC is certainly their propaganda outlet of choice in that regard.