Complaint
The programme included an interview with Robert Jenrick MP, the Treasury Spokesperson for Reform UK, at the party’s conference. He was asked initially to respond to questions about two senior party officials who had been recorded discussing ways in which people living outside the UK could bypass restrictions for donations to political parties. A listener complained that this line of questioning was inappropriate and indicative of bias against Reform UK, the issue having been put to Nigel Farage the previous day, and Reform UK’s economic policies being of more relevance to listeners that morning. The ECU considered the complaint in relation to the BBC’s editorial standards of impartiality.
Outcome
Decisions about which questions to ask politician are matters of editorial discretion, and do not by themselves raise a possible breach of standards. The ECU thought it a legitimate exercise of this discretion to put to Mr Jenrick an issue which remained significant, in the context of an interview which went on to question him about the party’s new policy on income tax, which would figure in the speech he was due to make
Not upheld