The BBC have admitted their correction of Fiona Bruce's row with Diane Abbott on Question Time did not go far enough.
Labour complained after Ms Abbott was incorrectly challenged after claiming her party was “neck and neck” with the Tories in the polls.
Fiona Bruce and political pundit Isabel Oakeshott said Labour was behind in the polls – but in the last 10 at the time it has trailed the Tories in four, led in four and tied in two.
Correcting the claim on the show, Ms Abbott said: “Just as a point of information, currently we’re kind of, in the polls overall, we’re kind of level pegging”.
But Ms Bruce interjected “But you’re behind, Diane…Definitely”.
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On a subsequent episode, Ms Bruce clarified her comments.
She said: "I was talking about a poll that came out on the day of the programme which suggested the Conservatives were ahead.
"The Shadow Home Secretary mentioned some other earlier polls that showed Labour in the lead.
"We should have made that context clear and I'm really happy to do that now."
But after more than a dozen complaints from members of the public, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit have admitted the correction didn't go far enough.
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In a ruling published this week, the Corporation said: "Subsequent corrections on social media and on the BBC website “Corrections and Clarifications” page made clear that Ms Bruce had in mind a poll published on the morning of the programme which showed a Conservative lead (of 5%), while saying Ms Abbott was “also right” with reference to recent polling as a whole, and a correction by Ms Bruce in the 24 January edition of the programme echoed this.
"The ECU, while acknowledging these extensive efforts to set the record straight, took the view that the effect of Ms Bruce’s intervention went beyond generating confusion between different sets of polling data, suggesting that, contrary to what Ms Abbott had said, the overall data then current showed a definite Conservative lead, and that the corrections did not entirely rectify that impression."
But the broadcaster said they found no evidence to back up claims that Ms Abbott was treated unfairly in the warm-up to the show, where Ms Abbott claimed the audience were "wound up" against her.
The Broadcaster said: "The ECU found no grounds for the suggestion that the presenter, Fiona Bruce, had referred to Ms Abbott during the preliminaries to the recording in terms which were discriminatory or likely to prejudice the studio audience against her, and nothing to support the view that Ms Bruce’s conduct of the discussion was less than even-handed."
