THE MOST SUPER OF ALL THE SUPER-AVERAGES

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So far, since beginning my survey in June this year, I've reviewed 1129 BBC interviews with UK politicians. This allows me to extend the super-average principle to all these interviews & get a single measure of bias for each political party for the last 5 months. (See my previous posts for all the thinking behind this!).
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The results are revealing - and not a little damning. Remember that the more interviews I've surveyed for each political party the firmer the evidence (so the figures for Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are very firm, and those for UKIP, the Greens and, above all, the SNP pretty compelling!). I think Lord Pearson will be very interested in which party is the most-interrupted of all!!:
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UKIP (12 interviews) - 0.90
Plaid Cymru (6 interviews) - 0.88
Conservatives (312 interviews) - 0.84
English Democrats (1 interview) - 0.8
SNP (39 interviews) - 0.76
Sinn Fein (2 interviews) - 0.75
BNP (4 interviews) - 0.65
Labour (557 interviews) - 0.57
Liberal Democrats (167 interviews) - 0.41
DUP (3 interviews) - 0.27
Greens (9 interviews) - 0.24
UUP (1 interview) - 0
Alliance (1 interview) - 0
SDLP (1 interview) - 0
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I think I'm on pretty safe ground in suspecting that many right-of-centre readers (and not a few nationalists, of every stripe) will have known already in their guts that these might be the sort of results that a scientific study of BBC interviews would produce. This provides objective proof for such gut feelings. I intend to carry on doing just what I've been doing all the way up to the general election - and, maybe, beyond.
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I will, as usual, be looking at each interviewer in turn over the coming days. Who will be a saint, and who a sinner? Who will be October's King (or Queen) of Bias?
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - SUPER-AVERAGE I.C.s

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My favourite measure of bias across the Beeb is the super-average interruption coefficient - which is calculated very simply by adding up all the individual I.C.s for each party & then dividing them by the number of interviewed granted to each party that month. As with all statistics, the larger the sample, the better the result (with the consequence that the Sinn Fein figure, based on 2 interviews, is probably not typical!) - and more significant any differences (hence the increase of the I.C. to 2 decimal places).
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Here is how things worked out in October 09:
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Conservatives (124 interviews) - 0.87
Sinn Fein (2 interviews) - 0.75
SNP (11 interviews) - 0.65
UKIP (4 interviews) - 0.60
Labour (134 interviews) - 0.54
BNP (2 interviews) - 0.50
Greens (2 interviews) - 0.45
Liberal Democrats (32 interviews) - 0.37
Plaid Cymru (2 interviews) - 0.35
DUP (2 interviews) - 0.15
Alliance (1 interview) - 0
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Now here's some strong statistical evidence that the BBC, as a whole, is significantly more likely to interrupt a Conservative spokesman than a Labour spokesman, not to mention a Lib Dem.
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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With the BBC's coverage of the Conservative Party conference an unprecedented thing happened in October - the Conservatives got more air-time than Labour! Last month they came third behind the Liberal Democrats (whose party conference it was then). As I posted then, this distorts matters (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/septembers-ics-airtime-percentages.html) - distortion ironed out by combining October's figures with September's (the party conference season). This I shall do, as promised.
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But first, here's this month's figures, complete with the actual amounts of interview time granted to each party:
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Conservatives - 10 hours 51 minutes 29 seconds, 43.20%
Labour - 10 hours 42 minutes 41 seconds, 42.61%
Liberal Democrats - 1 hour 45 minutes 39 seconds, 6.99%
SNP - 1 hour 0 minutes 22 seconds, 3.99%
UKIP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.74%
DUP - 9 minutes 2 seconds, 0.60%
BNP - 8 minutes 8 seconds, 0.54%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.41%
Greens - 5 minutes 20 seconds, 0.34%
Alliance - 3 minutes 26 seconds, 0.22%
Plaid Cymru - 3 minutes 16 seconds, 0.21%
UUP - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.15%
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Now for the combined figures for September/October:
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Labour - 23 hours 7 minutes 58 seconds, 51.01%
Conservatives - 13 hours 43 minutes 30 seconds, 30.26%
Liberal Democrats - 5 hours 50 minutes 49 seconds, 12.88%
SNP - 1 hour 19 minutes 57 seconds, 2.92%
UKIP - 22 minutes 9 seconds, 0.81%
DUP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.41%
Plaid Cymru - 10 minutes 50 seconds, 0.39%
Greens - 8 minutes 11 seconds, 0.30%
BNP - 8 minutes 6 seconds, 0.29%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.23%
Independents - 5 minutes 16 seconds, 0.19%
UUP - 4 minutes 54 seconds, 0.17%
English Democrats - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.08%
SDLP - 1 minute 56 seconds, 0.06%
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So, despite the Conservative Party conference, Labour continues the rule the BBC's airwaves, with a majority of the corporation's interview time.
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Click on the label for 'Air Time' and you'll see that this is par for the course.
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DIZZY THINKS...

