Bakewell says BBC in ‘moral crisis’

Dame Joan Bakewell, the veteran broadcaster and recently appointed government spokesman for the elderly, has stepped back into the debate over 'Manuelgate', which, as reported here, may yet lead to Jonathan Ross's departure from the BBC.

Bakewell (pictured), a former newscaster, believes that the corporation has lost the bearings from its moral compass. In a lecture delivered at Stirling University on Wednesday night, she said: "The recent Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand scandal demonstrates that a moral crisis haunts the BBC. An insidious falling away of moral integrity has crept into broadcasting - to such an extent that its leaders seem unsure how to react and what criteria of behaviour and judgment to invoke.

"You know the sort of thing: comedy must be edgy, contemporary; ageing actors must not be insulted; and recorded phone calls must have their contributors' consent. 'It's your BBC,' they say, and then are surprised when 37,000 viewers say what they think. What a moral muddle."

When news of Ross and Brand's calls to Andrew Sachs first broke, Bakewell, 75, called the pair "vile" and said what they did "amounted to harassment". Commenting on their revelation that Brand had slept with the actor's grandaughter Georgina Bailey, she said: "We don't want people telling grandparents what their grandchildren's sex lives are about. Older people want them to have lively and vivid sex lives but don't want to be told the detail."