What would Orwell say about Donald Trump suing the BBC?

During his time at the BBC, Orwell hoped that he had helped to “deoderise it to some small extent” and kept at least a “little corner of it fairly clean” (Picture: Flickr)

Outside the BBC’s ­headquarters, there is a statue of George Orwell. It’s supposed to ­symbolise the BBC’s commitment to integrity and honesty—values very much associated with Orwell’s books that attacked despots.

Orwell is an appropriate figure to symbolise the BBC, but not in the way the corporation’s bosses intended.

He had worked at the BBC during the Second World War, but had eventually been squeezed out because of his left wing and ­anti-imperialist views. He told one friend that working there made him feel like “an orange that’s been trodden on by a very dirty boot”.

During his time at the BBC, Orwell hoped that he had helped to “deoderise it to some small extent” and kept at least a “little corner of it fairly clean”. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

After 1945, he complained about how the Labour government was cracking down on the left and free speech. He observed that the BBC still had “the same subtle ­reactionary colour that it always had”.

And, of course, Orwell was a staunch opponent of Zionism, which he viewed as Western colonialism in action. Someone with his views would not be allowed anywhere near the BBC today.

The BBC has always been subtly reactionary—but often not so subtle as well. Its coverage of the Battle of Orgreave during the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 is a particularly dramatic instance of its class war lies.

The BBC filmed the brutal police attack on the miners and their fightback.

When it was shown, producers reversed the order of events so that it looked as if the miners had started it, attacking the police who had then responded.

This was all part of what lawyer Michael Mansfield described as “the worst example of a mass frame-up in this country this century”. And the BBC was right at the heart of it. The BBC later acknowledged that it had made “a mistake” in its editing.

It also played a vital role in smearing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as antisemitic back in 2019.

But why is the BBC in so much trouble with the British right today, including the likes of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Nigel Farage, the Mail, the Express and the Telegraph?

Why are all of them are rallying around poor old Donald Trump? Many right wingers have always objected to the BBC because it is not a ­privately-owned company.

As far as these people are concerned, it takes profits away from the likes of Sky. But for most of the political establishment, both Tories and Labour, the BBC’s subtle reactionary stance, was useful.

What has changed is the rise of the far right. For these people subtle reaction is not enough—indeed it is positively left wing. Woke even.

For Boris Johnson, supporting Trump’s case against Panorama was just a blatant attempt to get himself some political limelight.

For Liz Truss, it was all about ingratiating herself with her hero Elon Musk. But, for Farage, it is part of his campaign to win the next general election.

The BBC has already apologised to Trump for the way the Panorama programme was edited. But will they go so far as to pay the man compensation to avoid his threatened one billion dollar lawsuit?

This is all about politics.

Keir Starmer and his people are wrestling with how pathetic Labour will look if it pressures the BBC into giving in to Trump. But they also fear upsetting the president of the United States.

What should the stance of the left be? Obviously, there should be no surrender to Trump. But we have to hold the BBC to account for its failure to actually chronicle and warn against the rise of the far right.

The real complaint should not be that the BBC have offended Trump—it should be that they’ve not offended him enough.

Trump not only deliberately incited the 6 January insurrection, but he subsequently pardoned all those who had taken part.

This is all unprecedented. Our criticisms of the BBC do not stop here however. The corporation’s coverage of the Gaza genocide, and its cover-up of the Labour government’s involvement, is the biggest indictment against it.

And the BBC has remained pretty much silent about the increasing levels of inequality in Britain. It occasionally exposes ­particular instances of hardship, but never, I repeat never, does it identify the increasing wealth and power of the super-rich as the cause.

And, of course, it is this that is helping to fuel the rise of the authoritarian right.