It’s been a long time coming, but worth it. I mean the report on BBC bias, unveiled by Richard Tait, a corporation trustee and former ITN editor-in-chief. Mr Tait makes general points about a “groupthink” culture and too easy an assumption of “right” liberal values. He also writes that the public “both recognises impartiality and appreciates it . . . 84 per cent of people agreed that impartiality was difficult to achieve but broadcasters must try very hard to do so. According to 83 per cent, all views and opinions however unpopular or extreme should be reported.” He says impartiality must go beyond news, even unto comedy.

The report also refers to the moment when coverage of Bob Geldof’s Make Poverty History event filled the schedules with unquestioning adulation and endorsement of the cause (a political cause, remember, not a fundraiser). This was amplified by a Richard Curtis play and an episode of The Vicar of Dibley showing the campaign’s video. Tait writes plaintively: “In a world where pop stars are holding press conferences at G8 summits . . . the BBC cannot allow its output to be taken over by campaigning groups.”

Well, it did, that week. And the conclusion of the report, by senior BBC figures, including the head of news, the deputy D-G and the “creative director”, is that a way must be found to be fair-minded without insipidity, and to balance passionate polemic with fair-mindedness.

It’s a good start, and a welcome acceptance of criticisms that often get brushed off. Personally, I applaud the nerve and passion of Geldof and Curtis, but not the BBC’s massive loss of perspective over Live 8. Carried by the vastness and suddenness of the enterprise (and perhaps a sneaking fear that Channel 4 might nick it) senior management rolled over whenever the campaigners – backed by Gordon Brown – pushed. Valid scepticism about Live 8’s demands was ignored. Even when Geldof arrogantly told Paul Martin, the Canadian Prime Minister, he was “not welcome” at the G8 summit unless he obeyed, the BBC continued presenting the event as uncritically as a Prom. It was all very uncomfortable and clearly won’t be allowed to happen again. Applaud the BBC Trust for recognising that.

BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’

A year-long investigation found the corporation partial in its treatment of single-issue politics

• Bias at the Beeb - official

But the wider question of culture – what critics call the Guardianista mindset – remains. Myself, I think that case is often overstated: but it is true that tribes of colleagues develop a coherent world view, and that when a staff is brutally shrunk by budget cuts and recruitment freezes, this gets worse. It is like reducing a sauce to make it stronger, or driving a sect underground. It is true also that a generation of wise editors, reared in a tradition of eyewateringly strict impartiality, got “shaken out” in the miserable Birt years.

Probably the Countryside Alliance and Migration Watch do find it harder to get a hearing than Amnesty and Liberty. But the BBC is visibly trying. Things are improving.

Take multiculturalism, once a sacred cow: note that it was BBC News, not any other medium, that blew the whistle on the millions spent on excessive public translation services, and led to Ruth Kelly’s present line.

BBC News itself is the most impartial news service that we have (certainly the Beeb never let a newscaster wear a Live 8 wristband, as Channel 4 did). In current affairs and features, Guardianistas increasingly watch their backs: even the most bien-pensant wet liberal presenters know they should automatically discard prejudice when it is necessary to put the detested, hostile points in an interview. Because argument is essential; because this is the BBC. Listen fairly, and improvement is audible.

As for entertainment, by and large the “political correctness” that the BBC demands goes no further than simple courtesy. You should not be gratuitously rude to any minority. Nobody should. It is true that Ben Elton, Billy Bragg and the Dibley tendency get a shockingly easy ride, but fun is harder to regulate than fact (even if you want to). Ideally some rumbustiously right-wing entertainers would barge through and become beloved: I suggest that Boris Johnson start a training school.

What is less forgivable is the attitude to big decisions. You get a sense of men in suits desperately clawing for youthful edginess, for membership of any hip minority rather than horrid old “Middle England”. During that week of Live 8 craziness, another huge BBC presence was down at Glastonbury straining to be cool. Meanwhile, there was the Trafalgar Fleet Review – tall ships and fireworks, a unique assembly of international vessels, a powerful message about the continuing importance of the maritime sector to everything we do. It was spectacular: it drew 750,000 people to the banks of the Solent (six times as many as Glastonbury, three times as many as Live 8). Yet the BBC would not carry it on terrestrial television, even though cameras were there for News 24. People without satellite or Freeview (who are legion, and often fond of ships) were dismayed, betrayed at a national hour by the national broadcaster.

The snub was plainly a matter of policy, not resources: it would have been possible to simulcast News 24 on BBC1 for the crucial hour, replacing (for God’s sake!) an Antiques Roadshow and a tennis recording. But no: the message was: “Ugh, ships, so retro! And ugh, imperialistic! Who cares? Everyone, like, prefers Madonna and Geldof and Primal Scream.” The evidence that plenty of people think otherwise was ignored. That, to me, showed a more potent and dangerous BBC bias problem than any self-serving grumble by a politician. That is the cultural blindness that after the Tait report must be tackled.

And it won’t be easy. The BBC hasn’t yet said sorry for 2005, or admitted it screwed up. Which is why, loyal as I am to the essential and eternal concept of the BBC, I keep on mentioning it . . .

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