Lib Dem Leader Meets BBC Boss To Complain About Level Of Reform Coverage
Ed Davey leaving BBC offices (Credit: Alamy/NurPhoto SRL)
3 min read
Exclusive: Ed Davey has met with BBC boss Tim Davie to complain about the broadcaster’s coverage, which the Liberal Democrats claim is weighted too heavily in Reform UK’s favour.
The Liberal Democrat leader met Davie in Parliament in June to convey the party’s “frustration” over its allotted coverage, PoliticsHome understands.
With 72 MPs in Westminster, the party has now been given 13 slots on the BBC’s political debate programme Question Time, where it used to get four. As Westminster's third party, Davey and his deputy Daisy Cooper are given slots on the six o’clock news on significant days in Parliament – when budgets are announced, for instance.
However, the party feels the coverage is out of proportion with that given to Reform UK, who have just four MPs – 18 times fewer than the Liberal Democrats.
“Previously, the BBC had always said: ‘We will cover you more if you get more MPs, but right now, you’ve only got 11,” a Liberal Democrat source told PoliticsHome.
“Now it really feels like they've moved the goal posts and they're just giving Reform massive amounts of coverage based on their poll rating, whereas we were always told it’s number of MPs, not poll rating.”
Davey also spoke to Davie about the BBC’s use of breaking news alerts – which the party is now tracking to understand how much coverage it is receiving.
“That's another area where it feels like Reform are getting a lot of mentions,” the source said. “Something else we're picking up the BBC is: how do they ensure political balance when it comes to things like breaking news alerts – that we know are really, really influential – in the same way that they would be really careful about balance when it comes to news criticism?”
The meeting preempted an outburst by Davey live on the BBC last month, in which he berated the broadcaster for its coverage of Reform UK.
“You cover the tittle tattle around Reform – you don’t look at their policies,” said the Lib Dem leader. “When I look at the broad BBC coverage, he gets such an easy ride, and he gets covered when he says horrible things that aren’t producing solutions for people’s problems.”
“I have to say the BBC has got to raise its game to expose Nigel Farage,” he added.
This criticism lands at a fraught time for the national broadcaster. In July, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why no one was fired at the BBC over its airing of a documentary narrated by the son of a Hamas official.
Davie has also been criticised for deciding not to stop a livestream of music artist Bob Vylan at Glastonbury, at which its lead singer chanted “death, death to the IDF”.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Determining coverage of political parties involves editorial judgements, including appropriate levels of scrutiny and taking account of past and current electoral support. We look at both representation and vote-share, as well as giving some weight to consistent trends in legitimate opinion polls.
“In line with Ofcom guidance, the BBC puts greater weight on actual votes. This is consistent with our approach during the last parliament.
“The Liberal Democrats’ increased representation in the House of Commons has been recognised with more coverage and greater representation on BBC News programmes."
Some in Davey's party are now also seeking to borrow tactics from Reform UK, which they see as a canny media operator.
“Reform is flipping the table, breaking the consensus and saying ‘we can't carry on like this, we must do something radically different’,” Bobby Dean, Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, told PoliticsHome. “I'd like the Lib Dems to be positioned in a similar way.”
