I Continue to Escalate with the BBC

Readers may remember that I made a formal complaint to the BBC about the historical distortion in, and political bias of, David Olusoga’s three-part tv series, “Empire”. I recounted the story so far in my post of 13 April, “Why I’m Escalating my Complaints to the BBC”. Not satisfied with the BBC’s response of 27 February to my original complaint (Stage 1a), I had escalated it to the next stage in the process (1b), by lodging a second complaint on 30 March.

I have now received the BBC’s response (8 May) to that. I find it entirely unsatisfactory, for reasons that I shall explain when I take my complaint to the third and final stage in the internal complaints process, by writing a third letter, this time to the Executive Complaints Unit. After I have dispatched the letter, I shall post it here.

In the meantime, I am posting the BBC’s latest response below. But immediately before it, so that readers can see what it is responding to and measure it against my complaint for themselves, I am reposting my letter of 30 March. Here it is.

Stage 1b complaint re. David Olusoga’s “Empire” (November 2025, BBC2)

30 March 2026

ONE PAGE SUMMARY

Dissatisfied with your letter of 27 February replying to my Complaint at stage 1a, I now raise it to stage 1b. I have not written within the requisite 20 working days because (a) while referring me to the BBC’s website, your letter gave no warning of urgency; (b) I became aware of the 20-working-day stipulation only after its expiration; and (c) the preparation of this response has taken a lot of time.

In brief, your reply of 27 February contains two factually inaccurate reports, twice responds to a strawman of your own making rather than what I actually wrote, and makes one specious argument and another implausible one.

Moreover, Mr Olusoga’s “Empire” contravenes the BBC’s own Editorial Standards regarding impartiality in four respects:

(a) It treats a set of historical and political issues that are highly and actively controversial (at least, outside the BBC), without acknowledging and giving voice to an appropriate range of significant views.

(b) Insofar as it claims to tell marginalised or overlooked histories, Mr Olusoga’s selection is racially discriminatory and political biassed.

(c) “Empire” is not clearly signposted as Mr Olusoga’s personal view and does not acknowledge an appropriate range of alternative views or give them their proper weight.

(d) Not one of the other programmes listed as offering balance over time is as overwhelmingly positive as “Empire” is overwhelmingly negative.

Therefore, Mr Olusoga’s “Empire” failed to meet the BBC’s own standards of impartiality.

My response exceeds the normal limit of 1,000 words, because that was necessary to demonstrably substantiate my criticisms.

Professor the Lord Biggar, CBE

House of Lords SW1A 0PW

Stage 1b complaint re. David Olusoga’s “Empire” (November 2025, BBC2)

30 March 2026

Dissatisfied with your letter of 27 February replying to my Complaint at stage 1a, I now raise it to stage 1b. I have not written within the requisite 20 working days because (a) while referring me to the BBC’s website, your letter gave no warning of urgency; (b) I became aware of the 20-working-day stipulation only after its expiration; and (c) the preparation of this response has taken a lot of time.

My response exceeds the normal limit of 1,000 words, because that was necessary to demonstrably substantiate my criticisms.

1. According to the BBC’s Editorial Standards regarding impartiality, when treating a matter of public controversy over historical issues, content-makers must “ensure a wide range of significant views and perspectives are given due weight and prominence, particularly when the controversy is active” (2.4.7). When treating highly controversial issues, “an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme … or in clearly linked and timely programmes” (2.4.8). And where a single, personal view is expressed “[t]his should be clearly signposted …. The existence of a range of views and their respective weights should be acknowledged, and neither those views nor their respective weights should be misrepresented” (2.4.9). Moreover, “an opportunity for response or alternative perspectives, … in a pre-arranged and signposted discussion programme” should be provided (2.4.34-35).

Both Britain’s imperial history, and the views of David Olusoga about it, qualify as actively and highly controversial topics—certainly, in the British public at large, if not within the BBC itself.

2. In your letter you argue that “Empire” is “an authored series that does not set out to tell the story of the British Empire in its entirety”. By ‘authored series’ I infer one that purports only to present David Olusoga’s personal viewpoint.

(a) However, to the unsuspecting viewer, the phrase ‘with David Olusoga’ that follows ‘Empire’ in the title merely communicates that Mr Olusoga will present the series. It does not warn the viewer that what they are about to watch is a personal, highly controversial interpretation.

(b) Of course, the series cannot be expected to tell the story of the Empire “in its entirety” in the sense of treating every significant element in it. Nonetheless, the introduction to each episode paints a bird’s-eye overview of the whole of the Empire, its extent both in time and space. Clearly, the series purports to tell a coherent narrative about the British Empire as a whole. And that is what it does—in an overwhelmingly negative way that does violence to significant parts of the whole truth.

