A CLEAR CASE OF BIAS

Today's edition of The Daily Politics was clearly and demonstrably biased.

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Discussing the economy, presenter Jo Coburn scored a huge I.C. of 2.8 against Conservative Justine Greening (pictured above) as opposed to 0.9 against Labour's Geoffrey Robinson.

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Jo interrupted Justine 7 times in under 3 minutes, whereas Robinson was only interrupted 3 times in over 3 and a half minutes.

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Jo also called Robinson 'Geoffrey', but wasn't on similar first-name terms with Justine.

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Robinson was smiling away as Jo Coburn interrupted Justine Greening with hostile question after hostile question, or laughing when she butted in with "For whom?" after Justine had said "We think it's a responsible thing to do...", or saying 'yes' after she interrupted yet again. This single question will give you a flavour of the interview: "So why are you hitting public sector workers? What gives you the right to hit public sector workers with a pay freeze?" The questions directed at Robinson, by comparison, were vague and tame.

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So far so biased. But it gets worse, much worse...

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The programme had conducted some polling into public attitudes to the economy and how to deal with the deficit. This polling showed Conservatives leads in most areas.

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One question concerned the Conservative policy of Inheritance Tax: "Inheritance Tax should only apply to properties worth over £1 million. Agree or disagree?" Alarmingly for Labour, 71% agreed and only 26% disagreed. Geoffrey Robinson misunderstood the result and thought is showed most people were against the Tory plan. Not so. Did Jo Coburn correct him? No.

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The worst is yet to come though.

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Here are two of the other results:

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On which party people trust more to be fair about taxes, it was:

Conservatives 36%

Labour 30%

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On which party people trust more to protect jobs, it was:

Labour 36%

Conservatives 31%

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When Justine Greening brought up the Conservative lead (6%) on fairness and taxation, Jo Coburn interrupted her with the words "only by a very small margin though" (to which Geoffrey Robinson said "yes!"). A 6% Conservative lead, according to the Beeb's Jo Coburn is "a very small margin"!

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When Justine Greening started to talk about protecting jobs, Jo Coburn interrupted her with the words "people trust Labour much much more when it comes to protecting jobs". How much was the Labour lead that is "much much more" than the Tories's score? 5% - smaller than the very small margin she talked about earlier!!!

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That's either sloppiness, stupidity or naked bias. Take your pick.

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A very poor performance from Jo Coburn.