Toby Young complains to BBC over Chris Packham’s ‘defamatory’ comment

Toby Young has complained to the BBC after Chris Packham alleged that Young’s website had close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.

In a panel discussion on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg about carbon emissions on April 21, Packham referred to Young’s Daily Sceptic blog as the “Daily Septic”.

The presenter made reference to the recent floods in Dubai, plus high temperatures in the global south and wildfires.

Asked by fellow panellist Luke Johnson where he had found evidence that these weather events were linked to carbon emissions, Packham said: “It doesn’t come from Toby Young’s Daily Septic [sic], which is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.

“It comes from something called science.”

Kuenssberg did not interrupt or challenge Packham’s comments.

The BBC has since shared the clip on X, formerly Twitter, where it has been viewed more than 850,000 times.

Kuenssberg also reposted the clip, among others from the April 21 show, to her personal X feed.

Young, founder of the Daily Sceptic and author of How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, posted on X that Packham’s claims were “both false and defamatory”.

He said: “I am the editor-in-chief of the Daily Sceptic, a news publishing site, and neither I nor any of the other people who put it together have any affiliations to the fossil fuel industry, close or otherwise.

“I have never been paid money by any fossil fuel companies, nor has the editor, Dr Will Jones, and we’ve never run an ad on the site from any fossil fuel companies.

“Chris Packham was not challenged by anyone on the programme about this false allegation, even though it’s extremely serious and damaging, effectively claiming the people who put together the Daily Sceptic are corrupt, ie paid to publish climate contrarian articles by the fossil fuel industry.

“On the contrary, a clip of Chris Packham making this false and defamatory allegation was posted by BBC Politics on X and then retweeted by Laura Kuenssberg… the tweet hasn’t been deleted even though I pointed out on X that it was false on 21st April.”

During the discussion on Sunday’s show, Johnson, the entrepreneur and former chairman of Channel 4 and Pizza Express, countered Packham’s views.

Johnson said: “Ordinary people want to be able to drive a car and fly on holiday, and I think the hysterical doomsayers who have been for decades - Al Gore and so forth - predicting the end of the world, this existential crisis, are shooting themselves in the foot because ordinary people will not vote to be poorer and colder.”

A BBC spokesman said: “We have received a complaint and are looking into it.”