3. You write that the programme’s stated purpose” was to approach the subject “from the viewpoint of those whose ancestors were part of the story of empire, but whose history has often been marginalised or overlooked in the past. This included hearing the views of individuals for whom the British Empire is part of their family history, talking about how the legacy of Empire continues to shape people’s lives today”.

(a) That contains two inaccuracies. First, in the introductory minutes of the first episode, no mention is made of focussing on marginalised and overlooked histories. Second, the individuals whose views are sought do not talk about “how the legacy of Empire continues to shape people’s lives today”. They talk about their perceptions of that legacy and what they say is allowed to suffer no critical interrogation by alternative, better informed viewpoints. At least one of those perceptions is, according to eminent historical authorities, false. Twice it is claimed that Britain’s wealth “derives very significantly from profits made from slavery”. And yet the most eminent living historian of transatlantic slavery, David Eltis, reckons the contribution of slavery to Britain’s industrial prosperity somewhere between small and trivial. And the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Economics, Joel Mokyr, judges that, without slavery, Britain industrial growth would have proceeded at a “marginally slower pace”.

(b) Among the ancestors who were part of the history of the British Empire and whose history has been marginalised and overlooked in the recent past are British abolitionists and those who took part in the Empire’s anti-slavery endeavours during the second half of its life. Most were white, though some were not. Younger Britons know almost nothing about them. Yet, Mr Olusoga has chosen to exclude them.

(c) Even if we grant the dubious assumption that only the voices of people with non-white skins go unheard, Mr Olusoga’s selection betrays political bias. For while he chooses to mediate the stories of 18^th century slaves, he chooses not to mediate the stories of emancipated African slaves, some of whom who stood outside Government House in the Seychelles in June 1897 holding a large Union Jack printed with the words, “The Flag that Sets us Free”. And while he chooses to mediate the stories of 20^th century Mau Mau insurgents tortured in a detainment camp, he chooses not to mediate the stories of the much larger number of black Africans who supported the British and opposed the insurgents, because of their terroristic methods, including the disembowelling and decapitation of women and children. Only the ‘victims’ of empire are given a voice, while the stories of indigenous beneficiaries and supporters are excluded. Either Mr Olusoga deliberately suppressed alternative, indigenous viewpoints or he was ignorant of them. Whatever the reason, his politically partisan story serves to confirm the historically simplistic and racially divisive BLM ‘White-Oppressors-of-Black-Victims’ narrative that now dominates many public and cultural institutions.

4. You write that “[t]he programme is not intended as a broad exploration of slavery and given its particular focus on the British Empire, and within its defined timeframe, it does not aim to cover other forms of slavery that existed in different eras and regions”. That is specious. It would not have taken Mr Olusoga more than sixty seconds to put British involvement in slavery in its historical context, alerting viewers to its universality and its practice by Africans for centuries before the British arrived.

5. Regarding my complaint that allotting “an offhand twenty-five seconds” to “Britain’s unprecedented abolition of the slave trade and slavery, and its century-and-a-half’s worth of worldwide suppression of them”, you say you “do not agree that the significance of any statement or sequence within a television programme can be measured solely by its duration”.

(a) That argument implies that you would regard as acceptable a programme about the British Empire that allotted only twenty-five seconds to the topic of British involvement in slavery. That strains credulity and is quite implausible.

(b) In the current cultural climate, when the whole of British colonial history tends to be identified with slavery—as witness the popular phrase, ‘colonialism and slavery’—historically uneducated viewers, especially younger ones, will emerge ignorant of the fact that Britain was among the first states in the world’s history to abolish slave-trading and slavery, and that it spent the second half of its life suppressing them from Brazil to New Zealand. No African, Arab, or Asian country did anything like that. Mr Olusoga’s narrative therefore leaves British viewers with a seriously biassed and unbalanced perception of their own country’s past.

(c) You argue that “more than two centuries of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade (and the profound and lasting economic, social, and human consequences of that history) [need not] be counterbalanced by allocating an equivalent amount of airtime to Britain’s later abolitionist efforts in order to accurately inform the audience”. First, you misreport my complaint and erect a distracting strawman: I did not claim that a balanced picture requires an equal quantity of time. It would be perfectly possible to give a sufficiently even-handed account, while devoting more time to discussing slavery than its abolition.

Second, you appear to accord Britain’s involvement in slavery a predominant weight (“more than two centuries … profound and lasting”). In fact, Britain’s involvement in the slavery from circa 1650 to 1833 was comparatively minor in extent. Of the more than 40 million Africans enslaved and exported worldwide, according to Martin Plaut (Unbroken Chains: A 5,000 Year History of African Enslavement, 2025, p. 2), some Britons were responsible for trading 3.25 million. In 1850 the Fulani people in what is now northern Nigeria ran vast plantations employing as many slaves as in the whole of the then American South—4 million. If you disagree with that statement, it is only because you have taken a highly controversial, politically biassed position. You are not impartial.

