BBC impartiality row: Newsnight policy editor accused of 'off the scale' bias

The BBC is at the centre of a fresh impartiality row after Newsnight’s policy editor wrote an article for a Left-wing magazine attacking the Government’s handling of the exam crisis.

Lewis Goodall’s piece for the New Statesman was billed on the cover as an examination of “how the Government’s ineptitude created a lost generation”, and headlined: “How a Government led by technocrats nearly destroyed a generation of social mobility.”

Goodall, a former Labour activist who previously worked for the Left-wing Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, laid the problems at the door of the Prime Minister’s senior adviser. He wrote: “We cannot know the extent of Dominic Cummings’ involvement in this sorry episode, and it may be that he was not part of it at all. But his approach encapsulates a method of governing that was on full display throughout.”

The article was signed off by BBC management, who insisted that it was within the corporation’s impartiality guidelines.

It was criticised by Sir Robbie Gibb, former director of communications at No 10 and a former head of the BBC’s Westminster unit, who said: “Is there anyone more damaging to the BBC’s reputation for impartiality than Lewis Goodall? This is so off the scale I don’t even know where to begin.” Sir Robbie’s brother is Nick Gibb, the schools minister.

This latest accusation of impartiality follows the climbdown over Emily Maitlis, who incensed the Tories in May with a monologue attacking the Government’s handling of Cummings’ lockdown trip to Durham. Maitlis was reprimanded by BBC bosses, who said that she had gone too far.

Goodall’s appointment to the Newsnight policy editor job at the beginning of this year also caused dismay in the Tory ranks, as he made no secret of his political views during his previous job as a Sky News reporter.

In 2018, after Boris Johnson wrote a Telegraph article likening women in burkas to letterboxes, Goodall tweeted: “Burkagate reminds us you can say whatever you like in Britain, be rude or even prejudiced and be respected for it, so long as you’re posh and powerful.”

While at Sky he clashed on camera with Cummings after "doorstepping" him outside an event in Westminster. Cummings told Goodall: “You don’t know what you’re talking about. So everyone at home should know - don’t watch the news because it’s almost all b-------.”

The BBC said Goodall had followed “the usual internal BBC processes” by referring the article to management for approval.

They said the article complied with the editorial guideline which states that reporters and presenters should not offer “personal views” on political topics but allows them to “offer professional judgments rooted in evidence”.

A BBC spokesman said: “While the piece is clearly critical of how examinations were handled by all political parties who govern in the UK we do not control how the piece is presented on the cover when published.”

In the piece, Goodall said that all parties are culpable in the exam fiasco. But he went on to quote an anonymous headteacher who described it as “the ideological end point of the strategic culture war within English state education”.

He also likened it to the Windrush scandal, with “the same impersonal regard for circumstances”, and said: “I am left with a reminder of how monstrous the state can be.”

And he added: “The most surprising thing about the present cabinet is how deeply unpolitical many of its members are - [Gavin] Williamson included.”

Newsnight’s audience has declined in recent years and the BBC Two show now attracts around 300,000 viewers. But Goodall has built up his own following on social media, where he shared his New Statesman piece and found enthusiastic support.

This is not the first time that Sir Robbie has accused Goodall of bias. In January, a Twitter exchange about Goodall’s analysis of Sajid Javid’s economic policy ended with Goodall tweeting: “Thanks for this Robbie. Maybe one day, if I’m as impartial as you, I can get a knighthood too.”

On Thursday he dismissed accusations of bias in the exams story as “boringly predictable”, tweeting: “Thousands of people have had their lives ruined by this. It suits certain people to yet again make this a media story rather than engage with substance. It’s just so pathetically in the bubble.”