Alasdair Milne
Alasdair David Gordon Milne (born 1930) was
Director-General of the BBC from July
1982 until a resignation under intense pressure from the Board of BBC Governors in January
1987.
Milne's background was in current affairs and he was a founder producer of the BBCs
Tonight programme in
1957, becoming its editor in
1961. Milne was later Controller of BBC Scotland and Managing Director, Television.
He became Director General at a difficult time for the BBC, following the
Falklands War when the government had criticised
Newsnight presenter
Peter Snow for using the phrase "if you believe the British" and news broadcasts referring to the opposing forces impartially as "the British forces" and "the Argentine forces" rather than "us" and "the enemy".
Shortly after he took office, another
public service broadcaster,
Channel 4, was launched.
During his era a number of BBC programmes caused outrage among Conservatives, not least the
Panorama documentary "Maggie's Militant Tendency", broadcast in January 1984, which suggested that a number of Conservative MPs had had connections with far-right groups (drawing analogies in its title with
Militant Tendency, a far-left group within the
Labour Party which was causing great worries for
Neil Kinnock at the time). The BBC's reporting was found to be untrue in a court case brought against the Corporation by
Neil Hamilton, one of the MPs named in the documentary, and the total
damages amounted to £1 million.
In August
1985 the BBC, under government pressure, banned a
Real Lives documentary "At the Edge of the Union", profiling and interviewing the
Sinn Féin politician (and alleged senior
IRA figure)
Martin McGuinness and
Gregory Campbell, a member of the
Democratic Unionist Party. The
National Union of Journalists called a one-day strike in support of the principle of BBC independence from government control and an amended version was shown later that year.
Later that month, the left-leaning
Observer newspaper revealed the full extent of
MI5 vetting of BBC employees, the so-called Christmas Tree list, which earlier that year Milne had been denying (something he later regretted). It was subsequently agreed that MI5 influence should be reduced. A
Panorama programme in 1986 about the
US bombing of
Libya caused a storm of accusations from the Right, most vociferously from Conservative Party Chairman
Norman Tebbit, that the BBC had become inherently
anti-American.
The Thatcher government had been deliberately appointing Conservatives to the BBC's Board of Governors in an attempt to balance against Milne's left-leaning views, but
Stuart Young (brother of a Conservative Cabinet minister), appointed chairman in 1983, had "gone native" and become a defender of the BBC's independence. After his sudden death in 1986 from cancer aged 52, the government appointed
Marmaduke Hussey, a former chairman of
Times Newspapers before the company's sale to
Rupert Murdoch in 1981, as chairman. In September 1986, as Hussey took over, there was outrage in the right wing sections of the press after BBC1 controller
Michael Grade passed a press release claiming that
Alan Bleasdale's series
The Monocled Mutineer was historically accurate — in reality it was an account of the
First World War seen from a distinctly left-leaning perspective.
Simultaneously, the first series of
Casualty was viewed by many Conservatives as Left-Wing
propaganda in favour of the
National Health Service, and even the recovery in BBC1's ratings after a low point in 1983-84 did not please the government; the Conservative position argued that the BBC's pursuit of mainstream, populist broadcasting encroached on the territory of ITV. Besides, the BBC's top-rating series,
EastEnders, was also viewed by many Conservatives as immoral, especially when it introduced the first
gay character in a British
soap.
Pressure on the BBC increased still further after
Michael Lush was killed while attempting a stunt for
Noel Edmonds'
Late Late Breakfast Show, which revealed inadequate safety procedures, and in late 1986
Dennis Potter's series
The Singing Detective caused moral outrage on the Right.
Milne's downfall began in early 1987 after police had raided the headquarters of BBC Scotland in Glasgow, removing research material for a programme in the
Secret Society series, presented by the Left-wing journalist
Duncan Campbell, concerning the secret
Zircon reconnaissance satellite. This was condemned strongly by
Douglas Hurd, who was emerging as one of the less Thatcherite and more pro-BBC members of the government, but Milne resigned, although some claim he was effectively sacked.
Most of the
Secret Society series was eventually transmitted, although an episode concerning Cabinet secrecy in government was banned, and when Channel 4 wanted to show it in 1991 as part of their "Banned" season they were turned down, and had to reconstruct the programme themselves.
Alasdair Milne was replaced as Director-General by
Michael Checkland, who along with his deputy (and eventual successor)
John Birt, set about making the BBC less controversial and Birt introduced market-driven reforms of the Corporation's internal structure during the 1990s.
Such is Milne's antipathy to the contemporary BBC that he now regards himself as its last Director General, and regrets the marginalisation of programme makers at the organisations more senior levels. Controversially, in October 2004, he argued that the BBCs alleged "dumbing down" is the responsibility of the corporations growing number of women executives[
1].
His son and daughter are the journalists
Kirsty and
Seumas Milne.
*
British Broadcasting Corporation*
Board of Governors of the BBC*
Politics of the United Kingdom
