Alan MC

I've just submitted the following complaint to the BBC, @BBCPolitics and @bbclaurak. On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 21st April 2024, Chris Packham, a BBC personality (ex-presenter of Springwatch, presenter of forthcoming Inside Our Minds), said the following when challenged by Luke Johnson about what evidence he had that extreme weather events are caused by carbon emissions: “It doesn’t come from Toby Young’s Daily Septic [sic], which is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry. It comes from something called science.” This is both false and defamatory. I am the editor-in-chief of the Daily Sceptic, a news publishing site, and neither I nor any of the other people who put it together have any affiliations to the fossil fuel industry, close or otherwise. I have never been paid money by any fossil fuel companies, nor has the editor, Dr Will Jones, and we’ve never run an ad on the site from any fossil fuel companies. Chris Packham was not challenged by anyone on the programme about this false allegation, even though it's extremely serious and damaging, effectively claiming the people who put together the Daily Sceptic are corrupt, i.e., paid to publish climate contrarian articles by the fossil fuel industry. On the contrary, a clip of Chris Packham making this false and defamatory allegation was posted by BBC Politics on X and then retweeted by Laura Kuenssberg and as of the time of writing (11.15am on 25th April 2024) had been viewed over 850,000 times. The tweet hasn’t been deleted even though I pointed out on X that it was false on 21st April, quoting the original tweet.

🥪 👜 Ma’amalade sandwich Your Majesty? The Queen and Paddington Bear get the #PlatinumPartyatthePalace rocking. #PlatinumJubilee