according to former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis.
Ms Maitlis, who left the BBC this year for rival media group Global, is understood to have referred to Theresa May’s former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb in a speech that was scathing about the corporation’s alleged closeness to No 10.
BBC board member who acts as an arbiter of the broadcaster’s impartiality is an “active agent” of the Conservative Party, according to former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis.
Ms Maitlis, who left the BBC this year for rival media group Global, is understood to have referred to Theresa May’s former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb in a speech that was scathing about the corporation’s alleged closeness to No 10
Sir Robbie, who was appointed by Boris Johnson’s government to the BBC board last year, was Downing Street communications director from 2017 to 2019.
Before that, he worked at the BBC for 25 years, in roles including the deputy editor of Newsnight and editor of The Daily Politics and This Week.
Ms Maitlis’s comments came during the annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday night, when she criticised the BBC for having “sought to pacify” No 10 by issuing a swift apology for a Newsnight monologue she gave about Dominic Cummings’s lockdown-breaching trip to Durham.
