At home I get grief for firing off angry tweets, particularly over the last six days. Fair cop, but I have become increasingly angry. So here is a considered thread.

BBC’s censure of Emily #Maitlis was inadvertently a more overtly political statement than anything she said. 1/

I love lots about the BBC, will hate it if the BBC4 goes, but I love a lot of BBC 3 too. I think they have covered the pandemic very well, Newsnight has got better through it.

BBC has some great reporters Katya Adler, Lyse Doucet, Lewis Goodall, Faisal Islam to name but 4.
2/

The BBC response fell into the Government trap by treating it as political when the outrage in the Country was not overtly political it was moral. We are living through a morality tale where the 2 key actors are a PM & his adviser.
3/

The PM happens to be Conservative he/she could be Labour could be anything (not really, but our duopolist electoral system is for another time).

Colour of politics don’t matter.
4/

Why morality not political?

It's about good old fashioned right & wrong.

It's about actions & consequences, being prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.

It's about honesty & decency. It's about hypocrisy

It's about misguided loyalty & disloyalty 5/

Aside 1 I rarely agree with anything Julia Hartley Brewer, Tim Montgomerie or Owen Jones say politically, but we are all united on this so it is really NOT political 6/

Emily Maitlis started:

‘Dominic Cummings broke the rules, the Country can see that and its shocked the Govt can not. The longer that Ministers & Prime Minister says he worked within them the more angry the response to this scandal is likely to be.’ 7/

She talked of the public mood - fury, contempt and anguish

Yes Emily could have said ‘ the overwhelming majority of the Country’ and ‘they are shocked’ but I took that as read.

There is huge evidential support for this which I will go onto.
8/

Evidence?

In Lockdown, we listen to a lot of radio phone-ins (me on Tuesday Nick Ferrari, Maajid Nawaz, Emma Barnett, Shelagh Fogarty who would be on Newsnight) & TV news (BBC/Sky). I suspect Emily was keeping up with it all.
9/

3 types of conversation were going on:
The Upset – callers who'd abided the rules & hadn’t been able to say a proper goodbye to loved ones or who had stayed separate from children undergoing treatment.

They felt 'had' & had been made to feel guilty by the instinct defence.
10/

Aside 2 PM, Public Health messages like yours are telling people to ignore their instincts. So it is wrong to use it to defend one of your own.

Aside 3 Individuals make judgement calls BUT they are NOT entitled to evade the consequences of those decisions.
11/

Caller 2 -defenders
Conservative MPs & the odd commentator tying themselves in knots trying to justify the reasonableness of DCs actions under basic questioning

Watch the surreal moment when Gove & Ferrari end up laughing at the convoluted efforts to defend the eyesight trip
12/

Caller 3 the inbox
Conservative MPs who had overflowing inboxes complaining about the hypocrisy & double standards. The concern that the ‘instinct’ defence & the one rule for one, one for the rest fundamentally undermines the PH message.

Only caller 2 was overtly political.13/

Around 10pm 40 mins before Newsnight a Daily Mail poll dropped
80% (74%Con) said Cummings broke Lockdown rules.
63% (55) thought he should resign (17 %(33) he shouldn’t).
63%(51) should be sacked (19%(36) he shouldn’t)

Pretty overwhelming
14/

A few minutes after the poll Sun Political Editor tweeted ‘three out of four Tory MPs privately refuse to support PM’s decision to stand by Dominic Cummings.’ 9 Cabinet had failed to make public statements of support.
Pretty overwhelming conclusion on the rights & wrongs.
15/

Around 10.45pm Maitlis would have known all this & she said what she said, straightforwardly reflecting overwhelming public opinion. As ever on @BBCNewsnight those being criticised, here a Govt had a right to appear & reply. They didn’t take that opportunity.
16/

18 hours after the programme went out, the BBC News PR issued a statement saying the introduction did not meet our standards of due impartiality.

How is reflecting overwhelming public opinion partial?
17/

To say reflecting public opinion is not impartial is a far more overtly politically & partial statement than the truth Maitlis laid out.
Whoever made the censure decision fell hook line & sinker into the Govt trap to make a Morality issue Political.
18/

Aside 4 we have no ideas who made the censure decision, Ric Bailey, David Jordan, Lord Hall? They were misguided.

And 18 hours? Laura Kuenssberg was criticised for a tweet, it took 5 days to clear her. Was some external pressure brought to bear for a rapid response?
19/

There is a deep irony here about the loyalty the PM is showing Mr Cummings & the disloyalty the BBC showed to one of its finest. BUT Mr Johnson is also being disloyal to the public and to his own Public Health message.
20/

My conclusion, #Maitlis has been badly treated, the BBC censure helped made an issue of right or wrong political,

The @BBCNews has by its decision inadvertently insulted the majority of public opinion. Not good.

But I'm still very much pro BBC!

Thanks

End/

P.S. My opinion remains that Cummings must go & I'm still angry

Ministers/MPs not calling out the wrong, the hypocrisy, the dangerous contempt for the Govt's public health message are abdicating their responsibility to their constituents & wider public.

It's basic Morality.