Liddle justice
From Lord Pearson of Rannoch Sir: Rod Liddle's beguiling article (The truth about BBC bias', 5 May) tells a few half-truths, but not much truth. For instance, he admits 'we probably underplayed the Eurosceptic cause a little, particularly around the time of the last Euro elections'. In 600 hours of news coverage, neither the BBC nor ITV allowed a Labour Eurosceptic on air for a single minute; and the meaningless Pro-Euro Conservatives (who polled 1,2 per cent of the eventual votes and won no seats) were given similar status to the Conservative party itself, which was hardly ever mentioned except in the context of its 'splits' (not evident during that campaign).
Mr Liddle is very naughty when he pretends that Today ran a programme 'devoted to examining the faults of the EU'. His series of three programmes was billed as examining the implications of UK withdrawal from the EU. But during the 55 minutes of coverage the case for withdrawal was allowed only 35 seconds, in a live programme when the offending five sentences could not be expunged. Furthermore, no fair-minded person could describe Franz Fischler's sloppy seven-minute interview about the Common Agricultural Policy as a 'grilling'.
Malcolm Pearson
House of Lords, London SWI
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