A top BBC presenter has accused Ed Davey of using “Trumpian language” towards the under-pressure corporation amid his calls to stop giving Nigel Farage so much coverage.
Political editor Chris Mason has been slammed for an alleged rare intervention in party politics by shutting down the Liberal Democrat leader’s claim that the Beeb was giving “wall-to-wall” coverage of Reform UK.
While Mason remains an impartial and highly regarded journalist, critics have accused his workplace of making “failure after failure” from Farage’s coverage, bullying rows on BBC Breakfast, and the failure to recoup Huw Edwards’ £200,000 salary he received after being arrested on paedophile charges.
On Monday, the broadcaster said the Lib Dem leader was peddling “a falsehood” by claiming the corporation was “copying and pasting” Reform press releases onto its website.
Sir Ed said: “I think the BBC needs to do a lot better job exposing him [Mr Farage] for the snake oil salesman that he is.
“Sometimes I look at the BBC website and it’s almost as if they’ve taken a Reform press release and copied and pasted it.”
Talking to the BBC, he added: “This is not against your reporting or many of your colleagues, but we do find the BBC website does seem to give the Reform approach rather more, without scrutiny.
“Liberal Democrats have been the champions of the BBC over many, many years. There’s not enough scrutiny of Reform on the BBC website in my view.
“Don’t take my word, take it from many of your viewers who’ve complained to us.”
The Liberal Democrat leader met with the BBC Director-General in Parliament in June to express the party’s “frustration” regarding its media coverage to Nigel Farage’s outfit, according to PoliticsHome.
Despite now holding 72 seats in the Commons, the Lib Dems have been allocated 13 appearances on the BBC’s flagship political programme Question Time, an increase from four in previous years.
The party argues that the exposure it receives is disproportionate when compared with Reform UK, which has just four MPs – 18 times fewer than the Liberal Democrats.