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On the subject of the BNP and Question Time, I think this is all that really needs saying:
http://dizzythinks.net/2009/10/sanity-has-left-building-bring-it-back.html#idc-container
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AUGUST'S I.C.s - NUMBER OF PARTY APPEARANCES

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Who got the invites in August 2009? There were 164 interviews with UK politicians.

Labour - 80
Conservatives - 39
Liberal Democrats - 27
SNP - 14
Green - 1
Independent - 1
UKIP - 1
Plaid Cymru - 1
BNP - 0

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE THE BNP?

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'The World Tonight' featured a report on how some folk singers are furious that their songs are being used by the British National Party. Understandably so.

Ritula Shah's introduction to the report told us that the BNP had adopted the songs in support of 'its right-wing cause'. Paul Moss's report (which, thankfully, stuck to the label 'far-right' rather than just 'right-wing') featured anti-BNP comments from three singers from the newly-formed Folk Against Fascism, as well as a spokesman for the anti-Fascist organisation Searchlight. In the interests of balance though, it featured a very short interview with a BNP spokesman, John Walker, but the party's right-to-reply lasted all of 24 seconds in a segment that lasted 6 minutes 12 seconds - and was well-challenged by Mr Moss himself. The report's whole tone was strongly biased against the BNP.

Shouldn't it be?

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The now democratically-elected BNP poses serious ethical and practical problems for all democrats and for all supporters of free-speech - and, of course, for the BBC. How should it treat such a party?

Should it completely ignore them and, so, starve them of the oxygen of publicity? This would surely be a dangerous call in a democracy, especially against a democratically-elected political party. To do so might succeed in starving the BNP or it could, instead, only serve to increase the party's sense of 'martyrdom' (which it seems to get a kick out of) and also give it a mystique that might make it seem even more like the anti-establishment party for the floating protest-voter.

The BBC could instead deny them air-time but discuss them at length. This appears to have been the BBC's general policy in the run-up to June's elections. By not allowing viewers to hear directly from the BNP but still talking about them (negatively) on programme after programme (in interview after interview with spokesmen for the then scandal-hit major political parties) , playing-up the danger they posed and hyping the share-of-the-vote they could get in a worst-case scenario, a strong case can be made (I think) that the BBC helped boost the BNP's share of the vote in those elections (which, otherwise, might have been even smaller than it turned out to be).

So should the BBC treat the BNP as a 'normal' political party, so that voters can see exactly how weird these blood-obsessed people really are? The Big Questions (with 'Nicky' Campbell) featured a discussion on this very subject which, by giving them air-time - if only to discuss whether they should be given air-time at all! -, allowed viewers to hear what these people actually believe. It was revelatory. Someone on the panel who started out saying that the BNP should never be given a platform ended up agreeing that by allowing them such a platform voters were now able to hear just what strange, seriously disturbing people they are - with views to match. This gave the license-fee paying public a very rare and very valuable glimpse behind the respectable image the BNP seeks to present. If people hear it straight from the horse's mouth, they are likely to 'see it' more than when they are forced just to take it on trust.

Similarly gorgeous Shirin Wheeler's interview with Nick Griffin (for the Record: Europe) allowed viewers to hear the BNP leader say that he wants boats carrying African illegal immigrants sunk and a raft chucked in for them to paddle their way back to Libya. (What a shit!) Surely this proves that it's better for voters to see and hear directly what Griffin and Co. say, so that they can damn themselves out of their own mouths.

