Britannia Radio

Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.

Something to watch for as the BBC's election coverage gets under way

By Daniel Hannan Politics Last updated: April 16th, 2011

If UKIP is a minority party, what does that make the Lib Dems?

Listen out for a throwaway phrase from BBC correspondents: “minority parties such as UKIP and the BNP”. On past form, I reckon we’ll be hearing it quite often. What we won’t be hearing very much is “minority parties such as the Greens and the BNP”. Which is odd, really, because, in psephological terms, the Greens and the BNP are fairly close, registering at around four per cent each in most opinion polls and fighting comparable numbers of seats. UKIP, by contrast, is scoring seven or eight per cent in the polls, only a couple of points behind the Lib Dems.

At the 2009 European election, the Greens won 8.6 per cent of the vote, the BNP 6.2 per cent. Each party took two seats. UKIP won 16.5 per cent, beating both Labour and the Lib Dems and coming second. At the most recent parliamentary by-election, UKIP again came second, with 12.2 per cent. The BNP came fourth and the Greens didn’t put up a candidate. Why, then, do television correspondents bracket the BNP, verbally, with UKIP rather than the Greens?

Which brings me to another phrase I don’t expect to hear on our state broadcaster: “small-to-medium parties such as the Lib Dems and UKIP”.

I hold no brief for UKIP, the BNP, the Lib Dems or the Greens. But I docare about the impartiality of the Beeb. Is its categorisation really based on its assessment of the relative party strengths? Or is it prompted,perhaps subliminally, by the sense that the Greens and the Lib Dems are decent sorts who deserve a fair crack of the whip, whereas “minority parties like UKIP and the BNP” are beyond the pale?

Tags: BBC, British National Party, Green Party, Liberal Democrats, local elections, UK Independence Party