6. You write that you “disagree with your suggestion that the series … focuses solely on its negative impacts”. Again, your reporting is inaccurate and sets up a distracting strawman. In the opening paragraphs of the article I sent Samir Shah I say plainly, “Viewers of his [Olusoga’s] three-part BBC 2 series, ‘Empire’, do learn many things that are true about the British Empire…. positive truths are voiced”. However, “they’re all incidental to the central story, which is overwhelmingly negative”. That was my actual complaint.

7. You provide a list of past programmes that treat the British Empire “from other perspectives”.

(a) Of these, only one is fronted—and its content controlled—by a professional historian of any authority, who can be trusted to know what he’s talking about: Harvard University’s Professor, Simon Schama, whose 2003 History of Britain devoted two of his fifteen episodes to the Empire.

(b) None of the other programmes tells a story as overwhelmingly positive as Mr Olusoga’s is overwhelmingly negative. All of them show a degree of balance that “Empire” lacks. That is to say, “Empire” is uniquely unbalanced.

8. On the relevant webpage of BBC iPlayer (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002hytf/empire-with-david-olusoga?seriesId=more-like-this), viewers are directed to 12 other programmes. Five are presented by Mr Olusoga himself, one of them devoted to British slaveowners. None concerns the British Empire as such or British abolitionists. Simon Shama’s 2003 History of Britain appears at the bottom in eleventh place. The “Empire” webpage, therefore, neither communicates to unsuspecting viewers the controversial nature of Mr Olusoga’s programme, nor alerts them to the need to seek out alternative, counterbalancing viewpoints, nor clearly direct viewers to any other programme about the British Empire, which presents such a viewpoint.

9. In sum, your reply of 27 February contains three factually inaccurate reports, twice responds to a strawman of your own making rather than what I actually wrote, and makes one specious argument and another implausible one. Moreover, Mr Olusoga’s “Empire” contravenes the BBC’s own Editorial Standards regarding impartiality in four respects:

(a) It treats a set of historical and political issues that are highly and actively controversial (at least, outside the BBC), without acknowledging and giving voice to an appropriate range of significant views.

(b) Insofar as it (implicitly) tells marginalised or overlooked histories, Mr Olusoga’s selection is racially discriminatory and political biassed.

(c) “Empire” is not clearly signposted as Mr Olusoga’s personal, highly controversial view and does not acknowledge an appropriate range of alternative views or give them their proper weight.

(d) Not one of the other programmes listed as offering balance over time is as overwhelmingly positive as “Empire” is overwhelmingly negative.

Therefore, Mr Olusoga’s “Empire” failed to meet the BBC’s own standards of impartiality.

Professor the Lord Biggar, CBE

House of Lords SW1A 0PW

To this, the BBC’s Complaints Team has offered the following response. I consider it wholly inadequate. Readers, of course, can make up their own minds.

Reference CAS-8297457-C1L2F8 

8.5.2026.

Dear Lord Biggar,

Thank you for your further complaint regarding ‘Empire with David Olusoga’.

David Olusoga is an established historian and broadcaster, well known to BBC audiences through a wide range of previous work. We appreciate your view that the authorship and editorial aims of this series should have been set out more explicitly. However, in light of the programme’s format, presentation, and title, we believe that viewers would recognise the nature of the series without the need for the additional signposting that you suggest. We are also confident that audiences recognise the interpretative nature of history and understand that individual historians will approach their subject from a particular perspective.

This programme’s focus on certain stories, voices and experiences, that have previously been under‑explored, represents a legitimate editorial choice and our Editorial Guidelines allow for such an approach. We appreciate however that there are other individuals that you feel the programme would have benefited from hearing from.

We do not consider that any of events covered, or the broader discussions surrounding them, to constitute active matters of political controversy or to relate to current public policy, where the guidelines would require awide range of significant views and perspectives to be given due weight and prominence.

We of course accept that there will be differing views on how the complex history of the British Empire is told and that there will be legitimate disagreement around the emphasis placed on varying narratives. However, we do not believe that failing to satisfy every viewer in this regard amounts to a breach of the BBC’s editorial standards.

This concludes Stage 1 of our complaints process. That means we can’t correspond with you further here. If you remain unhappy, you can now contact the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). The ECU is Stage 2 of the BBC’s complaints process. You’ll need to explain why you think there’s a potential breach of standards, or if the issue is significant and should still be investigated. Please do so within 20 working days of this reply.
Full details of how we handle complaints are available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/.

How to contact the ECU:

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Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team