Union calls for no confidence vote in BBC boss Mark Thompson

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has today called for a "vote of no confidence" in BBC director general Mark Thompson, after blaming him for the "butchery" of the corporation's recent cuts.

Last month, Thompson announced that up to 2,000 jobs will be lost at the BBC as part of austerity measures in the Delivering Quality First (DQF) initiative, intended to make total savings of around £670m by 2016/17.

The NUJ believes that the cuts will cause "irreparable damage" to the BBC's world-renowned journalism operation, and result in a "devastating reduction" in UK public service broadcasting.

In an "unprecedented act" against a serving director general in the BBC's history, the NUJ will ask its BBC members to show their discontent with the leadership of Thompson, who the union describes as the "architect of this butchery".

The cuts are the result of the BBC licence fee deal agreed with the government last year, which froze the TV licence fee at £145.50 until 2016-17, effectively cutting the corporation's income by 16% in real terms.

New financial responsibilities were also imposed on the BBC, including BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring and Welsh-language broadcaster S4C.

This has resulted in the BBC looking to make a 20% saving across its budget over the next five years (with the extra 4% to be reinvested in programming and digital distribution), leading to significant proposed job losses and the scaling back of certain services.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said that the "anger" felt among the BBC's journalists at the cuts has resulted in "outrage at the lack of leadership from the top of the corporation".

"The BBC's future is under attack as a result of the freeze on the licence fee settlement driven through by the Coalition government," said Stanistreet.

"The director general should be fighting for the BBC, not inflicting cuts in areas that will cause irreparable damage to services and inevitably compromise quality journalism and programming.

"NUJ members are committed to defending jobs and quality journalism at the BBC and we are asking readers, listeners and viewers to join with us in this battle. And that is why we will be organising the no confidence ballot against Mark Thompson, the architect of this butchery."

Last month, a BBC local radio executive challenged Thompson to justify why local radio services are facing wide-ranging cuts, while BBC Radio 4 has remained "untouched".

Members of the NUJ and fellow unions BECTU and Unite are currently voting on possible strike action over the cuts later in the year, which could disrupt the final of Strictly Come Dancing.