BBC Selected Anti-UKIP Londoners for Election Debate

[Teddy Bear]

I didn't watch this debate, it's all so predictable. So no surprise to read that the audience selected by the BBC would be predominantly left wing, just like the Question Time audience. I've been watching Question Time from London now, and it's clear that very few of them support statements by UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, while heavy applause for any rubbish spouted by the left.

If anybody believes that any left wing bias shown by the BBC is unconscious they are deluding themselves. It is completely conscious, insidious, and downright evil.

DEBATE WRAP-UP: TORY BACKS FARAGE IN BBC BIAS ROW, CORPORATION SELECTED ANTI-UKIP LONDONERS

by ANDRE WALKER

The Tory treasury minister, Andrea Leadsom, has accused the BBC of bias over the selection of the audience at the opposition leaders’ TV debate. Nigel Farage was widely booed and heckled from an audience that the BBC conceded was “mostly” from the anti-UKIP London region.

Throughout the final televised showdown the other four party leaders ganged up on Farage. Each took it in turns to attack the UKIP leader. Ed Miliband suggested that UKIP wanted to sell the National Health Service and move to an insurance scheme. Leanne Wood from Plaid Cymru was cheered for describing Farage as “my friend on the far right.”

She then told him he had “no right” to complain about being “abused” by the audience after his comments on HIV. At the last debate Farage had pointed out that large numbers of those receiving treatment for HIV were born overseas, which he claimed put pressure on the NHS.

Not that Farage was always forced on the defensive.

During a heated exchange over the shortage of affordable housing in the UK, the UKIP leader said that “even by the standards of the BBC”, the audience was too left-wing.

He said: “There is a total lack of comprehension amongst this panel and the audience, which is a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC.”

The UKIP leader was jeered as he was told by Ed Miliband that it was not a good idea to “insult the audience”, who had been selected by an independent polling firm.

Mr Farage responded: “The real audience is sitting at home.”

The chairman of the debate, David Dimbleby, was forced to defend the BBCs selection of the audience. He claimed the room had been put together by “an independent polling company” who had “selected a representative audience”.

During the debate UKIP released a document from the BBC that cast doubt on the claim that the audience was unbiased. The document said: “There will be a live audience selected by a reputable polling company mainly from the surrounding region.” The region the programme was filmed in was London, a traditionally poor area from UKIP. The party has just one MEP in London.

Restanding Tory minister Andrea Leadsom took to Twitter to claim the BBC was guilty of bias: “Appalling left wing bias in BBC audience – not reflecting views of the country. Easy to applaud spending money – shame we don’t have any.”

After the debate, a UKIP spokesman told Breitbart London: “You could tell from the outset that the audience was not balanced – nor had we expected it to be.

“The BBC has a dreadful track record of doing this, as we repeatedly see from their flagship Question Time programme each week. But as Nigel Farage said the real audience was the one sitting at home, and it is one which, like in the last debate, Nigel will have connected with at a personal level.”

UKIP National Executive Committee Member, Cllr Tom Bursnall, was less conciliatory. He said: “The BBC invented a new political blood sport, the panel consisted of four neo-Marxists and then Nigel.

“Ironically, by trying to dismiss the allegation of the left wing bias of the audience, Dimbleby merely reinforced the BBC’s insanity.”

Neither David Cameron or Nick Clegg took part in the debate.

[thehighlandrebel]

Looking around the blogs it's clear that al-Beebs bias has worked in UKIP's favour.
However, it's good to see BBC bias getting an airing on a national broadcast which will reinforce many peoples inklings about the bias but were wondering about the silence over it.

[Teddy Bear]

I agree THR.
Listening to LBC this morning with Nick Ferrari on the subject and many callers were confirming Farage's view. Most of these recognised this bias already from programmes like Question Time and sounded really angry about it, and rightfully so.

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC were doing their best to maintain that the audience selected for last night's debate were balanced according to the percentage of voters, but were refusing to state what those alleged figures were.

Well somebody must have applied pressure, as later this afternoon they submitted the figures of those chosen for the audience, which probably match those chosen for any given Question Time or Any Questions, and it shows a clear distortion as the article below shows.

You will have noticed all the left wingers demonising Farage for 'attacking' the audience. What he actually did was something I could wish ALL politicians would do regularly and speak their mind when there is clearly something wrong.

