THE BBC has been panned after ruling that its Scottish branch did not breach impartiality rules by having a “Labour-majority panel” for Debate Night on the eve of a crucial by-election.
The BBC hosted a “Glasgow Special” episode of the show on the night of June 4 – a day before voters were set to go to the polls for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election.
The panel show featured the SNP’s Glasgow Council leader Susan Aitken, Scottish Tory MSP Annie Wells, Scottish Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, Labour peer Willie Haughey and artist David Eustace.
An SNP source at the time told The National that Debate Night appears to have “thrown the BBC's proposed guidance on balance out of the window” by including two Labour representatives.
This was before we subsequently revealed that Eustace also appears to be a prominent Scottish Labour supporter.
The Glasgow Greens submitted a formal complaint to the BBC, highlighting that it has far more elected representatives than the Tories – for example – and branding it a “farce”.
Now, the BBC have also responded to the complaint and argued that the panel makeup didn’t breach its impartiality guidelines.
“While the composition of the panel would have been inappropriate for an item governed by the BBC’s election guidelines, these apply in the case of by-elections only to coverage of the by-election itself or the constituency in which it is taking place,” the organisation’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) ruled.
“The item in question was unconnected with the impending by-election, and focused on the future regeneration of Glasgow, a topic on which (as the ensuing discussion illustrated) there is a large measure of cross-party agreement.”
The statement added: “The ECU considered the composition of the panel appropriate to the circumstances and found no breach of the BBC’s standards of impartiality.”
This was a point that Glasgow Greens councillor Anthony Carroll (above) still took issue with, branding the decision “farcical”.
“Even by the BBC’s standards, this was a panel that was not representative of Glasgow. The Greens came 3rd in every constituency just last year, and the 3rd largest party in the council with 11 councillors – having just won a by-election last year for our party's first time ever,” he said.
"And yet the BBC think a panel of two Labour representatives and a supporter of that party is somehow representative of the city, but it's clearly not. If the BBC wants to be representative of Glasgow’s politics then Green voices must be included in these debates.”
An SNP source, meanwhile, said: “It is absurd to claim that a panel has been impartial when it included two politicians from the same party.
“The BBC must make clear what steps it will now take to rectify this situation for future programmes.”
The ECU did rule, however, that it has breached its standards of accuracy by not making it clear that Haughey – as well as a Labour donor – is a Labour peer.
The Scottish Labour candidate, Davy Russell, ultimately won the Hamilton by-election by a little over 600 votes with the SNP’s Katy Loudon coming second.
