Why I'm Escalating my Complaints to the BBC
Their responses so far have been dismissive and unsatisfactory.
In November last year, an internal memo addressed to BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee was leaked to the press. Its author, Michael Prescott, one of two independent advisors to the committee up until the previous June, detailed concerns about political bias in the Corporation’s coverage, mainly of news, but also of history. One passage said this:
On December 29th, 2022, The Telegraph had an article about a report from History Reclaimed, a group of renowned historians, mainly senior post-holders at Oxford and Cambridge.
They had reviewed four factual BBC programmes containing historical content and found each wanting. The main conclusion was this was caused by producers seeking out non-expert academics who would give good quotes, primarily about racism and prejudice. This was producing an overly simplistic and distorted narrative about British colonial racism, slave-trading and its legacy.
History Reclaimed recommended that in the future the BBC should source the views of expert historians in their relevant fields.
The BBC’s response was dismissive. In its statement, the BBC said: “Cherry-picking a handful of examples or highlighting genuine mistakes in thousands of hours of output on TV and radio does not constitute analysis and is not a true representation of BBC content”.
This defensiveness when challenged over contested areas is something the BBC demonstrates time and time again and was an issue I had raised at the EGSC.
Following The Telegraph’s story, I suggested a meeting of relevant BBC commissioners, producers and editors to review what History Reclaimed was claiming and assess whether any of its recommendations might help improve future programmes.
My own forebears were indentured labourers in Guyana and I personally found the History Reclaimed report both fascinating and compelling.
An initial plan for one senior BBC executive to meet History Reclaimed was first offered and then withdrawn. The EGSC was later told a meeting was now judged inappropriate.
I remain slightly mystified by this. History Reclaimed seemed reasonable, were making limited claims and suggested an easy solution – why ignore the whole thing and allow the questionable practice, apparently identified, to continue?
On 10 December The Critic published my critique of David Olusoga’s three-part, BBC 2 series, “Empire” (“David Olusoga is misrepresenting British history”. Just after Christmas, on 27 December, I sent a copy of my article to Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC, with this covering letter.
Dear Mr Shah,
in the context of heightened public concern about the BBC’s political impartiality, I am writing to you as the Corporation’s chair about David Olusoga’s recent three-part BBC2 series, ‘Empire’.
As I explain in the attached review, published in The Critic earlier this month, the account Mr Olusoga gives of Britain’s 400-year-long imperial career is seriously unbalanced, telling a racially biassed tale of virtually relentless white oppression and black victimhood.
For one egregious example, whereas the evils of the enslavement of black Africans are lavished with attention in a large part of the first episode and some of the second, Britain’s unprecedented abolition of the slave trade and slavery, and its century-and-a-half’s worth of worldwide suppression of them, are allotted an offhand twenty-five seconds.
Not only does this fail to tell the whole truth about Britain’s historical record, gravely distorting British citizens’ understanding of it; it also serves to exacerbate racial tensions at home and promote the malign interests of Britain’s aggressively illiberal enemies abroad.
As I am sure you will agree, the BBC has an enormously important role to play in educating the British public about controversial issues. As it declares, its mission is “to act in the public interest, [providing] … impartial, high-quality … output and services which … educate”. But that requires it to maintain a firmly liberal stance, giving a fair hearing to the full range of evidence-based viewpoints and keeping itself from capture by any single one, no matter how fashionable.
I put to you that it follows that the BBC is now duty-bound to commission an alternative, fairer, more positive telling of the British imperial story. I would be very happy to discuss the matter further.
In case you should wonder, my qualifications are as follows. Like Mr Olusoga, I hold a bachelor’s degree in history, but from Oxford rather than Liverpool University. Unlike him, I also hold a PhD in ethics from the University of Chicago and was until recently Oxford’s Regius Professor of Moral Theology. In addition, I am the author of the Sunday Times bestseller, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), which has been described by Sir Trevor Phillips, himself the descendant of African slaves brought to the Americas, as “carrying the intellectual force of an anti-tank missile”. I have been described by John Gray in the New Statesman as “one of the leading living Western ethicists” (November 2020). And Prospect magazine named me one of its Top Thinkers of 2024.
Yours sincerely,
Nigel Biggar
With my consent, Mr Shah, entered my article with its covering letter into the BBC’s formal complaints process. Two months later came this reply, dated 27 February 2026:
Dear Lord Biggar,
Thank you for your recent email to the Chairman of the BBC which has been passed to us to be treated as a formal complaint under the BBC’s complaints process. The BBC’s complaints framework can be found here and sets out how editorial complaints are handled by the BBC.
