The BBC has removed an episode of one of its key political programmes following concerns about comments made by Chris Packham.
The Springwatch presenter was appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg when he made a comment about journalist and writer Toby Young.
In the discussion about carbon emissions during last Sunday’s episode, Packham referred to Young’s Daily Sceptic website as the “Daily Septic”.
He went on to claim that the blog “is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.”
Toby Young’s website was criticised by Chris Packham on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
PA/WikiCommons
Young complained to the corporation when the comments went unchallenged by Kuenssberg, who later tweeted the clip from her X account.
He said: “Neither I nor any of the other people who put it together have any affiliations to the fossil fuel industry, close or otherwise” calling the allegation “serious and damaging.”
Packham had been discussing climate change and arguing that recent floods in Dubai, plus high temperatures in the global south and wildfires, were a result of carbon emissions.
The BBC has now removed the programme from iPlayer as well as the post on X, formerly Twitter.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Toby Young of the Free Speech Union
GB News
A spokesperson from the BBC said: “We received complaints from people unhappy Laura didn’t challenge a comment made by panel member Chris Packham regarding the Daily Sceptic.
“During a discussion with the panel about various issues including climate change, broadcaster and conservationist Chris Packham claimed that the Daily Sceptic, whose editor in chief is Toby Young, is ‘basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.’
“We acknowledge we would ideally have asked him to present his evidence on this, but in a fast-moving live programme it’s not always possible to pick up on every point made by our guests.
“We’ve removed any posts on X with this part of the discussion.”
On The Daily Sceptic, Young wrote: “Thank you to all those people who complained to the BBC about this outrageous slur.
“Let’s hope next time the ubiquitous Chris Packham falsely claims that a climate contrarian is funded by Big Oil, he’s challenged by a BBC presenter.”
