This article outlines, in chronological order, the various controversies surrounding or involving the BBC. Early years 1926 General Strike In 1926, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called a General Strike to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Labour Party politicians such as party leader Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden criticised the BBC for being "biased" and "misleading the public" during the strike. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was coached by John Reith during a national broadcast about the strike which he made from Reith's house. When Ramsay MacDonald asked to make a broadcast in reply, Reith supported the request. However, Baldwin was "quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith refused the request. Baldwin's government blocked the BBC from broadcasting statements about the strike by the Labour Party and TUC leaders. When Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to the Radio Times to complain about the BBC's treatment of the unions, Reith wrote that the BBC was not totally independent from the government, which had imposed some constraints on what the BBC could do. Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, wished to broadcast a "peace appeal" to call for an immediate end to the strike, renewal of government subsidies to the coal industry and no cuts in miners' wages. Reith denied his request because he believed such a speech would be used by Winston Churchill to take over the BBC. Churchill wanted to use the BBC as a government tool during the strike. Reith wrote in his diary that the government "know they can trust us not to be really impartial". A post-strike analysis carried out by the BBC's Programme Correspondence Department reported that of those polled, 3,696 commended the BBC's coverage, whilst 176 were critical. Between the wars Since 1927, there have been arguments over impartiality at the BBC. In 1927, under a Royal Charter, the BBC became a public entity for the first time – with requirements including the need for impartiality and for staff not to express opinions on controversial subject matters. Prior to World War II, Sir John Reith excluded Winston Churchill from the BBC airwaves. At the time of the Munich Agreement of 1938, Churchill "complained that he had been very badly treated...and that he was always muzzled by the BBC". 1930s to Cold War: MI5 vetting From the late 1930s until the end of