The backlash to Channel 4’s News and Current Affairs supremo Dorothy Byrne’s McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International TV Festival last night is coming in strong. Ms Byrne had a difficult job justifying some of the actions of her staff to Kay Burley, who gently and tactfully referred to the Jon Snow “f**k the Tories” incident. It is not as if this is an isolated incident, Guido has heard Snow slag off the Tories many times.*

Downing Street are not happy about it at all, following our earlier report they are making their view of Channel 4 News very clear. An unimpressed senior No. 10 source tells Guido

“It’s disappointing to see the head of a supposedly impartial news organisation decide to use deliberately inflammatory language to make a strong political statement. We will now consider our response.”

His predecessor as the senior No. 10 source also got in touch to say that it is a joke for Channel 4 to claim to be impartial. You reap what you sow. If Channel 4 are going to campaign politically with the slogan “ways to change the world” rather than to report on it, what do they expect?

*Check the videos of the annual Political Studies Association Awards, which Jon Snow presents, for examples.