With breathtaking complacency and an arrogant disregard for its moral duty as a public broadcaster, the BBC covered up the shocking sexual abuse perpetrated by its DJ Jimmy Savile.

Its hopelessly inept director- general at the time, George Entwistle, failed to deal with the scandal, as well as another involving a shamefully irresponsible report by BBC2’s Newsnight that falsely linked a Tory peer to a child sex abuse allegation.

Entwistle was forced to resign after just 54 days in the job and, to add insult to injury, demanded a larger pay-off than the £450,000 he was eventually given.

Following this debacle five years ago, Lord (Tony) Hall was appointed as the new director-general. For many, inside and outside the BBC, having once been its head of news and current affairs, he was a reassuring figure, who, it was hoped, would steer the Corporation to calmer waters.

Peter Oborne believes BBC director-general Lord Tony Hall (pictured) is presiding over an all-pervasive culture of political bias in the Corporation's news coverage

Indeed, Hall’s good sense enabled the BBC to move on post-Savile.

But I believe that Hall is now presiding over a new problem that is equally grave.

This is an all-pervasive culture of political bias in the Corporation’s news coverage.

It is deeply worrying because it means the BBC risks losing the trust of the public, whose money, in the form of licence fees, keeps it in existence.

Disgracefully, I believe, the BBC manipulates the news to suit its Europhile prejudices.

This is not just bad journalism. It’s dishonesty. It is an insult to the millions of people who do not share the values of those who inhabit the small, Left-wing bubble in which so many BBC staff live and work.

The truth is that the majority of Britons voted to leave the EU and do not hold the liberal, metropolitan values of most BBC types.

There was concrete proof of the BBC’s bias over Brexit on its flagship BBC1 News At Ten on Wednesday night.

BBC editors judged the second biggest story of the day to be the launch of a campaign bus advertising questionable claims that a hard Brexit will cost the country £2,000 million a week. When thousands of innocent civilians had been killed in renewed fighting in Syria and when Jeremy Corbyn had been exposed as having once had links with Communist spies, this decision to give airtime to an anti-Brexit stunt betrayed, at best, extremely poor news judgment, at worst, unashamed bias.

Sadly, we should not have been surprised.

BBC editors on Wednesday decided the second biggest story was the launch of a campaign bus advertising claims that a hard Brexit will cost the country £2,000 million a week

Another example. On a recent edition of BBC1’s Question Time four of the five panellists (Tory MP Claire Perry, Labour front-bencher Emily Thornberry, broadcaster Terry Christian and political journalist Rachel Sylvester) had all backed Remain. The following week, the ratio of Remainers was exactly the same. No wonder that a poll revealed that 27 per cent of voters believe that the BBC is anti-Brexit.

The same poll showed that 33 per cent of people thought — quite correctly — that The Guardian newspaper opposes the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

Yet the fact is that The Guardian receives no money from the State in the form of a licence fee but is an independent commercial enterprise responsible to its readers and the trust that owns it.

As such, it can have any editorial line it wants. But the BBC’s Charter requires that ‘controversial subjects are treated with due impartiality’.

In sum, the BBC ought to represent the nation as a whole.

Its recent coverage is not the first time the BBC has been guilty of systemic bias over Europe.

Several years ago, I carried out a detailed study of its coverage of Tony Blair’s campaign to make Britain join the European single currency.

Of course, in New Labour’s heyday, the Beeb was head over heels in love with St Tony.

How revealing it was when presenter Jane Garvey said after Blair won the 1997 General Election: ‘The corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles.’

No wonder then that, rather than dispassionately reporting the facts, BBC news reports unquestioningly swallowed the Blair line and carried regular items such as those claiming that major foreign investors were on the verge of pulling out of Britain unless the Government joined the euro.

He believes the BBC's political bias towards remain is as grave a crisis as the Jimmy Savile scandal was

Despite such reports being officially denied, the BBC refused to apologise or even clarify.

It is no exaggeration to say that the state-owned broadcaster fed the British public a series of lies. Such behaviour was reminiscent of the relationship between the Kremlin and its mouthpiece newspaper Pravda.

Who was head of news at the BBC at the time?

It was Tony Hall — the man now in charge of the whole BBC as it pumps out endless anti- Brexit propaganda.

Hall’s dereliction of duty is a betrayal of the values established by the BBC’s founder John Reith.

It’s worth recalling that despite huge pressure from the Baldwin government, Reith insisted that the Corporation would not take sides during the 1926 General Strike.

The BBC is at the heart of our national life and, above everything else, it should stand for the British values of tolerance, fair-mindedness, decency and impartiality.

Another example of bias he cites is a recent edition of BBC1’s Question Time where four of the five panellists (Tory MP Claire Perry, Labour front-bencher Emily Thornberry, broadcaster Terry Christian and political journalist Rachel Sylvester) had all backed Remain

And yet this bias does not merely infect its news coverage.

Three weeks ago, Radio 4’s Start The Week discussed migration. All four guests supported open borders. There seemed no attempt at balance on an issue about which opinion polls show that up to 90 per cent of the population have reservations about levels of immigration.

I write this more in sadness than in anger because I love the BBC. It is one of the great institutions which holds this country together as a nation.

At its best, it stands for integrity, public service and the creative genius which has made this country great. There are very few other organisations, besides the Armed Forces, the judiciary and, above all, the monarchy, which represent Britishness.

But my fear is that the BBC is losing the love and trust of the British people.

For it to survive, Lord Hall must show that it is answerable to all licence payers — and not the Left-liberal Establishment, who, despite what they think, only represent a very small minority.

Rees-Mogg must stop playing student politics

In some ways, Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg deserves the accolades he’s being given.

He has a first-class brain. He has tapped into public feelings about Brussels bully-boys. He has undeniable moral rectitude. He refuses to swing with the wind. And, unlike so many politicians, he has experience of the world outside Westminster — having made a fortune in the City.

Refreshingly, too, when ridiculed for his foppish manner as ‘the MP for the late 18th century’, the Old Etonian couldn’t give a damn.

Also, his principled stand as a Catholic on abortion, calling for the 24-week time limit to be cut and his rejection of terminations ‘beyond the number of weeks at which they could survive outside the womb’ — must be respected.

It's time for Jacob Rees-Mogg to abandon the immature politics of the Oxford Union debating society (where he was president almost 30 years ago)

So, too, the dignified manner in which he recently defied violent Momentum-supporting thugs while addressing students in Bristol.

But I’m afraid I emphatically do not share the opinion of bookmakers that Rees-Mogg is the four-to-one favourite to be Theresa May’s successor as Tory leader.

First of all, he has never had a government job. But more importantly, by being a seemingly ever-present face on TV screens as the cheerleader for a hard Brexit, he is damaging Mrs May as she fights to secure a decent Brexit deal. I find it difficult not to believe that Rees-Mogg is set on sabotaging the negotiations in the hope of getting what he wants instead.

The consequences of him succeeding do not bear thinking about. In all likelihood, it would mean Mrs May being forced out of No 10 and Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister. Brexit itself could even come under threat.

It’s time for Rees-Mogg to abandon the immature politics of the Oxford Union debating society (where he was president almost 30 years ago).

As an admirer, I recommend this course of action immediately. Then, in due course, Mrs May could offer him a ministerial post.