Ukip says BBC 'exposed' over left-wing debate audience
Figures released by BBC show that only 58 members of the audience were Conservative or Ukip supporters compared with about 102 who supported left-leaning parties

By Emily Gosden, Steven Swinford and Christopher Hope

Nigel Farage has claimed the BBC has been “exposed” after it was forced to admit that nearly twice as many members of the studio audience for the Challengers’ Debate were "left-wing" as were Conservative or Ukip supporters.

The Ukip leader was booed during Thursday night’s debate after claiming it was a “remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC”.
He added on Friday that it was "completely obvious that we did not have an audience reflective of public opinion" and insisted: "I didn't lose my rag."

The BBC initially refused to disclose the political make-up of the audience but eventually released figures on Friday afternoon.
They showed that, of the 200-strong audience, about 58 were Conservative or Ukip supporters while about 102 supported left-leaning parties - Labour, the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru or the SNP – and the rest were undecided.

Mr Farage said: "If you were to put Ukip and the Conservatives on the centre-right in current opinion polls, we are on about 49 per cent between us. If the audience make-up didn't reflect that then it's wrong.”

He added: “There was a whole feel to the thing that frankly it wasn't as it was intended to be. It just exposes them [the BBC] and firms up the views of people watching it. I would say it's nul points for the BBC."

Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative health secretary, also questioned the audience make-up, saying: “The need to do something about immigration is something where Nigel Farage was more in touch with the British public than perhaps the studio audience were.”

The BBC said that all broadcasters and political parties involved in this year’s live TV debates had agreed for an independent polling organisation to select the audience. The BBC used ICM and “set out clear objectives to ensure there [was] a broad range of political preferences”.

A spokesman said: “We asked the polling company to work to proportions which take account of a number of factors in recruiting the audience – in other words, recent polling figures are only part of the equation. We also look at past electoral support, as well as the different party political make-up in different parts of the UK.”

About 20 per cent of the audience were undecided. Of those who were decided there were five Conservative voters for every five Labour, four Lib Dem, three Ukip, two SNP, two Green and one Plaid Cymru voter, the BBC said.

An ITV spokesman said the audience for its seven-way debate reflected the same proportions.
James Harding, head of news and current affairs at the BBC, said that the booing of Nigel Farage reflected the audience getting “really engaged”.

Thursday night's debate averaged 4.27 million viewers between 8pm and 9.30pm, according to data from Attentional - down from the 7 million that watched the seven-way leaders debate on ITV.

[Teddy Bear]

I see this article in the Telegraph expounds on a similar view to my own.
I noticed too the BBC using 'the worm', referred to in the article below, to prove on the 10 o'clock news that Farage had blundered with his outburst daring to reproach the reputation of the fair and impartial BBC. There again though the BBC only claimed that the undecided voters used for their model were a balanced ratio without saying how they knew that.

Nigel Farage is not interested in pleasing a BBC audience
Ukip doesn't need to convince people who will never vote for them that Nigel's a nice guy. It needs people in South Thanet to vote for him

By Iain Martin

One of the worst innovations in the televised leaders' debates is the introduction of , the line across the bottom of the screen that tells the viewer what a panel of undecided voters thinks of what is going on in the debate at that moment. If you watched last night's clash featuring Ed Miliband and the smaller parties on the BBC News Channel, you will have seen a moving line across the bottom of the screen. It is the result of 60 voters sitting in a room pressing buttons to indicate how they feel about what they are seeing.

Outside that room, the worm does funny things to the judgment of otherwise intelligent and sophisticated people. They focus on it and on social media start to talk about the worm as though it matters: "Ooh, the worm didn't like that from Farage."

So it is that when Nicola Sturgeon says that everything should be free because her obsession with spending other people's money proves her moral virtue and superiority, the worm shows a huge surge of approval. A lot of undecided voters like to hear that everything should be free.
And then Nigel Farage criticises the audience (which didn't seem particularly reflective of public opinion) and calls for immigration controls. The worm plunges through the floor.
See, say a lot of media people watching, Farage got found out. The worm and the audience hated him. Disaster for Farage.

Wrong! That is not how debates work and Farage knew exactly what he was doing. He was targeting the Ukip base in the country, which thinks that the media and political class run a restrictive racket aimed at liberal voters. Being booed for speaking out suits Farage perfectly, because it reminds his voters that their good old Nige is the only one prepared to stick it to the smug lefties and politically correct types. You don't have to endorse that view to see the strategic sense in Farage's approach.

