Sir, You report that the BBC’s deputy director-general
said impartiality is a core value for the BBC, and non-negotiable. That is too simple.
The vital question is impartiality
between what? Presumably it is not impartial between good and evil.
The BBC should be
impartial between legitimate interests in Britain, for example the Labour Party and
the Conservative Party. It ought not to be impartial between Britain
and other countries, because it is the British Broadcasting Corporation and it is financed
by British people. That does not mean it should broadcast lies.
During the Second World
War no one at the BBC thought it should be impartial between Churchill and Hitler.
What has changed?
