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===Reactions from politicians and the media===
Fifteen MPs signed a motion in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], tabled by Labour MP [[Andrew MacKinlay]] and Conservative MP [[Nigel Evans]], calling for Brand and Ross to no longer be funded by the [[licence fee#United Kingdom|licence fee]] (which funds the BBC). The chairman of the House of Commons [[Culture, Media and Sport Committee|select committee on culture, media and sport]], [[John Whittingdale]], stated that an investigation by the BBC was needed, but stopped short of calling for Ross and Brand to be sacked.<ref>{{cite news|title=BBC should 'take some pain' for phone prank, says Will Wyatt|work=[[The Guardian]]|author=Leigh Holmwood|date=28 October 2008|url=http://guardian.co.uk./media/2008/oct/28/bbc-russell-brand|publisher=Guardian News and Media Limited}}</ref> The chairman of the [[House of Lords]] Select Committee on Communication, [[Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler|Lord Fowler]], in a letter to ''The Times'' stated that there were "fundamental flaws" in the way that the BBC was regulated and governed, and that there was "confusion all round" because two parallel bodies, the [[BBC Trust]] and Ofcom, were investigating the incident, and it was "both unclear which of them the public should complain to and which of them had precedence over the other".<ref>{{cite news|title=Ross and Brand, the bigger picture|author=[[Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler|Lord Fowler]]|author-link=Norman Fowler|work=[[The Times]]|location=London|date=30 October 2008|url=http://timesonline.co.uk./tol/comment/letters/article5040972.ece}}</ref><ref name=Times1>{{cite news|title=Russell Brand falls on his sword and a sorry Ross is taken off the air|work=[[The Times]]|location=London|author1=Patrick Foster |author2=Philip Webster |author3=Adam Sherwin |author4=Charlene Sweeney |name-list-style=amp |date=30 October 2008|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk./tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5042843.ece}}</ref>
[[Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport|Shadow Culture Secretary]] [[Jeremy Hunt]], speaking on the [[BBC Radio 4|Radio 4]] ''[[Today (BBC Radio 4)|Today Programme]]'' on 30 October, also refused to say whether he thought Ross should be sacked, asserting that politicians should remain at "arm's length" from such decisions. In a speech at the [[London School of Economics]] the previous day he had criticised the decision by the BBC to broadcast the programme, which had been recorded two days prior to its transmission, saying that "[t]he BBC was quite wrong to take the decision to broadcast the offensive phone calls". He also demurred about calling for the resignations of anyone in BBC management, saying that "[i]t is wrong, in principle, for politicians to be calling for heads of individual broadcasting to be removed", and criticised the BBC for not releasing the name of the person who had given approval for the show to be broadcast.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://walesonline.co.uk./showbiz-and-lifestyle/news/2008/10/30/steve-coogan-speaks-out-about-brand-and-ross-91466-22148936/|title=Steve Coogan speaks out about Brand and Ross|date=30 October 2008|author=Robin Turner|work=[[WalesOnline]]|publisher=Media Wales Ltd}}</ref><ref name=NewStatesman1>{{cite news|title=Tory weighs into Ross/Brand row|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/10/ross-brand-bbc-hunt-public|date=29 October 2008|author=Brittany Peats|work=[[New Statesman]]}}</ref>
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