LET'S KICK UKIP... - Biased BBC

LET'S KICK UKIP...: "For an example of BBC bias at its sneery, snidey best, have a listen to The World This Weekend here - the relevant item is at about 35 minutes into the programme and is by a reporter called John Manel. His target was alleged flaws in UKIP's immigration policy. He claims basically that the party is so stupid that it doesn't know what it is doing. In order to set up his premise, he talks to a chap called Will Sommerville, who he describes as follows:

Will Sommerville has worked as a civil servant in the Cabinet Office on immigration, for the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, and for the Commission for Racial Equality. He is now a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, based in Washington DC.

Who better to give and independent view of UKIP policy? Mr Manel's next tack is to sneerily talk to party figures and he edits the whole sequence into something which - hey presto! - Mr Somerville then says won't work. And in a final twist of the tale of bias, Mr Manel frames his reporting to suggest that this particular UKIP member is so venal and naive that he won't apply the policy to his own family; in other words, that old chestnut - if all else fails throw in ad hominem attack, especially if it is on someone who the BBC perceives to be right-wing.

This was a particularly biased report aimed at showing that UKIP are stupid, nasty, xenophobic racists. That's the BBC's default approach to the party. In coverage of UKIP so far, the leopard hadn't shown his spots; but it was only a matter of time before reports like this surfaced.

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