STITCHED UP LIKE A U-KIPPER (Part 2)

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So how did The Politics Show deal with UKIP's Maddy Westrop? Remember what Maddy told us: "I don't know why they interviewed me yesterday and I don't know what they are going to edit me to be saying. Everything was deliberately confused and I felt manipulated...Really they had their own agenda."
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What was BBC reporter David Thompson up to? Let's compare how he introduced 'the others' in the Stourbridge election.
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"Will Duckworth's the Green candidate here, but get this...the Lib Dems have actually asked him to stand down." Cue Will's moment of glory, as he got his own back on the Lib Dems!
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"UKIP's Maddy Westrop thinks her old mate Nigel Farage was a bit too rude to the president of the European Council when he told him he looked like a low-grade bank clerk. Maddy's not afraid to speak her mind. " Cue Maddy, and her 14 seconds of airtime. (14 seconds!!)
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"And local businessman Alun Nicholas is standing as an independent." Cue Alun.
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Now we know what the BBC were up to. "They said Nigel F was rude", reported Maddy. David Thompson said that very thing in his introduction &, as Maddy so accurately put up, "manipulated her" into getting her to say what they wanted her to say - that Nigel Farage was rude. That is a fascinating insight into BBC bias (for which, thanks to Maddy!). Mr Thompson wanted to get at Nigel Farage and UKIP, and worked his socks off to get Maddy to say something he could use against them. Isn't that disgraceful?

Maddy said, "they also had me and the Green candidate right there (amicably) arguing about energy policy and they didn't want to record any of it. They don't want the public to know our policies at all. Our stance against global warming alarmism is a complete vote winner and we can't put it across."
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As Maddy also forewarned us, "then they wanted a shot of me and the Green guy and an independent candidate (with five aston martins and a bit of an attitude) to be filmed looking through a window at a party - excluded from the party they were having with the three big parties.
I refused. They got very stroppy and said I didn't understand television. I said I was married to a BBC journalist and did. I pointed out we came first in the election just a year a go and they are ignoring us and not allowing the electorate to know our policies. They want to make the story instead of finding it!" Seeing Thompson's silly film, with its party imagery, I am so glad Maddy scuppered it. Hence, perhaps, Thompson's snide and patronising "Maddy's not afraid to speak her mind."
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Maddy finished her e-mail "I have no idea what they will do with the footage they got. I suspect traps and distortions. Do tell everyone that they misled us and set us up for a fall."
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Yes. Yes they did.
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P.S. Next week the three 'main parties' get a final fling on the show. I make another prediction. David Thompson will mention that Margot James, the Conservative candidate in Stourbridge, is a millionaire.
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A DOWN-ER FOR THE TORIES

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The Politics Show's review of Conservative education policy (featuring Ed Balls) was followed by a report from North Down by David Thompson. There he found big trouble for the Conservatives. What a surprise? Hardly, he wouldn't have gone there otherwise.
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POLITICS SHOW 24/1/10

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Today's Politics Show featured an 8-minute-long, one-to-one interview between Jon Sopel and Harriet Harman (I.C. of 0.9), mirroring last week's 12-minute-long, one-to-one interview with Ed Balls. Poor Chris Grayling, however, had to share his interview with a critic of his policy, barrister Michael Wolkind, thus only getting 5 minutes of interview time (and an I.C. of 1),. This mirrored the fate of Nigel Farage last week, who had to share his interview with a critic of his policy, Salma Yaqoob of Respect. Is this a new trend? Mr Wolkind got away with not answering Jon Sopel's question about whether his client Munir Hussain favours a change in the law (unlike himself). He does, as does Mr Hussain's solicitor Razi Shah.
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Elsewhere there was an interesting report from David Thompson on the Conservative's 'free school' policy. The aim, as emphasized by David's commentary, was probably to highlight 'Tory splits' (a running theme in his reports for The Politics Show).
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Credit where credit is due though. Unlike Westminster Hour (see elsewhere), The Politics Show is (so far) being fair in its use of journalists to preview the week ahead. Last week it was Allegra Stratton of The Guardian. This week it was Julia Hartley-Brewer of The Sunday Express. A similar pattern was discernable towards the close of last year. I will (of course) be watching to see if this continues. (I will be listening to Westminster Hour too. Not even they would dare to feature yet another Guardianista-type tonight, surely.)
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JUST ONE BRICKBAT FOR 'THE POLITICS SHOW'

