Carol Vorderman has criticised what she deemed to be “controversial decisions by BBC management” following the Huw Edwards scandal. The outspoken former Countdown star, who claimed she was “sacked” with “no conversation to be had” by the broadcaster in November last year, received a standing ovation after delivering the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival on Friday (23 August). Vorderman, 63, said she was standing “in anger and without apology” as she said “trust in the BBC is declining” because of the way “people feel after so many controversial decisions by BBC management”.
She referenced former news presenter Edwards, who pleaded guilty to making child sex abuse images following his resignation from the BBC in April. The corporation admitted it was aware police had arrested him five months before his resignation, during his suspension over an unrelated matter. Vorderman further cited Match of the Day host Gary Lineker’s tweets about the previous government’s immigration policy, which led to him being briefly removed from the programme.
She also referenced the departure of BBC chairman Richard Sharp over questions surrounding his role in then-prime minister Boris Johnson receiving an £800,000 loan guarantee. Sharp, a Conservative Party donor and former Goldman Sachs banker, insisted at the time that his breach of the BBC’s strict rules on public appointments had been “inadvertent and not material”, as an inquiry found that he had failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest during his application to become BBC chair. “Politics, arrogance, snobbery, leads to disillusionment.
They are all inextricably linked,” Vorderman said in her speech. “The rich and powerful corrupting politics, the upper-middles taking broadcast for themselves, the increasingly absurd right-wing newspaper headlines being promoted by political programmes. What has this got to do with class? Everything, literally everything.
“After 14 years of austerity and lying by the privileged political class, this country is in an absolute mess and the TV industry must accept part of the responsibility for that too, including the riots.” The maths expert, who grew up in poverty in Wales, said that “working-class people feel they are not represented, their situation is not represented, the lack of opportunities and lack of money and jobs is not represented”. “Our industry is an industry of snobbery: regional snobbery, class snobbery and educational snobbery, and don’t even get me started on the political issues,” she added, suggesting that working-class people are increasingly turning away from linear television and towards social media.
“Social media – no longer the new kid, more like the badly behaved uncle – has changed our society and its rules, and it is decimating our industry as we know it, and with good reason,” she said. “What it gives everyone – in towns and cities outside the wealthy south east – the opportunity to do, is to see and hear views they recognise, in language they recognise. “No longer is there the need to go through the filter of a producer, or a commissioning editor, or someone who has never been to my town or my city or my region, who has no idea how people like me live and the worries we have.
” Vorderman cited research from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which in 2023 found that less than 10 per cent of people from the TV, video, radio and photography sectors were from working class backgrounds. “I hope the whole of this year’s TV festival has really made you consider your own perceptions and that you ask yourself questions about class and opportunity, and the responsibility you hold in the future of this country,” she said. Her speech comes ahead of the publication of her new book Out of Order: What’s Gone Wrong with Britain and One Woman’s Mission to Fix It, in September.
The Independent has contacted the BBC for comment. Additional reporting by Press Association.
