BBC orchestrated resignation of Labour Shadow minister


The BBC admits it co-ordinated in advance the on-air resignation of Stephen Doughty
 

BBC in blue
Yesterday, three Labour front-benchers resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s minor reshuffle. One of them – the previously unheard of Stephen Doughty – did so live on the Daily Politics just 5 minutes before the start of Prime Minister’s Questions, giving David Cameron the opportunity to bring it up in the chamber.


Today, the ‘output editor’ for the Daily Politics, wrote a – now taken down – blog on the BBC website’s ‘Academy’ section*, explaining how it all came about. You can read a cached version of the blog here.

Apparently, the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg set it all up. From the blog post:

"Just before 9am we learned from Laura Kuenssberg, who comes on the programme every Wednesday ahead of PMQs, that she was speaking to one junior shadow minister who was considering resigning. I wonder, mused our presenter Andrew Neil, if they would consider doing it live on the show?
"What's that you say? Corbyn might win? We'll see about that old boy."
The question was put to Laura, who thought it was a great idea. Considering it a long shot we carried on the usual work of building the show, and continued speaking to Labour MPs who were confirming reports of a string of shadow ministers considering their positions.
Within the hour we heard that Laura had sealed the deal: the shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty would resign live in the studio.
Although he himself would probably acknowledge he isn’t a household name, we knew his resignation just before PMQs would be a dramatic moment with big political impact. We took the presenters aside to brief them on the interview while our colleagues on the news desk arranged for a camera crew to film him and Laura arriving in the studio for the TV news packages."
Thanks to alittleecon

The impartial Kuenssberg, in blue.
There is now an increasingly popular petition to sack the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg:

"On The Daily Politics it appears the producer Andrew Alexander and Laura Kuenssberg conspired to arrange the resignation live on air of Stephen Doughty MP. This appears to have been done for max damage to the Labour leader and to create news, rather than report it. If these individuals did indeed conspire in this manner then they along with Andrew Neil should resign or be sacked. In signing this petition you are asking the BBC to consider their positions. "

Sign it here.

More from the Daily Mail no less:

BBC under fire for orchestrating resignation of shadow minister live on air after now deleted editor's blog revealed how it was stage-managed

Progress

Three previously unknown Labour MPs (below) have quit the shadow cabinet and two have been shuffled out.  What do they have in common?  Is it plain speaking?  Courageousness?  No - they are all members of the secretive and Blairite 'Progress' organisation within Labour.

The so called 'Progress' organisation was first set up as a company limited by guarantee in 1994 and the first director was Derek Draper, then a researcher for Peter Mandelson. It publishes no details of any membership and is controlled by the directors of the company. It has never released its register of guarantor members, nor its memorandum and articles of association, nor details of its corporate structure.

It is not easy to find out if an MP is a member of Progress.  You have to wade through their pompous voluble website and read between the lines.  We've tried our best, click these links and judge for yourself:

Stephen Doughty MP (resigned)
Jonathan Reynolds MP (resigned)
Kevan Jones MP (resigned)
Pat McFadden MP (shuffled out)
Michael Dugher MP (shuffled out)

'Progress' has strong support within the Parliamentary Labour Party; amongst Labour members it has virtually none - the 'Progress' candidate in  last years leadership got a tiny 4.5 percent of the votes.

Other prominent members of Progress you might see frequently on the media and BBC are
Simon Danczuk MP

Jess Phillips MP

Stephen Kinnock MP