Carol Vorderman has been dismissed from her morning show with BBC Radio Wales, amid a fallout over her politically focused tweets.
On Tuesday evening, Vorderman posted a tweet criticising the Government’s action during the Covid pandemic, reading: “The 2 most senior civil servants called Johnson's number 10 ‘mad’ and ‘poisonous’ #COVID Inquiry”
She also quoted Simon Case saying the Government were not ‘well-equipped to run a country’, and wrote, “While people died, NHS was on its knees and money was funnelled to the VIP lane.”
According to BBC Wales, Vorderman’s comments breached new social media guidelines for presenters, which were reviewed after presenter Gary Lineker criticised the Government’s immigration policy.
Roger Bolton joined Martin Daubney on GB News to discuss Vorderman's departure from the BBC
GB News
Former Radio 4 presenter Roger Bolton joined Martin Daubney on GB News to discuss Vorderman’s exit and he blasted the presenter.
Martin began: “I guess you could say, hurrah to the BBC. They brought in social media guidelines. Carol Vorderman contravened them and she's met with her fate!”
Bolton replied, “Well, I think it's rather sad, but it's inevitable.
“The guidelines are quite tricky to understand, so they will be defined by individual cases. And I think this is one where the BBC put to Carol a contract which incorporated the new guidelines and she wouldn't accept them because she thinks that's limiting her right to free speech.
“I think the specific part of the guidelines that probably caused the problem, is that bit which talks about all BBC staff and freelancers, are required to respect civility in public discourse and not to bring the BBC into disrepute. And as you know, she expressed herself quite vividly.
BBC have been rocked with Carol Vorderman choosing to quit the broadcasterGETTY“She's called the government a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks. Well, I think that sort of thing probably does bring the BBC into distribute.”
Martin responded, “It certainly does, and the rules are quite clear that they're on the BBC website for all to read. Individuals working in news and current affairs and factual journalism, along with all leaders, have a particular responsibility to uphold the BBC's impartiality through their actions on social media. She clearly didn't, so she had to go.”
Vorderman posted a statement about her dismissal onto X, formerly Twitter, reading: “After five years, I’m leaving my Saturday morning show on BBC Radio Wales.
“Despite my show being lighthearted with no political content, it was explained to me that as it is a weekly show in my name, the new guidelines would apply to all and any content that I post all year round.
The BBC's social media guidelines were reviewed after presenter Gary Lineker criticised the Conservative Party
PA“Since those non-negotiable changes to my radio contract were made, I’ve ultimately found that I’m not prepared to lose my voice on social media, change who I am, or lose the ability to express the strong beliefs I hold about the political turmoil this country finds itself in.”
Bolton continued, “I think Carol, you know, she's a very good presenter, but I do think that language went too far. And I do think what it represents is a real danger in our democracy where we assume that everybody we disagree with is in some way crooked, bent, whatever.
“You know, I don't feel that about Rishi Sunak, or about the leader of the Labour Party. I mean, they're faced with considerably massive problems.
“And you know, if we use this sort of language about them, we're not encouraging them to be open with us. We're encouraging them to fear us and fear what we're going to say because the first thing we'll do is accuse them of being crooks.”
