Imagine the Reaction of the Liberal Left if Huw Edwards Was a GB News Presenter

Call me a cynic, but I doubt Jolyon Maugham, Alistair Campbell, Jon Sopel, John Simpson and Dan Walker would have rallied to the defence of Huw Edwards if he was a GB News presenter. It’s only because they regard him as one of their own that these panjandrums have urged the press to back off, with Sopel stressing there is “no illegality” and any further reporting of this story is therefore an unwarranted intrusion into “someone’s private life”.

This isn’t a considered reaction, but a tribal one. Given that the allegations originally surfaced in the Sun and the reputation of the BBC is at stake, these metropolitan liberals are prepared to extend the benefit of the doubt to Edwards. Again and again, his defenders emphasise that these are only “allegations” and the police have decided not to take any further action, overlooking the fact that numerous other public figures have been thrown under a bus in similar circumstances, e.g. Michael Fallon, who was forced to resign as Defence Secretary after far milder allegations were made against him in 2017. But, of course, it’s one rule for Conservative MPs and another for the BBC’s highest-paid broadcasters.

It probably helps that the charges against Huw Edwards involve four young men (two of whom, it is alleged, were only 17 when the presenter first made contact). If they involved young women, it’s hard to imagine so many bien pensant members of the media class leaping to his defence. They certainly wouldn’t have if he’d been accused of breaching a woke speech code, as Danny Baker was in 2019. When Archie was born to Harry and Meghan, the then BBC presenter tweeted a picture of a couple emerging from a hospital with a chimpanzee, which led to accusations of racism. He claimed it was an innocent mistake – and I believe him – but when he was summarily dismissed there was barely a squeak of protest from any of his BBC colleagues.

Incredibly, the anger you’d expect the BBC’s defenders to feel towards Edwards – after all, it is the charge that he paid a young man £35,000 in return for sexually explicit images that has brought the BBC into disrepute – has been directed at the Sun instead. How dare the tabloid print this allegation?

“A number of people have been in touch with the presenter to say they feel righteous fury over the way the Sun has covered this and it is fair to say that the presenter at the heart of this is also extremely angry over a lot of the Sun coverage and is convinced they’re trying to dig and find new dirt to harm this particular person’s reputation,” Jon Sopel said on The News Agents on LBC.

Hacked Off, the campaign group lobbying for state regulation of the press, published a piece saying the Sun had “questions to answer”, arguing it had got the balance wrong between an individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know.

“Shame on The Scum for its homophobic lies – and shame on all the Murdoch titles, including the Times, for poisoning our country,” tweeted Jolyon Maugham. “Solidarity with @thehuwedwards.”

“I hope the media will look at themselves in the coverage of this story,” said Alistair Campbell on Channel 4 News last night, who stressed that in light of the fact that the police had dropped its investigation it was just a story about “someone’s personal life”. (Same argument Jon Sopel made.)

But, surely, the public interest defence here is the same as it is when the New York Times exposes a MeToo scandal, as it did recently in the case of Nick Cohen, the Observer columnist (and lockdown zealot) – namely, that an abuse of power is involved. To add to the Sun’s defence, the allegation it reported was that the boy Huw Edwards had paid for sexually explicit photographs was only 17 when this first happened, which is a criminal offence. Turns out, that wasn’t true – at least, judging from the police’s decision not to pursue the matter – but those were the facts as relayed to the Sun by a member of the boy’s family (according to the Sun).

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the story would never have ended up in the taboid had the BBC done what the mother wanted when she first contacted the broadcaster back in May. She told the BBC she was making the complaint because she wanted Edwards to stop sending her son money who was using it to fund a drug habit. In response, the BBC passed on the complaint to the Corporate Investigations Team, but it didn’t even question Edwards, let alone place him under investigation, until July 7th, when the Sun got in touch asking for a comment on the story it was about to run. (This is according to a timeline of how the scandal unfolded in the Mail.). In other words, the boy’s family only contacted the Sun because the BBC’s response to their original complaint was inadequate. And, incidentally, the Sun didn’t pay anything for the story.

I suppose it’s possible that the BBC’s internal investigation into Huw Edwards, which has resumed now that the police investigation is over, will conclude that he hasn’t done anything wrong. Perhaps the four young men who’ve made allegations against Edwards will all turn out to be fantasists and his BBC colleagues who’ve accused him of sending “inappropriate and flirtatious” messages will just be over-sensitive snowflakes. Perhaps the fact that his wife, who named him yesterday and revealed he is now a patient on a psychiatric ward, did not actually deny any of the allegations was of no significance. It may all turn out to be a giant miscarriage of justice, with the Sun having triggered a witch-hunt against an entirely innocent man. But I doubt that’s how this story will end.

What’s really at stake here is the future of the BBC and its current funding model. What will it say about the judgement of the BBC’s senior executives if the presenter who announced the death of the Queen and reads the News at 10 is a wrong-un? How damaging will it be to the public’s trust in the Beeb and, by extension, its willingness to shell out £159 a year to fund it, if an independent investigation into the BBC’s handling of the original complaint – which will surely happen – concludes it left a great deal to be desired? That’s why the BBC’s defenders are circling the wagons and trying to shoot the messenger. It’s a desperate attempt to defend their beloved Auntie because they know just how damaging this is likely to be.

I can’t help feeling a bit of humility and a period of reflection might serve their cause better. But that’s not how they roll.

Stop Press: Watch me talking to Mark Dolan about this on GB News last night.