FOR ROBIN, ENGLAND AND ST. GEORGE!

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I've been curious to see how the manifesto launch of the English Democrats would be covered today. The BBC are legally obliged to cover it, and they duly did:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8627185.stm
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The English Democrats regard themselves as the (non-left-wing) version of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, but English Nats are even less to the BBC's tastes than Scots Nats or Welsh Nats. You can see the truth of that from the perfunctory nature of the article, the way the BBC puts 'English interests' in inverted commas and the way they say "The party polled just over 250,000 votes at the European Parliament elections last June" when it in fact scored 279,801 votes, which is not "just" over 25o,ooo votes - indeed, it's more like "just under 300,0o0 votes".
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The BBC live election blog also gives the launch a mention, and uses quotation marks again to cast doubt on a particular word:
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1527: The English Democrats have launched their campaign at an event in Dartford, Kent. The party, which wants a parliament for England and a withdrawal from the European Union, is promising to be a "moderate" voice representing English interests. It says it will put up more than 100 candidates at the election.
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IT'S WINTER STILL FOR THE ENG DEMS

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Did anyone hear anything about the English Democrats' spring conference on the BBC? Both Today and the BBC News website reported those of the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, and Today featured interviews with their respective party leaders. There's been nothing equivalent for the Eng Dems. This despite them winning a similar number of votes in last year's European elections as the SNP and more than twice the number of Plaid. As they are being comprehensively ignored by the BBC (as far as I'm aware) you could probably guess that they are a right-of-centre political party!

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 - 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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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - THE NUMBER OF INTERVIEWS FOR EACH PARTY

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As this month contained the Conservative Party conference, the Tories got a lot more interviews than usual. This makes my usual totals for the month less valuable in their own right but, as promised last month (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/septembers-ics-number-of-interview-for.html) I shall then remedy that difficulty.
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Here, for the record then, are the figures for October alone:
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Labour - 134
Conservatives - 124
Liberal Democrats - 32
SNP - 11
UKIP - 4
DUP - 2
BNP - 2
Sinn Fein - 2
Green - 2
Plaid Cymru - 2
Alliance - 1
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Even with all coverage of the Conservative Party conference Labour still got the most invites to the BBC's studios!!
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Now, as promised, here comes the combined tally for September and October, covering the whole of the party conference season, which gives the truer picture:
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Labour - 259
Conservatives - 169
Liberal Democrats - 87
SNP - 15
UKIP - 7
Plaid Cymru - 4
DUP - 3
Greens - 3
UUP - 3
BNP -2
Sinn Fein - 2
Independents - 2
Alliance - 1
English Democrats - 1
SDLP - 1