Your email concerns the BBC series Empire with David Olusoga and your email includes a link to an article you wrote for The Critic in November 2025. We have noted your criticisms of David Olusoga, your views on racism within the UK, and your request to contribute to an alternative series on this subject. However, we have restricted this response to the aspects of your article which could be considered an editorial complaint about this series.
We have understood your main concern to be that the series presents an overly negative depiction of the British Empire. While you acknowledge that the series highlights some examples of its positive impact, you feel that these are insufficient.
This is an authored series which does not set out to tell the story of the British Empire in its entirety. Rather, as stated at the outset, it approaches this 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.
It is within this context that viewers hear about Britain’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade. The 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.In your email to Samir Shah, you state that “Britain’s unprecedented abolition of the slave trade and slavery, and its century-and-a-half’s worth of worldwide suppression of them, are allotted an offhand twenty-five seconds” and suggest that the relative brevity of this section will distort British viewers’ understanding of Britain’s historical record.
We do not agree that the significance of any statement or sequence within a television programme can be measured solely by its duration. Nor would we agree, in telling this story within this context, 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) must be counterbalanced by allocating an equivalent amount of airtime to Britain’s later abolitionist efforts in order to accurately inform the audience.
In your article you suggest that the programme should have included reference to the humanitarian actions of three colonial administrators in Australia, specifically: Arthur Phillip, Lachlan Macquarie and George Arthur. You also outline your interpretation of the events leading up to and surrounding the Mau Mau uprising and suggest that this perspective should have been covered. However it was the programme’s stated purpose to highlight voices and experiences that have historically been unheard or underrepresented.
We agree with your view that the history of the British Empire is hugely complex, and that to cover every aspect of it – and to capture every viewpoint on each significant aspect – would require more than three hours of television. It is for this reason that the series adopted its particular editorial perspective. While we disagree with your suggestion that the series fails to acknowledge this complexity and focuses solely on its negative impacts, we recognise that there will always be differing views on how its story is told.
The BBC has previously looked at the British Empire from other perspectives, including in the following programmes:
1. A History of Britain by Simon Schama 2000 – 2002 Last shown in 2023 and due to be repeated next month.
2. Seven Ages of Britain, presented by David Dimbleby 2010 Last shown in July 2020.
3. Empire, presented by Jeremy Paxman, 2012 Last shown in 2018.
4. The Birth of Empire: The East India Company, presented by Dan Snow 2014 Last shown in 2019.
5. British History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley 2017 Currently being repeated.
6. The Queen: Her Commonwealth Story, presented by George Alagiah. Last shown in 2018.
The following programmes have considered post-Imperial Britain:
1. Simon Schama’s Story of Us. Last shown January 2025 and currently available on iPlayer.
2. Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain. Last shown in May 2020.
Other authored programmes currently available on iPlayer include Kenneth Clarke’s Civilisation and The Ascent of Man with Jacob Bronowski which were repeated on BBC Four in 2024 and 2023 respectively. Across our history programming we aim to appeal to a range of viewers and hear from a range of voices. In recent years our history output has been fronted by a range of presenters including Michael Portillo, Boris Johnson, Charles Moore, Rory Stewart, Dan Cruickshank, Mary Beard, David Dimbleby and Simon Sebag Montefiore. You will appreciate that across history, the subjects we cover are continually being reassessed and reviewed, as new voices and perspectives emerge.
A comprehensive list of history programming currently available from both BBC TV and Radio and can be found online: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genres/factual/history/player
We have shared your views with those responsible for the programme.
Best wishes,BBC Complaints Team
After mulling the matter over for a while, I eventually decided not to let it lie. On exploring the BBC’s complaints process, I discovered that it has three stages. Stage 1a elicits an “initial response”, Stage 1b, “a response from or on behalf of a BBC manager or member of the editorial team”, and Stage 2, “a response from the Executive Complaints Unit”. Only after pushing a complaint through each of these three stages may a complainant appeal outside the Corporation to the regulator, OfCom. (There is no such restriction, as far as I can see, on complaints to other public service broadcasters such as ITV or Channel 4.)
I also discovered that, in order to proceed to Stage 1b, I should have written “within 20 working days” of the date on which I received the BBC’s reply at Stage 1a (27 February). That period had already lapsed. Nonetheless, since the BBC says that “exceptionally, … [it] may still consider [a] complaint, if it decides there was a good reason for the delay”, I decided to try and push my complaint up to Stage 1b.
Then I discovered that a complaint should “not exceed 1,000 words”, although “in exceptional circumstances, longer complaints may be entertained”. But these cannot be submitted by email. They have to be “sent in writing by post, … identifying the reasons your complaint exceeds 1,000 words and providing a one-page summary of your complaint”. So that is what I did and this is what I sent by recorded delivery, at the expense of £.3.60:
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:
