The BBC should be imposing its own rules

LAST month broadcaster Chris Packham hosted one of the BBC's flagship wildlife programmes, Winterwatch, attracting well over two million viewers and boosting his already extremely high profile as one of the best known faces working for the corporation.

- PHILIP BOWERN

This month, with his stepdaughter and broadcaster Megan McCubbin, he was making a very different show on several social media platforms, following the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt in Dorset, alleging its members were engaged in illegal fox hunting, disguised as trail hunting.

Depending on your point of view, Mr Packham and Ms McCubbin were either exposing rural lawbreaking or harassing a group of riders and followers participating in a legal activity that was introduced by a Labour government to replace traditional hunting following the ban starting in 2005.

What Mr Packham and Ms McCubbin were not doing, however, was following the guidelines set down by the soon-to-leave director general of the BBC Tim Davie. He has clearly explained the corporation's rules for outspoken campaigners. “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice,’ Mr Davie said. “But you should not be working for the BBC.

The defence that has been used in the past to justify retaining the TV “talent” who take a political view on an issue while simultaneously presenting high profile BBC programmes, is that they are not staff but freelance. But do viewers really make that distinction? To the majority Chris Packham - and other regular BBC presenters who also campaign on high profile political issues - are working for the Beeb.