I made a complaint against the Today Programme yesterday morning - once again they did a round up of the prospects in the local elections covering Cons, Lab and LDs (7.25am). They then went on to the "small parties" and amazingly covered only the BNP telling us they had lots of councillors and will make gains. This is by no means the first time.Photo: early morning mist across Ruscombe fields
It is amazing that the BNP consistently seems to have more coverage and infect journalists - the Green Party and indeed others should be getting coverage beyond that of the BNP.
Greens certainly have more votes and more elected members than the BNP in more council chambers and in parliaments where the BNP have none. The BBC covering them in this way has the effect of encouraging them. They will have been delighted by this morning's broadcast - see a Green party view on BNP here. Come on BBC let's have some more responsible coverage of local elections.
Listen to most of slot here and make online complaint at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/contact/
The BBC telephone number is 08700 100 222 - their address is BBC Complaints, PO Box 1922, Glasgow, G2 3WT
4 comments:
See http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news541.htm
I have chosen to remove an anonymous comment this evening from this blog entry - it was for a link that contained racist comments. The link to a Sky elections commentator also pointed out that the share of BNP support is twice that of the green vote.
I would dispute their analysis - it depends on how you calculate - which seats you stand in etc - however waht is true is that last year, research carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust has suggested that up to 25% of people have thought about voting for the far-right party.
Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats say disillusionment with government institutions is to blame. This is deeply worrying. In the 2005 general election, the party raised its total number of votes by 0.5% to gain 0.7% - or 192,850 votes.
As Greens have been saying for a long while we need to restore local democracy and give powers back to communities - we have the most centralised democracy in the western world and parties like Labour and Tory that ignore what their own members are saying - year on year Labour members vote overwhelmingly for the renationalisation of railways yet Blair ignores and overrides party decisions - while at the same time the power ofd corporations grows - is it any wonder people get disillusioned when which ever party they vote for the Government gets in.
We need to take those who consider voting BNP seriously - they are disatisfied for a reason - sadly their analysis is wrong - see more in the report section of Glos Green party website:
http://www.glosgreenparty.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1406&Itemid=72
The BNP gets coverage, not because of its size or power, but because it is
nasty - that's it's unique selling point.
Maybe the complaints are working:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6549353.stm
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