FISHY BEHAVIOUR

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Another week, another display of rampant bias from Shirin Wheeler on The Record Europe.
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At the risk of seeming like a broken record on this one (or one of those cds that sticks), guess who came out worst, and not just in terms of interruptions, from a discussion on the common fisheries policy out of this list of guests?
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- Isabella Lovin, a Swedish Green
- Ian Hudghton, SNP
- John Bufton, UKIP
- Kriton Arsenis, a Greek Socialist
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Yes, it was Mr Bufton.
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Whenever Shirin interviews someone from UKIP, as regular readers will know, the interruptions come thick and fast. John Bufton was on the receiving end of 9 interruptions (I.C.of 2.2). That said, the score against Mr Hudghton was pretty high too. This is the first time anyone from the SNP has appeared on the programme since I started reviewing it last autumn. He was interrupted 3 times (I.C. of 1.2). Like Mr Bufton, he's no fan of the common fisheries policy.
The attractive Swedish Green was only interrupted once and the Greek Socialist wasn't interrupted at all. Par for the course with this interviewer.
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With the interruptions comes rudeness. Shirin is, of course, often rude to Conservatives but she's even ruder towards UKIP. The first interruption - a contradiction - came 18 seconds into his first answer. The next - another contradiction - came 16 seconds later. Mr Bufton is very passionate about recreational sea-angling (as his blog makes clear) and tried to bring this into the discussion, but was cut off in full-flow so that Shirin could pass the conversation onto the Swedish Green. Mr Bufton quickly sneaked in another point during the hiatus, but was determined to return to and finish his point about recreational sea-angling. As soon as he intervened, Shirin crashed in with "Briefly. Don't go back to angling and spread-net fishing!!". He tried to do just that though, pointing out contradictions between what the new fisheries commissioner was saying to different audiences but had barely got going when Shirin descended like a very pretty ton of bricks on him, saying "OK , that's enough of that then John! Let me ask Isabella first of all though..." When he turned to the EU's morally questionable behaviour towards the fishing stocks of West Africa , speaking passionately again on a subject that clearly means a lot to him, Shirin squashed his flow again. He tried again, but was again interrupted with "You must presumably John, given that you represent fishing communities in Wales, now, you must be pleased as an elected representative, you now under the Lisbon Treaty have the power to actually represent those people in a meaningful way." (This rather misses the point of UKIP. UKIP wants to represent those people in a meaningful way by establishing full, independent UK control of our fisheries.) As soon as he began replying, "And I'll do that, of course I will", she interrupted again with "So you support that change under the Lisbon Treaty?" He began to make the point I was making (in parentheses) above but again was immediately interrupted with "But until you do (leave the EU), until you do, are you...?" He battled on to the end of his point before she could stop him again.
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The respectful way Shirin Wheeler treats representatives of the parties of the Left (except, it seems, the SNP) contracts so sharply with often rather disrespectful treatment of representatives of the parties of the Right remains one of the clearest cases of BBC bias on offer.
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