Bev Turner has hit out at the ‘woke’ Left after BBC director-general Tim Davie after he boasted about the broadcaster’s ‘progressive and diverse’ outlook.
A leaked recording puts a comment on record by Davie made about BBC staff, saying “being progressive” is something they should “be proud of”.
GB News host Bev Turner commented on ‘woke’ culture as a whole following the comments that have garnered criticism.
“The closest I think I’ve got to understanding the difference of what used to be political correctness is language evolving to reflect our reality”, she said.
Bev Turner has responded to comments made by the BBC director-general
GETTY / GB NEWS
“A lot of it is about language, moving with the times.
“Where I think this tips into woke is, ‘you have to speak this way or you are a bad person’.
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“It becomes more authoritarian and it provides an environment which is the opposite of what we want which is a place where people speak freely.”
Davie said in the recording: “We do a reasonably good job of walking along the joyous tightrope of the culture wars where, being progressive, diverse, doing the things we should be proud of, is not woke.
“But meanwhile, we’ve got to make sure that we are clearly representing views from across the board.”
A BBC spokesman told The Telegraph that Davie meant progressive “in relation to areas like market-led technological change” and that “any other interpretation is wrong”.
BBC director-general Tim DaviePAThe corporation has suffered accusations of bias in recent years with Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer introducing measures which promote tougher scrutiny.
Its refusal to call Hamas terrorists when the group attacked Israel on October 7 drew widespread criticism.
Frazer told GB News last month: "I think it's really important that those who work for the BBC, and this is what the guidelines say, respect that impartiality and that they don't undermine the reputation of the BBC.
"Obviously, it's for the BBC and not for me to determine whether those guidelines have been crossed by any particular presenter and it's something that I know audiences and I are monitoring very carefully."
She added: "What I'm interested in is what audiences say and what we know from statistics from Ofcom is that audiences are feeling like the BBC is not performing that role in relation to impartiality and they are getting less impartial.
"Last year 39 per cent of complaints about the BBC were about impartiality, when the year before they were 19%. So, trust in the impartiality of the BBC, unfortunately, is going down.
"It's a really, really valuable institution, we should hold the BBC in high regard, but it's got more to do…"