Guto Harri presents S4C’s flagship politics show, Y Byd yn ei Le.
LOBBYIST GUTO HARRI WILL STAY AT THE HELM OF S4C SENEDD ELECTION COVERAGE DESPITE CLOSE LINKS TO THE TORIES AND SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT FAIRNESS AND IMPARTIALITY.
S4C AND ITV APPEARED STAR-STRUCK BY THE BIG-NAME PRESENTER AND POLITICAL OPERATOR… AND SAY THEY WERE UNAWARE OF HIS BUSINESS LINKS TO SAUDI ARABIA.
HARRI’S WELSH-BASED COMPANY GAINED FROM BIG MONEY MIDDLE EAST DEALS BACKED BY THE UK GOVERNMENT. THE FIRM ALSO DIPPED INTO TAXPAYER-FUNDED COVID LOANS.
By Marc Edwards, Investigative Journalist. Sunday,
S4C boss Owen Evans last night backed star presenter Guto Harri to remain front and centre in some of the channel’s most high-profile Senedd Election programmes.
The Chief Executive’s vote of confidence came after revelations on voice.wales about his continuing lobbying work in Westminster and Whitehall, and business links to multi-million pound deals in Saudi Arabia and Egypt secured with financial aid and diplomatic help from the UK Government.
The £150 million Egypt contract was signed at 10 Downing Streetand announced just four days after PM Boris Johnson welcomed Harri and other directors of Carmarthenshire-based Hydro Industries to Number Ten.
Mr Johnson gave the deal his personal seal of approval and said it showcased the best of UK industry in the post-Brexit era. Guto Harri declined to say how many times he and fellow Hydro directors had met Government Ministers and senior officials since he joined the company in 2018.
Evidence revealed exclusively on voice.wales showed the firm, where Harri is a non-executive director, tapped into at least £3.25 million in taxpayer-funded pandemic loans – with more Covid financial aid on the way.
Mr Evans, S4C’s most senior executive, said he and the commissioning team were satisfied with Guto Harri’s performance and suitability as the presenter of flagship politics show Y Byd yn ei Le. All S4C programmes adhered to the Ofcom Code of Conduct, the Chief Executive said.
It means Harri will take the helm for the channel’s final pre-Election programme on the eve of polling, Wednesday May 5, and will also lead the discussion and analysis of Election results in a special edition on May 12.
“Guto will present the programmes on May 5 and May 12. There are currently no plans for him to appear on any other programmes,” Mr Evans confirmed.
Harri is a seasoned media figure with friends in high places and a multi-faceted career. He has given a TEDx talk, interviewed writers at the Hay Festival and grilled politicians on his eponymous TV show.
🗳️ Dilynwch holl fwrlwm Etholiad Senedd Cymru ar @S4C
— S4C Y Wasg/Press (@ywasgS4Cpress) March 25, 2021
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🗳️ Comprehensive coverage of the Welsh Parliamentary Election on #S4C
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S4C announces Senedd Election coverage top team on March 25. Left: Bethan Rhys Roberts, news and current affairs presenter, BBC Wales; Top Right: Betsan Powys, former BBC Wales Political Editor; Bottom Right: Guto Harri, lobbyist, businessman and part-time journalist
But multiple potential conflicts of interest have raised serious questions about the balance, fairness and impartiality of his journalism.
Harri told us he had never been a member of political party and his various activities were listed on his LinkedIn profile in a “completely transparent” way. But he declined to answer key questions about his performance and suitability as the presenter of Y Byd yn ei Le.
We asked him:
- In the programmes produced by ITV and broadcast on S4C, are you satisfied you did a good job in a balanced, fair and impartial way?
- Are you satisfied that you are providing the highest level of analysis and scrutiny as the presenter of a serious and credible politics programme?
- Do you agree that credible political reporting is incompatible with your lobbying and business activities since at least 2018?
In a statement published by voice.wales on Thursday Harri said: “After 18 years at the BBC – as a chief political correspondent and presenter of programmes such as PM and The World at One, among other things – is it any wonder that I have a political programme on S4C? I’m very grateful for the opportunity, proud to work with such a talented team and I appreciate the positive reviews the series has enjoyed.”
