On August 20, 2025, the 50th Edinburgh TV Festival was electrified by a powerful call to action from James Harding, the former director of BBC News and current editor-in-chief of The Observer. Harding, a veteran journalist with deep roots in both the BBC and the broader British media landscape, stepped onto the MacTaggart Lecture stage with a clear message: the BBC’s independence is under threat, and the time to act is now.
Harding’s speech landed at a moment of intense scrutiny for the BBC. With the 2027 charter renewal looming, questions about the broadcaster’s political independence, funding, and editorial integrity have been swirling in both the press and Parliament. According to Deadline, Harding urged the BBC to become more independent from government, proposing a bold blueprint to “depoliticize the BBC” and reposition it as the “People’s Platform.”
“Political interference – and the perception of a political presence looming over the BBC – is a problem, one that we’ve got too accustomed to,” Harding declared, as reported by Radio Times. “And it looks likely to get worse. We need to get on with putting the country’s most important editorial and creative organisation beyond the reach of politicians now.”
The heart of Harding’s argument centered on the way the BBC’s leadership is selected and its budget is set. He called for a fundamental change: “The BBC chair and board of directors should be chosen, not by the Prime Minister, but by the board itself and then, like other such organisations, with the approval of Ofcom,” he said. Harding believes that this shift would not only attract more and better candidates for these pivotal roles but would also help restore public trust in the broadcaster’s editorial independence.
The urgency of Harding’s plea was underscored by recent controversies that have put the BBC in the political crosshairs. One flashpoint was the decision to stream punk band Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury Festival performance on BBC iPlayer, which included chants that some viewers considered hate speech. This incident prompted Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to demand accountability from the BBC board, with The Guardian reporting that she questioned why no one had “been fired” over the matter.
Harding recounted the atmosphere inside the BBC following the controversy: “The Culture Secretary’s office insists she did not explicitly ask Samir Shah, the BBC chair, to deliver up the [director-general]'s resignation... but people inside the BBC were left in no doubt that was the message. The place became paranoid about how the BBC itself would cover the story; people around him thought the political pressure would be too much. Whatever your view of the hate speech vs freedom of speech issues, an overbearing government minister doesn’t help anyone.”
This episode, he argued, is symptomatic of a broader malaise. The Prime Minister currently appoints the BBC chair, and the Chancellor ultimately controls the corporation’s purse strings—arrangements that, in Harding’s view, leave the BBC vulnerable to political influence. “The most important newsroom in the country operates in the knowledge that the editorial budget is, ultimately, set in Downing Street,” he warned. “That holds a risk of influencing its output, particularly at the current moment, with its ‘survival at stake’ amid an imminent charter review.”
Harding’s call for reform extended beyond governance. He advocated for greater openness within the BBC’s editorial processes, suggesting that current affairs programs like Newsnight should, at times, be produced by independent companies—an approach already used for some editions of Panorama. “If the lesson of recent years is that [the BBC] needs to head off accusations of narrowness in its agenda and its approach which are corrosive of public trust, then no BBC division needs openness more than news which, paradoxically, has the least of it,” Harding argued, as reported by Deadline.
Financial pressures are compounding the BBC’s challenges. According to The Guardian, 2.5 million households have cancelled their license fee payments over the past five years, and political parties like Reform UK have called for the license fee to be scrapped altogether, branding the BBC as “institutionally biased.” Harding warned against further budget freezes, insisting that “BBC independence means giving it the resources it needs. Not freezing its funding yet again, but doubling down.” He stressed that as the world enters a new information age, “if we want [the BBC] to be truly creative, innovative and competitive globally, we can’t short-change the BBC again.”
Harding was also keen to address allegations of institutional antisemitism within the BBC, which have surfaced in the wake of its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict and specific documentaries such as Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone. “The BBC is not institutionally antisemitic. It’s untrue to say it is,” Harding stated categorically. “It’s also unhelpful – much better to correct the mistakes and address the judgment calls that have been wrong, than smear the institution, impugn the character of all the people who work there and, potentially, undermine journalists in the field working in the most difficult and dangerous of conditions.”
He acknowledged that the BBC, like all major newsrooms, faces fierce internal debates over how to cover such polarizing and sensitive issues. “Newsrooms are in a furious argument with ourselves over the coverage of Israel and Gaza,” Harding said, describing the situation as “very hard to view dispassionately” and “about as difficult as it gets in news.” He praised the courage and professionalism of BBC journalists working under extreme conditions, reinforcing his pride in the organization: “I am Jewish, proudly so. I’m proud, too, to have worked for the most important news organisation in the world.”
In response to Harding’s claims of political pressure, a government spokesperson told Sky News that “the Culture Secretary has been repeatedly clear that the role of the director-general is a matter for the BBC board. Any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.” The spokesperson added that it was “entirely right that the Culture Secretary raised these issues with the BBC leadership on behalf of licence fee payers.”
Harding’s lecture did not just dwell on the BBC’s problems; it offered a way forward. He called for the BBC to embrace its role as the “People’s Platform,” a public service broadcaster committed to “standards of truth and accuracy, diversity of opinion and fair treatment of people in the news.” He urged swift action, warning, “If we wait to see what the future has in store for us, I fear that the recent past can give us the answer already. Bystanding is surrender. We can choose the society we live in; or we can choose not to choose. To be the enemies of nonsense, we must act now.”
Harding’s message was clear: the BBC’s future—and perhaps the very nature of public service broadcasting in the UK—hangs in the balance. The coming years will test whether the broadcaster can truly free itself from political influence and remain a trusted, independent voice in a chaotic media landscape.
