Sissons: 'BBC standards are falling'

Veteran BBC newsreader Peter Sissons has blamed "political correctness" for falling standards at the corporation.

The 66-year-old broadcaster, who recently announced his retirement, claimed that senior BBC figures are afraid to challenge journalists when they make mistakes.

Writing in The Mail On Sunday, he commented: "At today's BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them."

In a further attack on the corporation, Sissons also accused executives of stifling debate on the issue of global warming.

"I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change," he explained.

"The corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that 'the science is settled', when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't. But it is effectively BBC policy that those views should not be heard."

The news anchor is expected to focus on writing his memoirs over the coming months, but he has not ruled out returning to TV in the future.