Woman’s Hour: Spreading Filthy Establishment Lies

ETA: You can find the BBC’s response to this complaint posted here.

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I’ve just sent in the following complaint to the BBC:

I have just been listening to a commendable, if a bit two-main-parties obsessed, piece about young people engaging in the political process. However, I was intrigued to hear Jane Garvey somewhat snottily tell us that, although young people seem to have got the idea that the Lib Dems will abolish tuition fees, “it’s not actually in their manifesto, though”.

I am intrigued on two grounds. Firstly, I haven’t seen the Lib Dem manifesto yet, and I wouldn’t think Jane has either. Secondly, everything I have read about this policy has suggested it is indeed going to be in the manifesto. It was in the pre-manifesto, it was mentioned in Nick Clegg’s recent “key values” announcement (“The Liberal Democrats will also phase out tuition fees over the course of six years, so that, after school, everyone who gets the grades has the opportunity to go to university without fear of debt, no matter what their background.” – http://bit.ly/8Rdovl).

So I would expect you will want to put out a correction to this lie.

Is it just me,or do presenters on all sorts of programmes feel they can speak with authority about the Lib Dems (and indeed other small parties) based more or less on whatever it is they think they’ve read in the papers, in a way they wouldn’t dare do with one of the two main parties?