Boris Johnson aide Dominic Cummings pursuing ‘vendetta’ to undermine BBC, say peers

Boris Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings has been accused in the House of Lords of pursuing a “vendetta” to undermine the BBC.

The broadcaster Joan Bakewell read out a series of comments made by Mr Cummings before he entered government in which he called the BBC a “mortal enemy” of the Conservatives, and said the right should aim to end the corporation in its current form and establish a partisan TV news channel along the lines of Fox News in the US.

Citing the government’s boycott of Radio 4’s Today programme since December’s election, Baroness Bakewell, a Labour peer, demanded to know “whether or not the ongoing agenda Dominic Cummings has set out for undermining the BBC is now government policy”.

And she was backed by film producer David Puttnam, who accused Mr Cummings and the government of embarking on a campaign of “intimidation and destabilisation” towards the BBC.


Broadcaster and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg told peers that Mr Johnson’s administration was set on a “childish” policy of sending a “wrecking ball” through the national broadcaster.


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