which may have been damaged if the funding from the British government became known, the BBC paid Reuters “enhanced subscriptions” for access to its news service, and was in turn compensated by the British government for the extra expense. The BBC paid Reuters £350,000 over four years under the plan. 1971: Yesterday's Men Yesterday's Men is a BBC documentary first broadcast in June 1971 about the former ministers of Harold Wilson's Labour government who were now experiencing opposition. The approach of the programme makers, who included reporter David Dimbleby, angered Wilson and the Labour Party who saw it as displaying explicit Conservative bias. According to the official History of the BBC web page on the incident, the Labour politicians were "effectively tricked into taking part in a programme that would ridicule them". During his own interview Wilson was asked by Dimbleby, in an untransmitted section of their encounter, about the money he had made from his memoirs, a question which led to a furious exchange between them. Wilson wanted the programme shelved, but it was broadcast with minor changes. 1979: Panorama In November 1979, Panorama showed masked IRA men manning a roadblock in Carrickmore. The Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary withdrew their cooperation immediately and the Unionist leader James Molyneaux claimed that the filming was "at least a treasonable activity". The BBC governors issued a statement which blamed the Panorama team and admitted that the filming of the IRA roadblock "would appear to be a clear breach of standing instructions in relation to filming in Ireland". In the House of Commons the Conservative MP Tim Eggar requested that the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, "contact the governors of the BBC to express extreme concern about the way in which the Panorama team seems to have encouraged the IRA to break the law in Northern Ireland". Thatcher replied that the government contacted the BBC about the programme: "My hon. Friend will know that this is not the first time that we have had occasion to raise similar matters with the BBC. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I think that it is time that the BBC put its house in order". 1980–1990 1982: Falklands War During the Falklands War, the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and some Conservative MPs believed that the BBC was excessively even-handed between Britain and Argentina, referring to "the British" and "the Argentines" instead of "our