The BBC should, I think, take the Voltaire line on free-speech, except when it goes beyond the law (and we should be ultra-cautious about restrictive laws in this area). Offensiveness should not be censored, except when physically-dangerous consequences are likely flow from it. Let's hear from all the neo-Nazis, the Islamic extremists, the anarchists and the spokemen for every other kind of unpopular 'righteous' cause. Let's hear them and let's judge them for ourselves.

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This balance is always a tricky one, of course. I envy no-one who has to work it out!

'SUPER STATISTICS' - THE KEY TO PROVING THAT THE BBC IS BIASED?

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It just dawned on me today that I could add up all the interruption coefficients accrued by each political party and work out an average I.C. - a 'super-average' - for that party across the BBC's output throughout July.

Now, a strong health warning is necessary here:

With all statistics, the larger the sample the better the result. If you ask one person in the street his opinion on something & then generalise from that you are, obviously, making a biiiiiiggg mistake (as Robert Peston might say). Similarly, if the average is based on just one interview (as in the BNP and Plaid Cymru examples featured below) or two (as in the case of UKIP) or even four (as with the Greens) or six (as with the SNP), the result is not to be taken toooo seriously - though with each increase the result becomes stronger. With a large sample (as for the Liberal Democrats), a larger sample (as for the Conservatives) or with a very large sample (as for the Labour Party), the results become much more convincing and revealing. I believe that the figures below are already of some importance in demonstrating the BBC's bias towards the Labour Party and (even more so) the Liberal Democrats and against the Conservative Party.

So, with those riders firmly borne in mind, here are the 'super-average' I.C.s for the BBC as a whole for July 2009:

Plaid Cymru - 2.3
UKIP - 1.7
BNP - 1.1
SNP - 1.0
Conservatives - 0.9
Labour - 0.5
Liberal Democrats - 0.3
Greens - 0.1

With each passing month these 'super-statistics' will become ever more telling. If such a trend is confirmed the BBC will be proved to be biased. Conversely, of course, if they are not it won't. Watch and see!

JULY'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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The dominance of the BBC's airwaves by the Labour Party, which this blog highlighted in June, continued in July (and even slightly increased).

While accepting that the governing party is likely to be questioned more than opposition parties - and rightly so! - the sheer scale of Labour's dominance is unhealthy for democracy.

Also unhealthy is the relagation of UKIP, the second party in the European elections (16.5%), to 7th place on this list - behind the Greens, the SNP and even the BNP. Only Plaid Cymru came off worse. This is an outrage!!

Here then are the damning percentages:

Labour - 60.92%
Conservatives - 24.08%
Lib Dems - 10.82%
SNP - 2.08%
Greens - 0.82%
BNP - 0.76%
UKIP - 0.32%
Plaid Cymru - 0.22%

JULY'S I.C.s - NUMBER OF PARTY APPEARANCES

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Of the 254 interviews covered, here's the breakdown of each political party's number of July appearances:
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BNP - 1
Plaid Cymru - 1
UKIP - 2
Greens - 4
SNP - 6
Lib Dems - 36
Conservatives - 64
Labour - 140

JULY I.C.s - ANDREW MARR

Andrew Marr is unquestionably biased. Click on the label Marr and you will find several proofs of this on this blog. The man is, to my mind, a disgraceful interviewer. What about his I.C.s? Do they offer further proof?

Marr interviewed 11 politicians in July. Here are his I.C.s:

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George Osborne, Conservative (19/7) - 1.3

Nick Griffin, BNP (12/7) - 1.1

David Cameron, Conservative (26/7) - 0.9

Ed Miliband, Labour (12/7) - 0.9

David Miliband, Labour (5/7) - 0.8

Alistair Darling, Labour (26/7) - 0.6

John Hutton, Labour (5/7) - 0.5

John Major, Conservative (5/7) - 0.5

Alan Johnson, Labour (19/7) - 0.5

Tom King, Conservative (12/7) - 0

Helena Kennedy, Labour (19/7) - 0

Because of gentle interview with old-timer Tories, Marr's averages are unexpectedly close between the government and the main opposition:

Average number of interruptions per political party

BNP - 1.1
Conservatives - 0.7

Labour - 0.6

Marr's June figures are also close, with Michael Gove (Conservative) coming off worst (2.4), but not much worse than Labour (average 2.1) and even the Lib Dems (1.8).

The I.C.s do not prove strong left-wing bias by Andrew Marr. Everything else does.