it was supported by other commentators such as Dominic Lawson. On 25 January 2009, then Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander supported the appeal telling Sky News: "My appeal is a much more straight forward one. People are suffering right now, many hundreds of thousands of people are without the basic necessities of life. That for me is a very straight forward case and I sincerely hope that the British people respond with characteristic generosity." MP Richard Burden put forward an early day motion calling on the BBC to screen the appeal which received the support of 112 MPs. Meanwhile, another Labour MP, Gerald Kaufman, complained about "nasty pressure" on the BBC from Israeli lobbyists. However, Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, denied that the decision was due to Israeli pressure. Complaints to the BBC about the decision were directed to Mark Thompson's blog. BBC's Newsnight programme reported that the BBC had received over 15,000 complaints as well as 200 letters of support. After the appeal was broadcast on Channel 4 on 26 January 2009, Niaz Alam resigned as an external member of the BBC's Appeals Advisory Committee in protest at the BBC's explanation of its refusal to broadcast the appeal, after news coverage gave the impression the whole of this committee had been party to the decision. A version of his resignation letter, was published in Private Eye, defending the impartiality of the Disasters Emergency Committee's recommendation and criticising the BBC's refusal to broadcast the appeal. The letter also disputed the logic of the justification to block the appeal on grounds of impartiality by pointing out that 'the ultimate logic of a policy of avoiding appeals arising out of politically controversial conflicts would be for the BBC to ignore major humanitarian crises.' Journalist and broadcaster Peter Oborne wrote and presented an edition of Channel 4's Dispatches titled "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby, " in which this controversy was featured as one small part towards the end, when he discussed the BBC's refusal to broadcast the 2009 DEC Gaza appeal with Niaz Alam. The BBC Trust reported in its 'Decision of the BBC Trust' document on the appeal that, 'the BBC Executive had received about 40,000 complaints about the Director General's decision'. The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, affirmed the need to broadcast "without affecting and impinging on the audience's perception of our impartiality" and that in