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The BBC has once again handed Nigel Farage free propaganda slots – and then ridiculed anybody who dares to point it out.

Economist Simon Wren-Lewis has described what he called a “party political broadcast on behalf of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party”, disguised as the BBC’s flagship News at Ten on September 22.

He wasn’t exaggerating.

The bulletin began with what should have been a rare chance for Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey to set out his party’s policies at its conference.

Instead, Political Editor Chris Mason asked almost nothing about the Lib Dems – and everything about Nigel Farage.

Mason’s questions included:

• “Do you feel a moral duty to keep Nigel Farage out of power?” and

• “You say that Nigel Farage gets too much attention, but…” (before producing a Farage figurine and accusing Davey of being “obsessed”).

At the end of the interview, Mason even compared Davey’s criticism of the BBC’s Farage coverage with Donald Trump’s attacks on the press.

And who followed Davey in the running order? Farage himself, announcing a new immigration policy – with no challenge to his untrue claim that it would save public money.

Evidence of BBC bias

Cardiff University research backs up what Wren-Lewis saw that night: Reform features far more often on BBC and ITV news than the Liberal Democrats, despite having a tiny number of MPs compared with the Lib Dems’ parliamentary presence.

Professor Stephen Cushion commented:

“While there are no rules on reporting party leaders, our study did find Nigel Farage was more prominently covered than the Liberal Democrats’ leader, Ed Davey – and often leading the news agenda.

Broadcasters might want to consider the level of airtime granted to party leaders and the degree of scrutiny they receive.”

But scrutiny is exactly what Farage isn’t getting.

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The expert gap

For me, one point in Wren-Lewis’s article stood out: he noted that when Donald Trump lies about health, the BBC brings in its health correspondent – an expert in the field who can show viewers what is true and what isn’t.

But when Farage lies about immigration or economics, it is left to political correspondents to comment – who simply aren’t equipped to fact-check specialist claims. The falsehoods go unchallenged.

As a political reporter myself, I can say this is a matter of professional practice.

If a politician makes a claim on health, immigration or economics, I don’t just parrot it.

I go to the people who know.

I report what experts say about the facts, what needs to be done, and why the politician’s claim is wrong – if it is.

That’s basic journalism.

Yet the BBC, with all its resources, fails to do it.

And the news-watching population are deprived of insights like mine, for reasons you’ll find below.

Appeasing the populists

Wren-Lewis suggests the evident pro-Reform UK bias is happening because the BBC is desperately trying to win back “trust” – viewership – from Reform voters, who have been told endlessly by right-wing politicians and newspapers that the BBC is left-wing.

So the Corporation bends over backwards to appease them – while attacking centre or left-leaning politicians who make the opposite complaint – that it is actually right-wing.

And it is the complaint of right-wing bias that is more accurate. As Prof Wren-Lewis points out:

The BBC is run by people who support the Conservative party. Its Director General, Tim Davie, is a former Conservative party county councillor. Robbie Gibb, former director of communications for Theresa May, is on the BBC Board… The BBC Board is in part appointed by the government [with no changes since the last appointments by the Conservatives], and the Board appoints the Director General.

This is not impartiality. It is an asymmetric bias in favour of the populist right.

Double-standards that normalise lies

Farage and Trump get away with constant lying because it is treated as normal behaviour by populists.

Mainstream parties are shredded in the press for every slip, but when populists fabricate, it barely registers.

That was exactly how Brexit was won – and how Farage wants Reform to succeed.

The question that should be asked of him is simple:

“You lied to us once before, and we are all suffering as a result. Why should we believe you again?”

But nobody at the BBC ever asks it.

The real irony

Here’s the irony: independent journalists like me, who actually follow proper standards – checking claims with experts, exposing lies, and giving readers the facts – are suppressed by the very platforms on which we rely.

Social media algorithms treat us as “unreliable” because we’re small.

Meanwhile, the BBC, with its privileged status, gets unquestioning, massive promotion from Facebook, X and any other platform with a right-wing owner.

Resources don’t equal reliability.

Right now, the independent voices doing the work properly are being buried – while the “mainstream” is failing in its most basic duty.

And the public is being cheated.

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