That the overwhelming bulk of audience on the night, or 85 per cent of the electorate in the country, is ‎against Ukip is not a revelation to Farage. He knows that his hopes rest on motivating the 15 per cent he can reach who don't dislike him. The killer picture from last night's debate (below) with the three Left-wing parties crowding around Miliband made Farage's point for him.

The Ukip vote always was going to come down during the campaign, as it turns into a Labour/Tory fight. The question is where the Ukip vote lands. There is a massive difference between the party closing on 6 per cent (about two million votes) and 9-10 per cent (in the region of three million votes.) Farage is fighting hard to stop too many of his 15 per cent drifting back to the two main parties. That's why he has to make an impact, and remind them why they were attracted to anti-immigration Ukip in the first place.

He will also hope that presenting himself as the doughty outsider and insurgent helps him in South Thanet, where he has to win a seat. If he fails, his leadership is over. That contest in Kent is turning into one of the defining struggles of the election.

Of course, there was a time when the Ukip leadership thought it might be able to reach out beyond that core of 15. After it won two by-elections, there was excited talk of it pushing up into the low twenties and becoming a much bigger force. It didn't happen and Farage knows this, which is why he is focused on his base. You might not like him, but he is not an idiot. ‎ What he did last night was perfectly sensible politics.

[thehighlandrebel]

al-Beeb has finally admitted what the rest of the country already knew.

www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/18/bbc-admit-hand-picked-audience-was-left-leaning/

[Teddy Bear]

Good Spot THR
I see also that their 'independent polling company' that they use to select the audience have been dramatically wrong previously in a similar bias as shown here. But the BBC don;t mind them being wrong when the 'error' goes the way the BBC prefer it.

Scum pretending to be honest, but the stain they leave is getting more and more noticeable by the public.

BBC Admit ‘Hand-Picked Audience’ Was Left Leaning

by A.B. Sanderson
The BBC has confirmed that the hand-picked audience for the opposition leaders’ debate was left leaning, despite claiming otherwise live on air.

Out of all the audience members who had declared a party allegiance, only three marked themselves down as UKIP out of a total of 22.

With five selected to represent the Conservatives, that means at best 36 per cent – just over a third – put their ideology as right-of-centre.

After persistent quizzing, the Daily Express managed to get the BBC and ICM to reveal how the audience members were chosen. It confirms that Nigel Farage was correct when he said those present at Westminster Central Hall were “a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC.”

Chairman David Dimbleby denied that claim. He said: “This is an audience that has been carefully chosen not by the BBC, but by an independent polling organisation to represent the balance between all parties.”

The audience was narrowed down to five supporters each for Labour and the Tories, four for the Liberal Democrats, three for UKIP, two each for the SNP and Greens and one for Plaid. In addition, one fifth of the audience was made up of ‘undecided voters’ from within a certain radius around Westminster.

This is not the first time the methodology of ICM, the polling company used by the BBC, has been challenged.

Before the 2013 county council elections, which were considered the break through for UKIP, ICM had the party at nine per cent. Weeks later it romped home with an average of 26 per cent of the vote where it fielded candidates.

And ahead of the European Elections, where UKIP were the decisive victors, ICM had the party on 11 per cent support; less than half of what they polled a month later.

Farage’s attack on the audience came after he was booed for his views on immigration.

Labour leader Ed Miliband told the UKIP leader, “It’s never a great idea to attack the audience, Nigel, in my opinion.” Farage replied “The real audience are sitting at home.”

However, statistics by Survation for the Daily Mirror after the debate showed the Conservatives did the best out of the night by not taking part, rising four percentage points, and of those present only Farage increased his party’s popularity, going up one point to 17 per cent.

Speaking after the findings, the UKIP leader said: “Sometimes these things go wrong, sometimes you get groups who apply to be on programmes who perhaps aren’t as truthful on their applications as they could be.

“In this case, the BBC gave the job to a polling company called ICM who are famous for getting everything about Ukip wrong and that I think was the mistake.”

And he told Breitbart London, “ICM got us wrong in 2013, wrong in 2014 and they’ve got us wrong again in 2015. The BBC needs to use a polling company with a better track record.”

