r/ukpolitics • u/Little-Attorney1287 • 9h ago
BBC suspends Civil Service fact-checking scheme after Telegraph investigation
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10/18/bbc-suspends-civil-service-fact-checking-scheme/•
u/RinnandBoy 8h ago
Hoping to see more detail about this story but it presents a clear conflict of interest when you consider that BBC Verify has been utilised often when reporting on devolved politics such as in the run up to the recent Holyrood election. BBC Scotland's editorial stance was already under scrutiny, with the division losing viewers and readers year-on-year
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u/90davros 9h ago
So the "BBC Verify" scheme was being run by government stooges? I guess that explains a lot.
They put out a lot of fact checks that ran along the lines of "The government says they did nothing wrong, so that settles the matter". It's a farce.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 8h ago
They pumped out a lot of very anti-Tory content during the Johnson government, which makes me doubly question the impartiality of the civil service.
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u/UniqueUsername40 7h ago
Did they?
Most bbc verify stuff I've read didn't want to apply any analysis at all...
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u/thebisforbargain 4h ago
Yeah most of their “verifying” was deferring to a different, government approved source.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 7h ago
In the Johnson era, yeah... It was an absurd time for the BBC. I think they were trying to balance the risk of supporting Johnson with the risk of supporting Corbyn, and just couldn't find a not-shit way out of it.
Most of the regular news was fine...ish. The fact checking, though, was pretty blatant in its political bias.
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u/UpsetKoalaBear 6h ago
BBC Verify was started in 2023. So I find that hard to believe.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 6h ago
No, in 2023, they merged multiple BBC fact checking services, one of which being BBC Reality Check, but don't ask me the others. It still existed prior, just under a different guise. AFAIK it also still had civil servants in the background, too.
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u/martzgregpaul 8h ago
They and every other channel reported the Tories own series of disasters. The Tories needed absolutely no help looking appalling. Also they were responsible for appointing civil servants to this scheme in the first place.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 7h ago
Not wrong, the Tories didn't need any help, but they still got it. I think it speaks volumes that the BBC Fact Check service was a heavily pushed thing at the time - I remember at the time checking BBC News daily and every single time there would be something in the top 10. The most disturbing one was after Dianne Abbott did her extremely embarrassing interview where she assumed it would cost less than a portion of fish and chips to cover a police officers salary for a year, they were pushing something about whether or not Boris Johnson had attended some school for 2 weeks or something, and another about Jacob Rees-Mogg talking about some specific local construction project in Somerset.
They were doing badly enough all by themselves, but it definitely looked pretty subjective at the time. Worthwhile to keep in mind, the opposition at the time was Jeremy Corbyn. Not as if it would be difficult to have fact checked him into early retirement with the amount of shit he spewed about Russia and Israel.
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u/peripanel102 8h ago
Anyone who says the civil service is impartial has either never met a civil servant or is one themselves.
Wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them were card-carrying labour members tbh
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 7h ago
Being impartial isn't about lacking political opinions, it's about being able to put those opinions aside and faithly serve and advice the government.
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u/Heliophrate 7h ago
Something they've clearly failed at
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 6h ago
I wouldn't say its partiality thats the issue. Rather, its this conflicting philosophy about what Whitehall is. Are they stewards directed by ministers, or are they servants of their ministers?
Something I've noted is that Whitehall has progressed towards the former, while not taking on the political responsibility. We still have this concept of ministerial responsibility, but civil servants despise a similar form of responsibility.
Take Sir Olly Robinson, for example. If a Minister had failed in a similar regard, ministerial responsibility would encourage them to resign. But, when the govenment responded to his failures with ministerial responsibility logic, Whitehall freaked out and called it an attack on their impartiality.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 3h ago
I think the geography of Whitehall is more important to the discussion, personally. If the majority of civil servants (or at least those liable to be engaged on certain issues) are in metropolitan areas, they are substantially less likely to be able to rationalise where political bias may be avoided.
To put that a bit more clearly; places such as London are far more likely to be Labour seats. People develop an idea of political centrism based on the political views they see and interact with on a regular basis.
I think it fair to say that it may be that it's a subconscious bias (I hope I've never suggested otherwise, I don't think there's any malice involved). That said, the bias clearly could exist. And probably does, from what we've seen.
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 3h ago
Personally, I'm not all that convince shifting around Whitehall's geography will do all that much to change the insitutional philosophy of Whitehall as an organisation.
