BBC Leadership
Debate between Julian Lewis and Lisa Nandy(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Lisa Nandy
I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are looking both at the charter process and at how we can help to support and defend local news through the BBC’s work. She will also know that this Government are developing a local news strategy to help our local newspapers to survive and thrive in an era in which they face significant pressure. She is absolutely right to say that local news is not just about reflecting the whole nation, although it does play that essential role; it is also often the training ground for some of our most talented journalists, who would otherwise not get those opportunities, so we are determined to strengthen and protect it.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I would fight in the last ditch to prevent the BBC from ceasing to be a public service broadcaster and from being broken up. Any large organisation can have bad actors who behave unethically, and that has happened on this occasion, but it does the BBC no service when people parrot the line that the person responsible for this crisis is not the idiot who tampered with Donald Trump’s quote but a former Tory spin doctor, one of 13 members of the board, who allegedly influenced other members of the board to somehow provoke the present crisis. The crisis has nothing to do with Robbie Gibb; it has something to do with a mindset that, on the front page of today’s Guardian, has the whole thing about Robbie Gibb and relegates the fact that a $1 billion lawsuit may be taken out by Donald Trump against the BBC to a tiny paragraph at the end of the article on page 2. If you wants to know what is wrong with some bits of the BBC, read The Guardian today.
Lisa Nandy
I am not entirely sure how to respond to that, but the right hon. Member’s views are now on the record.
Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
Debate between Julian Lewis and Lisa Nandy(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Lisa Nandy
On the right hon. Member’s last statement —that everybody must be safe to walk the streets of this country—I agree with him. Perhaps he might make that point to the people he now associates with on his left and right, because that is not what we have heard from them in the last few weeks.
Can I just clear this up? I have heard a lot of hot takes on social media about the evidence on which the police relied to come to their decision. It is right to say that the police, as we would expect, took into account in particular the game in Amsterdam at which Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were present and where a small element caused the most appalling disorder, but they also took into account the real risks presented to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans on the basis that Maccabi Tel Aviv are an Israeli team and many of the fans who would attend are Jewish. I hope that the right hon. Member will be as exercised about that as he is about the behaviour of those fans.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Hopefully we can rely on the police to arrest any hooligans who break the law, whichever team they are supporting. Will the Government take into account the fact that—knowing the way in which terrorist minds work—as there will be such a concentration of police resources on this particular location, Jewish establishments in that part of the country need to be extra careful on that day, such that advantage is not sought to be taken by people who mean them harm?