The BBC newsroom is “out of control”, its former director of television has said, as the corporation faces fresh accusations of bias over its reporting of the Middle East conflict.

Danny Cohen said the BBC’s reporting had anti-Israeli overtones which were contributing to a sense of unsafety felt by many Jewish people in the UK.

In a report into the broadcaster’s recent coverage of the conflict, Mr Cohen points out that an Iranian propagandist was given airtime despite the corporation upholding complaints about a previous appearance he made.

Mohammed Marandi, who has served in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has appeared on the BBC twice since the broadcaster admitted a “lapse in editorial standards” over another interview with him a month ago in which he accused Israel of genocide and of “ethnosupremacism”.

The BBC also devoted 40 minutes to a live broadcast of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei giving a speech, and gave a platform to a woman who has repeatedly glorified the murder of Jewish people.