This is public life in 2025, who would volunteer?

Why the BBC crisis is not just a reflection of some bad editorial decisions and why it matters

The BBC is enduring one of the toughest spells in its history, with its leadership in freefall and public trust at alarming lows. Director-General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness both resigned this week after a storm of criticism over a Panorama documentary that edited a Donald Trump speech in a way many viewers considered misleading. The BBC chair has called it an “error of judgement,” the broadcaster now faces the surreal prospect of a $1 billion lawsuit, and emergency staff briefings are underway to steady the ship.

Outside the building, the picture is even grimmer: trust scores have slipped below 40, a historic low for an organisation once treated as Britain’s gold standard of impartiality.

However, the deeper problem here isn’t editorial misjudgement. It’s what this moment signals about public life in Britain right now. If the BBC — the closest thing we have to civic glue — can see its leadership decapitated in a single week, what on earth does that tell the next generation of people we desperately need to persuade into public service? Who looks at this landscape and thinks: yes, I’ll apply?

To me, the BBC crisis is flashing one message in giant neon letters: we have created a public sphere that deters exactly the kind of thoughtful, capable, values-driven people we need to lead it.

And that should worry us far more than one documentary gone wrong.

We are living in a culture where accountability has morphed into instant annihilation. Yes, leaders must answer for their mistakes. But the speed at which scrutiny now turns into spectacle is breathtaking. Westminster is the most extreme example: five prime ministers in six years, 16 housing ministers in a decade, entire departments resetting their leadership teams almost annually. The Institute for Government has been warning for years that this level of churn “hinders effective government” by stripping out institutional memory and breaking long-term planning. No high-performing business would survive this kind of turnover; yet somehow, this is how we run the country.

Layer onto that the psychological machinery of the internet. Studies of digital outrage show that moral condemnation spreads faster and embeds deeper than factual correction. Once a leader is branded incompetent or corrupt — sometimes fairly, often not — the narrative calcifies instantly. There is no room for learning. No room for context. No room for humanity. Leaders become avatars for national anger rather than people doing difficult, pressured, high-stakes jobs.

The result is as predictable as it is dangerous: the individuals who might make brilliant public leaders watch all this and quietly choose something else. Who can blame them?

And when capable people step back, society pays. This isn’t a philosophical problem; it’s a practical one. Trust is now at structurally low levels. The Edelman Trust Barometer puts trust in UK government at 37. Only 26 percent of people believe political leaders tell the truth. The Hansard Society reports that 77 percent of the public believe the political system needs major reform. Trust in news media has plummeted since 2016. The BBC’s slump below 40 is just one block in a much larger wall of public scepticism.

In that environment, even good policy struggles to work. Too few people believe in institutions strongly enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Every decision becomes fraught. Every reform gets bogged down. Cynicism quietly becomes the national operating system.

Nowhere is the talent crisis more visible — and more worrying — than in elected politics. We need brilliant people to stand for Parliament: engineers, economists, teachers, technologists, founders, community leaders, creatives, operators. People with experience and expertise. People who can legislate for a world shaped by AI, climate transition and global instability.

And yet the environment we’ve created can be genuinely frightening. Abuse directed at MPs has skyrocketed, especially for women and minority candidates. Amnesty International’s analysis of the 2017 general election found that female MPs received 45 percent more abusive tweets than men; Black and Asian women received the most. Subsequent studies show the situation worsening. A recent BBC report revealed that 69 percent of female MPs now experience regular online abuse and one in three has considered quitting because of safety concerns. The Jo Cox Foundation has documented an alarming rise in threats, stalking and coordinated harassment targeting female candidates.

How many talented women look at this landscape and decide they’d rather stay far away? How many brilliant candidates from under-represented backgrounds walk away before they even begin? How many people with the skills we need — especially younger leaders fluent in technology, delivery, communication and coalition-building — look at the current incentives and conclude that standing for office is simply too risky?

If we want better leaders, we need more people to step forward. And if we want people to step forward, we can’t keep making the environment so toxic that only the thickest-skinned survive.

The same applies beyond Parliament. The public sphere needs people with modern skills and diverse experience. Operators who know how to deliver complex systems. Entrepreneurs who bring energy and creativity. Technologists who understand AI, cyber and data. Community organisers with local knowledge. Creative leaders who can communicate persuasively. People who’ve built businesses, run hospitals, scaled charities, or managed crises.

I think the membrane between public life and the rest of society is far too rigid. We treat public leadership as a closed loop rather than a national project. Poppy Gustafsson stepping into government from Darktrace was exactly the kind of appointment we should be making more often. The fact she left within a year isn’t a personal failing — it’s a system design failure. Roles weren’t built for modern careers, modern families or modern expectations. The structures are opaque. The culture can be unforgiving, the media climate allows no room for learning curves.

Other countries are far more intentional. Estonia rotates technologists into government. Singapore builds leadership pipelines that cross between sectors. The Nordics deliberately mix civil society, business and public service. Britain should be leading in this space. Instead, we cling to a model that makes public life feel like a punishing, precarious calling that only a few can endure.

Leadership in public life should be serious. It should involve pressure, scrutiny and consequence. But it should not feel like stepping into a blast furnace. If we want healthier politics — if we want institutions that function, services that improve, reforms that last — then we need a culture that attracts, protects and sustains good people.

The BBC meltdown is not just about impartiality tests or editorial standards. It is a vivid, painful reminder of how fragile our leadership culture has become — and how urgently we need to rebuild it. Because if we don’t, the people who walk away will not be the ones who should never have been there. They will be the ones we need most.