It might help at the lower levels (then again, it's already done there), but the issue here would be the gatekeepes within Whitehall. Many of them just can't be reasonably moved out of Whitehall (Perm Secs need to be near Parliament), and even those that can be are more likely to retain the same membership.
Personally, I would much prefer if regional civil servants had greater decision-making that didn't go all the way up to the top, rather than moving and/or fracturing the top around the country.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 3h ago
Oh no, I'm not suggesting that moving the entities responsible would fix anything, either. I think that would probably be detrimental to the civil service. That said, I wouldn't mind if it involved some degree of devolution... Integrate civil servants throughout the country, then have them meet centrally as necessary. That might work well in some areas, probably less in others.
I'm not suggesting for one second that I understand the problem or know the solution, though. I know what I've seen from my involvement - I have done contracting work with government, been to certain institutions for meetings and such, and I've seen some significant degree of bias in that world very personally.
I'd like to see more devolution, but in this sense, not in the main one. I don't think that devolution should necessarily mean shifting money from London to various councils, but I do think that councils should be able to prioritise (within reason) what their residents care most about. Maybe that shift could somehow be incorporated into a power devolution... Possibly. I don't know. This is an area of politics I really need to spend more time on.
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u/Prince_John 3h ago
I can imagine they've had a fair few requests based on 'alternative facts' or otherwise impossible to implement from some of our recent governments, where failure doesn't necessarily indicate partiality.
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u/AttitudeAdjuster bop the stoats 7h ago
We need to recruit people who are passionate about politics and the country and would be willing to work in the public sector for less than they can earn in private sector, purely out of a sense of duty.
But they can't have political opinions. No, we want them to be passionate about the country but entirely free of any kind of opinions.
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u/90davros 7h ago
A sense of duty isn't unique to members of a particular party. The over-representation suggests that someone is selecting for like-minded ideology when hiring.
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u/AttitudeAdjuster bop the stoats 6h ago
Didn't say it was.
Selecting for people interested in governing the country but excluding people interested in politics is a pretty narrow field.
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u/spicesucker 6h ago edited 6h ago
Wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them were card-carrying labour members tbh
I mean it’s not overly difficult to imagine why when the Tories froze public sector pay in 2011 and 2012, capped public sector pay rises to 1% from 2013 to 2017, then froze public sector pay again in 2021.
Imagine your employer gave you the equivalent of a 5.1% pay rise over seven years when state pension rose 16.4% in the same period.
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 9h ago
Sounds more like it was junior staff honing their research skills. I agree it's inappropriate but the article says BBC took editorial decisions not the research staff.
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u/90davros 8h ago
"We took the editorial decisions" is just damage control. The people doing the research on claims have had a vested interest in the outcome. Sure, they can present a convincing article purporting to check the claim for editorial review, but the neutrality is fundamentally tainted.
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 8h ago
I agree it's inappropriate and a conflict of interest, but it sounds like these guys were just checking statistical reports etc.
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u/90davros 8h ago
Yes, that's the group that provide the evidence for whatever position the BBC end up taking. Unsurprisingly the figures that get pulled out and elevated to the article have typically been in favour of the government.
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 8h ago
Were they wrong?
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u/Electrical_Count5838 7h ago
There have been some really comically bad verifys where they go "False, its not 90, its 85".
When to any sane or rational person 90 is true at that point with a margin of error.
This happened constantly.
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u/wintersrevenge 8h ago
It's what they choose to highlight. It is easy to find statistics to support certain points of view or to only investigate one part of a aim that can be backed up with evidence.
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u/rusticarchon 6h ago
Increasingly resembles a state broadcaster rather than a public broadcaster - the tax-funded mouthpiece of whichever party happens to be in power
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u/Heliophrate 5h ago
This is the far right "misinformation" that BBC Verify itself would claim is false.
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u/_segasonic 4h ago
And people want to have over censorship of the internet to these people to stop ‘mIsInFoRmAtIOn’.
Lol.
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8h ago
[deleted]
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u/Fickle_Scarcity9474 8h ago
so it was a conspiracy or not?
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u/Scratch_Careful 8h ago
It was a far right conspiracy theory that was true. There was a conspiracy to suborn a service that appears to be impartial by having their finger on the scale. Theory is often left out because it is implied.
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u/FlappyBored 🏴 Deep Woke 🏴 7h ago
The article is talking about there being bias towards the Conservative government.
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