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Small-scale bloggers should never get big ideas about their influence, so I won't delude myself into believing that the makers of The Politics Show avidly read this blog each week, with trembling limbs, in anticipation of my latest damning verdict; but, indulging this delusion for just a moment, imagine that they do. Might that account for today's extraordinarily balanced Jon Sopel interviews with Liam Fox (Conservative) and Liam Byrne (Labour)? Almost identical interview times, an identical number of questions, an identical number of interruptions and identical I.C.s - a remarkable contrast to last week and the contrasting treatment of Yvette Cooper and Theresa May. Scrupulously fair then, with only the tiniest blemish when Sopel criticized Dr Fox for attacking Labour ("Yes, there are easy political points to be made there") but not Mr Byrne for attacking the Tories. This is how political interviewing should be - fair and unshowy. Would Sopel were like that more often!
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Alex Salmond got a slightly rougher ride (with four interruptions, I.C. of o.6), but I don't think he (or his opponents) would have much grounds for complaint here and I only note (as a minor quibble) that Colette McBeth's short introductory report featured only one 'talking head' - that of the-even-further-Left-than-Alex-Salmond nationalist Jim Sillars.
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Having Conservative blogger Iain Dale on at the end to discuss the coming week was also a further feather in the programme's cap.
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My only real reservations concern David Thompson's latest report from the Stourbridge constituency, more precisely the way the feature was trailed throughout the programme. This might have led the viewer to expect actual proof of criminal activity on the part of the Conservative candidate, whereas Labour allegations of 'treating' were, as sitting Labour MP Lynda Waltho made clear, 'questions' rather than 'accusations'. Ms Waltho was allowed her say, and the Conservative candidate Margot James was allowed hers. I have other reservations though - firstly about the way Jon Sopel introduced Margot as "millionaire businesswoman Margot James" (as happened last time she appeared) and, secondly, the way Labour's donations were presented as 'unglamorous' and largely collected not from the unions and rich donors but from volunteers through tombolas and garden parties - as if to show that Lynda Waltho is a true woman of the people, unlike the 'millionaire businesswoman Tory'.
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What was most heartening though was the results of a poll of young people (aged 14-24), carried out by the Citizenship Foundation, which showed how sensible they are in their opinions. Very interesting. I bet the results would have disappointed a fair few of the life-long lefties in the audience. Ha!*

A FAIRER 'POLITICS SHOW'

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As I always do a review of The Politics Show on Sunday afternoons, I can't really miss out on it this week, even when I've found only minor evidence of bias in it. That would be unfair of me.
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Today's The Politics Show was much better behaved. Indeed the Conservative interviewee, Mark Hoban (one of the party's least able TV performers), was only interrupted once (I.C. of 0.2) - though he was ambushed (like other recent Tory guests) with something personally embarrassing, which Jon Sopel admitted his team had dug around for (a quote over demutualisation, in this case). In contrast Labour's Lord Adonis was interrupted 13 times (I.C. of 2.1). The big interview though was with Nick Clegg. This was not especially tough, especially when the questions moved onto bankers' bonuses and the postal strike, and contained 8 interruptions (I.C. of 0.9).*
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Both the programme's reports were about the Conservatives. I've seen much worse (many, many times) on the BBC.
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The first was about Boris's plans for an airport in the Thames Estuary, and the pros and cons were well discussed by David Thompson (and his various Conservative talking heads) - once we got beyond all the 'Fantasy Island' nonsense. Of course, the issue of Tory splits was doubtless in the minds of the programme's makers - and Lord Adonis praised the report for clearly showing just that! - and the 'Boris-is-an-idiot' element was probably also in their minds - and Lord Adonis also praised the report for clearing showing just what a daft idea it was! - but, contrary to the appreciative Lord Adonis, I didn't find it especially biased against the Conservatives, nor particularly unfair to Boris's big idea. Fair dues.
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The second report was decent enough too. It looked at Conservative-run Essex County Council's intriguing plans to share many of its key responsibilities with private companies. Now yes, Jon Sopel's introduction was a little loaded in its language ("Essex Council calls it 'transformation', others see it as the effective privatisation of the council itself") and reporter Gillian Hargreaves's questions to the council leader Lord Hanningfield did seem to have the agenda of highlighting resultant job losses ("And how many will be working directly for you?", "So it would go from 7000 workers down to about 3500 directly employed by the council?"), but each side of the argument was heard. Saying that though, to each of Lord Hanningfield's two bites of the 'talking head' cherry, there were also two bites from a skeptical Tony Travers of the LSE, as well as a hostile bite from Heather Wakefield of the Silurian-era union UNISON. Still, as I say, I've seen much worse, many, many times, on the BBC.
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ANOTHER "VERY, VERY RICH TORY"?

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Last week's Politics Show featured the Labour MP for Stourbridge, as part of its ongoing report on the constituency in the run-up to the general election. Presenter David Thompson gathered together a group of former Labour supporters to talk to her. My post at the time make this point: "We'll see if next week, when it should be the Tory candidate's turn, he gets to talk to former Tory voters."
http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/09/age-of-stupid.html

Well, it turned out to be a 'she' rather than a 'he', but the answer was 'no'. Margot James was introduced to bikers from Stourbridge Motorcycle Club, some of whom (Thompson said) "work in the public sector". Well, it was interesting anyhow.

The naughty bit came in Thompson's scene-setting, where (following the trend of the day) he said that Margot lives "in one of the nice parts of Stourbridge" and went on to call her a "wealthy would-be Tory MP".
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As for the rest of the Politics Show, there was one of those rare BBC interviews with Nigel Farage, in which he got in a good complaint about the Beeb's treatment of UKIP during the Norwich North by-election. It contained 5 interruptions (though curiously not when Jon Sopel asked him a vague question about what he made of the Conservatives' position on the Lisbon Treaty, giving him a chance to attack the common enemy!) and earned Sopel another high centre-right I.C. of 1.2.

Then there came a dual interview with Eric Pickles and David Miliband. This was evenly-balanced, if only because Mr Pickles took firm action against Sopel, shaming him into not interrupting any more. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting you again?", he said drily. Prior to this exasperated comment, Sopel had been interrupting him with a vengeance in that over-excited way of his (which reminds me of a puppet whose strings are being pulled by a drunk). Good on Eric Pickles!