Complaint
This edition featured an interview with George Osborne, the Chairman of Trustees of the British Museum and former Chancellor of the Exchequer. A listener complained that he was not questioned about the strike by members of the PCS union at the Museum. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s standards of impartiality.
Outcome
Mr Osborne was questioned on a wide variety of subjects; a new museum in Manchester supported by the BM, a plan to loan the Parthenon sculptures to a museum in Athens, the prospective rise in the rate of corporation tax and the attractiveness of Britain to business investors with reference to the North of England, and the appointment of the Chairman of the BBC. These spanned both Mr Osborne’s current interests and his experience as a senior former politician. Direct responsibility for staff relations at the museum lies with the Director not the Chairman of the Trustees, and in the ECU’s view, the topics chosen for discussion were sufficiently germane to the guest’s background for the obligations of due impartiality to have been met.
Not Upheld