Entertainment
Samira Ahmed ‘haunted’ by fear BBC ‘built up’ Nigel Farage and Ukip
Samira Ahmed said she is ‘haunted’ by the complaints received by the BBC claiming the channel was ‘building up’ Nigel Farage and Ukip.
The Newswatch presenter made the comments during a live recording of her non-BBC podcast How I Found My Voice on Wednesday night, as she interviewed Have I Got News For You team captain and Private Eye editor Ian Hislop.
Ahmed, 52, asked Hislop, 60, whether Have I Got News For You had assisted the political careers of guests such as Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage.
According to The Times, she recalled complaints received by Newswatch in the early 2010s, which claimed that the BBC was ‘building up’ right-wing party Ukip and its then-leader Farage, saying: ‘I’m haunted by that and I remember talking to editors about it.’
Hislop disagreed with inviting only people ‘who are considered absolutely acceptable’ onto panel shows, saying: ‘That’s untenable and slightly dangerous. And also, there is a problem — and this is the same problem as giving people the vote I’m afraid — that if you allow people airtime, which they probably are allowed, people might like them.’
As well as being covered on shows like Newswatch, Farage appeared on Question Time on 12 occasions between 2010 and 2015.
Ukip more than tripled its share of the vote to 12.7% in those five years, and was awarded major party status by Ofcom in 2014, having made breakthroughs in the 2013 local elections, 2014 European Parliamentary elections, and later the 2015 general election.
The pressure Ukip put on the Conservative government is also believed to have contributed to the Brexit referendum, and campaigned with the Leave.EU group. Farage resigned following the referendum.
In a statement shared with Metro.co.uk, a BBC spokesperson said: ‘All BBC News and Current Affairs journalists must avoid appearing to express any personal views.
‘We have discussed the video with Samira, and she is clear that she was referring to being “haunted” by the number of complaints rather than trying to give a wider commentary.’
Last year, the BBC warned its staff using social media not to ‘express a personal opinion on matters of public policy, politics, or “controversial subjects,”‘ and to ‘maintain your impartiality.’
Director-general Tim Davie said: ‘If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.’
In her interview with Hislop, Ahmed also said that members of the cabinet ‘won’t resign over obvious issues that you might have expected them to’, referencing Robert Jenrick’s role as housing secretary in a £1 billion development proposed by Richard Desmond, a Tory donor.
After Hislop said that the calibre of the cabinet was ‘about as low as anything I’ve ever seen’, the journalist said: ‘And [they] won’t resign over obvious issues that you might have expected them to. So, Robert Jenrick over the Richard Desmond property donation etc.’
Jenrick pushed through a proposed development by Desmond hours before it would have incurred a council levy of up to £50 million, after sitting with Desmond at a fundraiser.
The housing secretary said it ‘would have been better not to’ exchange messages with Desmond after the dinner, but claimed there was ‘no bias whatsoever’ in his approval of the east London development, which was later quashed by the High Court.
Jenrick accepted that his approval of planning permission had been ‘unlawful by reason of apparent bias’.
Ahmed has worked on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and presented the Proms for BBC Radio 4, and previously presented Sunday Morning Live.
She took over as Newswatch presenter in 2012, and last year, she reached a settlement with the BBC after winning her equal pay claim in a landmark case.
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