By Tim Lezard

The BBC is so left-wing that since 2010 its biased reporting has resulted in the election of four successive Conservative governments and, last year, of the most right-wing Labour administration this century.

Yet this is not enough for its enemies, of whom there are many, political and commercial.

They sense blood and want to destroy the BBC now they think they have it on its knees.

If they have their way, they’ll have destroyed one of our finest institutions, the UK’s most trusted news organisation and one that is admired around the world.

And that’s the problem. In a not-so brave new world where Fake News is king, real news has to be silenced, whether that’s criticism of right-wing politicians or the genocide in Gaza.

If you read the right-wing press you’d think the BBC is rotten to the core and irreparably institutionally biased.

In truth, between January and August 2025, the BBC was responsible for just 2% of complaints to Ofcom.

There’s been an increase of accusations of BBC bias since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 2023, with critics accusing the corporation of being anti-Israel and pro-Palestine.

The evidence shows the opposite: analysis by the Centre for Media Monitoring of more than 35,000 news stories covered by the BBC reveals that despite Gaza suffering 34 times more casualties than Israel, Israeli deaths were given 33 times more coverage per fatality, and significantly more emotive language.

This doesn’t fit the right-wing narrative so, unsurprisingly, wasn’t reported by the right-wing media. Nor, a quick internet search shows, were any of GB News’s breaches of the Ofcom’s broadcasting code.

The right-wing press did, however, triumphantly report the dropping of some charges against the channel for which BBC non-executive director and former spin doctor for Theresa May Robbie Gibb, acted as an editorial advisor.

Yes, the BBC makes mistakes, but if it is genuinely institutionally biased, why does its news outlets consistently follow up stories by right-wing newspapers?

Why does Reform (with four MPs) receive almost twice as much coverage as the Lib Dems (with 72 MPs)?

And why, on Question Time’s list of most-invited non-political guests from 2014-2024 are there no left-wingers in the top thirteen?

My trade union, the NUJ, frequently crosses swords with BBC management so I know it’s not perfect. But it’s worth fighting for because we would all be poorer without the BBC in our lives.

It’s time to rally round the BBC and prevent it becoming a political football, to end political appointments to the board, to end the outsourcing of news and current affairs programmes and to give more power – not less – to its journalists, enabling them to continue holding the powerful to account.

As a neutral broadcaster, of course it’s going to rile one side or the other, whatever line it takes. But be careful what you wish for; and before you join in the celebrations of Auntie’s demise, have a look at who you’re joining at the party: Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Kelvin MacKenzie.

Are they impartial? Or are they trying to silence journalists who expose their corruption and incompetence?

Tim Lezard has been a journalist for 38 years and is a former president of the NUJ. This is adapted from a Facebook post.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/863884480 Creator: Picasa 2.7 Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic CC BY 2.0 Deed