Daily Mail: BBC hasn't learned from Bashir scandal

Story from Daily Mail:

When it was broadcast in 1995, the Panorama interview with Princess Diana was the most remarkable, and arguably most consequential, in British TV history.

Three decades on, it has become one of the biggest scandals in the BBC's history – a towering monument to dishonesty and a dearth of journalistic integrity.

Not only did disgraced reporter Martin Bashir use appalling methods to entrap Diana, the corporation colluded in covering up the scandal. Yet three years after Lord Dyson's excoriating report laid bare the magnitude of the deceit, the broadcaster seems to have learned no lessons.

Its bosses have fought tooth and nail to keep secret a cache of 3,000 documents linked to Bashir's interview.

Investigative journalist Andy Webb believes they could provide evidence of a plan, drawn up by senior management as late as 2020, to mislead the public about what was known about Bashir's tactics.

Despite dismissing the emails as 'irrelevant', the BBC spent more than £200,000 of licence fee-payers' money on legal fees in a futile bid to thwart an FOI request for the data.

And when it finally handed over the files last night, after missing a deadline imposed by a judge who had questioned the corporation's honesty, vast tracts were concealed in censor's black ink.

If the information was truly 'irrelevant', why? This only fuels suspicion that the BBC is engaged in a cover-up of the cover-up.

The public interest in divulging these internal emails is overwhelming. Yet in its arrogance, there is no sign the broadcaster understands it is doing anything wrong.

On its website, the BBC pompously says its values are 'trust' and 'accountability'. But the more we learn of its skulduggery, the more those words ring hollow.

Of all the tired cliches trotted out by the unions to justify the crippling rail strikes, perhaps the most disingenuous is they have their members' interests at heart.

Could anything be further from the truth? With industrial action having now dragged on for 18 months, train drivers are on course to lose more in wages than if their militant leaders had accepted the latest pay offer.

When this week's walkout ends, the dispute will have cost them an average of £4,900. The deal Aslef rejected was typically worth £4,750. Many rail workers want the chance to vote on it. But their hard-Left union boss, Mick Whelan, would rather use them as cannon fodder in a political war.

Furious commuters, whose trains have been cancelled, will be tempted to blame their predicament on the Government.

Why, they will ask, have ministers failed so lamentably to avert this hugely disruptive strike? The answer is simple: Aslef wants confrontation, not compromise.

It dreams of renationalisation and a Labour government bending to its whim. And it hopes this damaging guerilla war on rail operators will bring that closer.

Most people would agree that children should not be permitted to make decisions about their gender or irreversible medical treatments without parental consent.

Not, it seems, Sir Keir Starmer. In announcing that Labour will ban trans conversion therapy if it wins the election, he will effectively remove their involvement.

While it is a complex issue, he should realise there is little support for this.

By pursuing such a reckless proposal, he risks unleashing unintended consequences. Parents, doctors and others who suggest a confused child should wait before taking permanent, body-altering drugs or having surgery could be criminalised.

So the question is, which does he care more about: Bringing in a ban to appease radical trans campaigners – or the health and wellbeing of vulnerable young people?