“The night of the by-election that Douglas Carswell won in Clacton with a landslide, there was a Ukip representative – Patrick O’Flynn – on Question Time in Clacton and the audience were deeply hostile to him,” he added.

A spokesman from the BBC said: “All the broadcasters and the political parties agreed that the appropriate way to recruit audiences for debates was to ask a respected independent polling organisation to do the job on our behalf.

“That was the case for all the debates in 2010, for the Clegg/Farage debates last year, as well as for both the debates during this campaign – ICM has an established track record of recruiting the audiences for all these debates.”

ICM defended its recruitment process, saying it was “premised on orthodox random location selection techniques.”

It said 30 geographical areas were selected within a 20-mile radius of the venue, as well as a small number of SNP and Plaid Cymru supporters from Scotland and Wales.

[dance2drop]

I must be slipping ! No posts for a while, but I have been a little under the weather. However last week's political debate hosted by David Dimbleby got me going AGAIN !

One thing started me off was Nigel Farage making a quip about a left wing audience, to which DD replied "the audience has been picked by an independent board " Yes, probably an independent left wing board. Nigel didn't get much applause from the audience (hardly surprising)and sometimes got booed.

At the end, Sturgeon and the Welsh lady (sorry love forgot your name isn't it) shook hands - totally ignored Nigel. Seeing those daughters of Satan shaking hands with the gullible audience made made me reach for the sick bucket.

Today, although I haven't read about it - Ed Milliband has been hauled over the coals for a remark about Libya. Well, at least Nigel will be left alone until the next time

[Teddy Bear]

Good to see you Dance, and I trust you're feeling better now. It seems the BBC is making sure your blood pressure is raised

I doubt very much if the BBC will be hauling Miliband over any coals, regardless of how much he might deserve it.

[Teddy Bear]

My admiration for UKIP increases.

UKIP SUPPORTERS SPEAKING OUT AFTER BBC AUDIENCE BIAS REVEALED

by A.B. SANDERSON

UKIP supporters are getting their own back on BBC officials who use questionable polling to limit the number of the party’s supporters who appear in the audience on political programmes.

Following the leaders’ debates where Nigel Farage called the studio audience “pretty left wing even by the standards of the BBC” UKIP supporters have made a concerted effort to even out the balance.

It was clearly on display at a recording of a special Question Time programme for BBC Look North to be broadcast tonight. Statistics seen by Breitbart London showed the ‘independently selected’ audience included only four declared members of UKIP – the same number as the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats who are polling about a third and a half of Farage’s party respectively.

But as the debate got going, those who had been dwarfed by the pro-European arguments made themselves known, putting forward coherent arguments on trade and jobs that panellists including Labour’s Diana Johnson failed to counter.

Answering a question on whether the general public was well enough informed about the EU to make a decision on British membership of the EU, she said, “why would the EU give us beneficial trade deals if we weren’t members?”

She was challenged by an audience member who tried to explain that Britain had been trading with the world for hundreds of years before the creation of the European Union and would be able to engage in global trade should the country leave the EU.

And one also spoke out, saying that the N in NHS stood for National, not International Health Service in stark contrast to the reaction Farage received when he tried to make the argument previously where Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood told him he “should be ashamed of himself.”

The breakdown of the 35 people selected included nine from Labour and the Conservatives, two undecided and two non voters. The latest poll puts UKIP on 15 per cent, the Lib Dems on 7 per cent and the Greens on five.

In an email, the BBC defended the make up of the audience saying:’We have built the majority of the audience ourselves and asked for top-up from the same company which the BBC uses for Question Time and which enjoys a very high reputation.

“So far, provided everyone who we have invited turns up, we have 9 Labour, 9 Conservative, 4 UKIP, 4 Libdems, 4 Greens, 2, Undecided and 2 non voters.

“They will be spread in age range from students to retired, their social make-up stretches from Headteacher through small business owner, life coach, consultant surgeon and Charity worker (to give just a few examples). Geographically they will stretch from such places as Hull, Skegness, Boston, Gainsborough, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln.”

The party’s campaign manager in the region replied saying he was “not sure this is something I can work with.

“I was hoping we would have something that more accurately represented the polls. To have four greens, who are dwarfed by both UKIP and the Lib Dems is not representative at all. I trust something can be done about this.”