His TV programme, Y Byd yn ei Le (‘Setting the World to Rights’), is produced by ITV for S4C and is the jewel in the crown of the Welsh-language channel’s political coverage. Harri purports to be the viewers’ champion, asking hard questions to all-comers without fear or favour. But opposition politicians are sometimes left wondering if they’re getting a fair crack of the whip.
Yet despite Harri’s parallel career as a political lobbyist and influencer, the broadcaster S4C and programme-maker ITV appear prepared to give him plenty of latitude, dazzled perhaps by the presenter’s metropolitan sparkle and impressed by the size of his contacts book.
S4C Director of Content Amanda Rees promised that Y Byd yn ei Le, on air since June 2018, would put thought-provoking political and social issues at the forefront of the schedule and was sure to spark debate.
“Guto Harri, an experienced journalist … will not shy away from asking the difficult questions, taking full advantage of his experience in journalism and within the political sphere” she said in February 2018.
Harri is certainly a well-connected political operator. An ex-staffer of Mayor Boris Johnson at London City Hall from 2008 to 2012, the former BBC correspondent is a man with extensive high-level Tory friends and contacts. He has worked for two lobbying firms with close ties to the Conservative Party, Hanover Communications and Hawthorn Advisors. He also has a sideline as a public-speaker for hire. Alongside him on the roster of top London agency Chartwell Speakers are present and former Cabinet Ministers, with Tory grandees far outnumbering members of other political parties.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that Harri is able to land big interviews with UK political heavyweights, particularly prominent Conservatives.
He kicked off his first series of Y Byd yn ei Le on S4C in June 2018 with and exclusive interview with then Prime Minister Theresa May. He has also landed one-to-ones with Cabinet Ministers, including Brexit Secretary David Davis, Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns and his successor Simon Hart. Aside from Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage, extended interviews with Leaders and Shadow Ministers of other UK political parties have been conspicuous by their absence.
Harri did snatch a two-minute interview with Kier Starmer, broadcast on his penultimate Election show last Wednesday 28 April. In his introduction he said Starmer and Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford were “capable and genuine people” but wondered aloud whether ultimately they “don’t offer the inspiration that some want looking to the future”.
His first “playful” question to Starmer was: “When you grow up do you want to be Mark Drakeford?” His subsequent one-to-one with Drakeford was trailed with a barbed exchange over Wales’s record on “wealth creation”, and the supposed failure of the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay to build an economy that elevated more Welsh companies into the FTSE 100.
Some have questioned the seriousness and credibility of Harri’s politics show and how rigorous he is in providing the highest level of analysis and scrutiny. Harri has repeatedly put on record his belief that Welsh politics is boring and its leading figures are dull. So it’s little wonder that London-based newspapers ignore Wales, he claims.
But recent scandals and fresh revelations of sleaze have shown there is never a dull moment with Boris Johnson, his friend and former employer. Harri struck TV gold ahead of the 2019 General Election when the Prime Minister granted him his biggest exclusive yet.
Johnson, a pal of Harri’s ever since they were students together at Oxford University in the mid-1980s, even graced the interview with a smattering of Cymraeg – or a bit of “Welsh lingo” as the S4C press office reported.
Touting his “oven-ready” Brexit deal Johnson said: “Pop it in the popty ping and it’s ready to go”. (Popty ping is a flippant term for ‘microwave’.) He claimed this would allow his Government to “concentrate on all the things we want to do as One Nation Tories”.
“We’ve got a great manifesto which we’re launching today, the Welsh Conservative manifesto, Cyflawni Brexit,” the PM said.
“Cyflawni Brexit means Get Brexit Done and the point of getting Brexit done is it’s the key for so much else we want to do for our country.”
One of Harri’s most challenging questions was: “What happened to Mr Nice Guy?” – delivered with a smirk and answered in kind. Johnson was largely given free rein to deflect any serious questions with buffoonery, drawing his interviewer into vacuous political knock-about. Some claimed it was like watching two self-anointed “Big Beasts” of the political jungle joshing for the cameras – more love-in than forensic political interview.
