BBC accused of bias ahead of Brian May documentary on TB

The BBC is under pressure to pull a documentary by pro-badger activist Sir Brian May in which he blames cattle for the spread of bovine TB (bovine TB).

The Countryside Alliance says the decision to commission the documentary, Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers, and Me, which is due to be aired on Friday evening (23 August), is “fundamentally incompatible’’ with the BBC’s impartiality rules.

See also: Brian May responds to Clarkson criticism on badger cull

Chief executive Tim Bonner has accused the BBC of allowing a campaigner with “clearly partisan views” to front a current affairs programme.

In a letter to director general, Tim Davie, Mr Bonner questions how the BBC could justify its decision to commission a current affairs programme on “so sensitive an issue, presented by someone with clearly partisan views”.

“Were Sir Brian merely being interviewed as part of a broader consideration of badger culling in the context of bovine TB, with due weight given to authentic rural voices presenting alternative viewpoints, there would be no grounds for complaint,” Mr Bonner wrote.

“Rather, he appears to have been commissioned for this programme precisely because of his partisan activism and the profile he has built for himself surrounding it.

“The decision to do so is fundamentally incompatible with the BBC’s obligation to be impartial.’”

Lack of compassion

Mr Bonner also warned that the decision demonstrated a lack of compassion, citing the “considerable toll” bovine TB has on the mental health of farmers.

“The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution has described taking calls from farming victims of bovine TB who had experienced such crippling impacts as to drive them to contemplate suicide,” Mr Bonner added.

“They deserve our compassion and our support. They are ill-served by a public broadcaster that is treating them with such disregard.”

In response, the BBC defended its impartiality, stating that although the documentary is a “first person piece authored by Sir Brian May”, it hears from numerous voices in the debate on badger culling, including farmers.

“The BBC adheres to strict editorial guidelines on impartiality on this matter,” said a spokesperson.

Slurry

In the programme, Sir Brian suggests that TB is spread among cattle largely through slurry, and can be eliminated in a dairy herd without culling badgers and through farmers practising good herd hygiene.

But North Wales farmer Gareth Wyn Jones, who appears in the documentary and whose beef herd went down with TB in December 2022, disputed that assertion.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, he said that in his opinion badgers were to blame for the infection.

Others have questioned the lack of scientific evidence in the documentary.

Posting on X, one author writes: “When Brian May says that TB in cattle is mainly transmitted in cattle slurry, ask him for the science that supports that”, pointing to a peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2022 that concluded that the prevalence of M. bovis in the faecal samples of TB‐infected cattle was extremely low.