A minister was confronted by a BBC journalist today after Boris Johnson allegedly criticised the broadcaster for its Ukraine coverage.
Last night the prime minister accused the BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury of being more critical of the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda than Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to The Telegraph.
He apparently told Tory backbenchers that the government’s controversial Rwanda deal had been “misconstrued” by the BBC and senior members of the clergy.
However, BBC presenter Justin Webb used the opportunity of an interview with government minister Paul Scully to hit back against the allegations.
The co-host of BBC Radio 4′s Today programme asked Scully what the prime minister had meant by his attacks on the BBC and the church.
The business minister replied saying that the PM was concerned by the approach taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Webb pressed the minister: “He makes the point, or apparently made the point, to Conservative MPs that the BBC and the Archbishop were not focusing enough on Vladimir Putin.
“Can you come up with an occasion when Boris Johnson has put his life on the line for the truth as Jeremy Bowen has, as Lyse Doucet has, as Clive Myrie have?”
Scully said: “It’s not something that I can particularly comment on in terms of...his view on the BBC’s approach to Putin.”
Webb hit back: “It’s a smoke screen, isn’t it? He’s changing the subject and going on the attack and attacking people he really ought not to be attacking. Isn’t that the truth?”
Scully replied: “Well, look, I don’t remember the comment particularly so I’m just trying to explain the context that I believe he may have been trying to make.”
Scully said there had been some “excellent coverage” from the BBC on the ground in Ukraine and that he was not attacking the BBC.
Johnson’s comments were made during a private address to Tory MPs after he was forced to repeatedly apologise over the fine he received from police over the partygate scandal.
The Church of England’s head of news John Bingham also hit back today, saying if reports of Johnson’s comments were true it was a “disgraceful slur”.
Justin Welby has publicly condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as an “act of great evil”.
However, his comments about the government’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda appear to have sparked the PM’s fury.
The Archbishop raised “serious ethical questions” about the Rwanda policy in his Easter Sunday address and said it cannot “stand the judgment of God”.