It’s not known whether senior editors at ITV and programme commissioners at S4C felt queasy about this, but we do know the channel recommissioned several extra series of Y Byd yn ei Le in 2020 and 2021.
They may have been unaware of comments Harri made on the Cardiff University alumni blog Examined Life in 2018. While showing some enthusiasm for the “fantastic profession” of journalism he expressed some frustration about its core values and principles. He said he wanted to be “in the room” where decisions were taken rather than a journalist on the outside looking in: “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life on the fence. A move into politics and communications was a logical next step.”
He also said he wanted to escape the “straitjacket of impartiality” which was “entirely appropriate for broadcasters but there’s a time when some of us want to take sides”. Of his years as one of Boris Johnson’s “right hand people” he said it was “one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling” periods of his career. He was no longer a bystander. He was helping Johnson to “run London and helping take decisions as well as communicating them”.
But Harri did admire the work of a select band of journalists. He paid tribute to reporters at News International, where he was Rupert Murdoch’s PR man in chief in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, for “challenging the rich and the powerful”. And he took pride in “allowing those people to be journalists again and not be seen as phone hackers and corrupters of public life”.
Harri has seemed at ease with the apparent conflict of interest involved in being a hard-hitting reporter and public relations guru at the same time, something many journalists would baulk at.. Integrity and good conscience usually demand a choice between the world of news and a job in PR. But Harri said the “temptation to be back in broadcasting” was sometimes too strong to resist.
He finished the article by volunteering to give a leg up to Welsh political reporting: “Welsh politics needs greater scrutiny and Welsh journalism needs to be sharpened a little bit and if I can play a small role in that, then I’ll be very pleased,” he wrote.
Three years later and it appears that Harri has had his wish. Now he is more prominent than ever as the face of S4C’s Senedd Election coverage and is highly regarded by the channel.
Geraint Evans, S4C Commissioner for News and Current Affairs, was full of praise for his top team of on-screen talent at the launch of the channel’s Senedd Election coverage on March 25. “With some of the most knowledgeable presenters and contributors, we will scrutinise all aspects of the election,” Evans promised.
Last week we presented Geraint Evans with evidence of Harri’s lobbying and public speaking roles, his company’s access to big taxpayer-funded Covid loans and his multi-million pound business interests in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. This is a regime which ordered the ‘extrajudicial killing’ of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to the UN, is suspected of committing war crimes in Yemen and has been roundly condemned by Human Rights Watch, a Nobel Prize-winning NGO. But the S4C news and current affairs supremo has continued to back Y Byd yn ei Le and its high-profile presenter.
Evans told voice.wales on Thursday: “Y Byd yn ei Le, presented by Guto Harri, is one ingredient in a wide range of election programming commissioned by S4C and we believe that Guto’s depth of experience in politics enables him to bring an unique perspective to our coverage.”
“S4C is aware that as a freelance presenter he has other business interests, but he displays total professionalism in his approach to our programming and is always prepared to challenge the views of politicians whichever party they represent. Y Byd yn ei Le is also subject to the editorial control of both the ITV Cymru Wales production team and the Commissioner of News and Current Affairs at S4C. We are satisfied that all political parties receive the same impartial scrutiny and will continue to do so during the election period.”
Geraint Evans was the founding Editor of Y Byd yn ei Le in his previous post as Editor Welsh Language Programmes at ITV.
In a statement issued on Thursday ITV Cymru Wales said: “Guto Harri is a well-established and respected presenter of political programming and we have strict editorial and compliance controls in place within our production teams to ensure fairness and due impartiality within all our output, including our political programming for S4C.”
Last night S4C Chief Executive Owen Evans appeared to give Guto Harri his seal of approval to see out this month’s Election coverage by giving the green light to Y Byd yn ei Le on May 5 and May 12. But he seemed to make an equivocal assessment of any future role for his embattled star presenter.
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*Marc Edwards is an investigative journalist and freelance TV producer. He has held senior editorial roles at BBC Cymru Wales and ITV Cymru Wales.
