BBC caves to complaints and agrees to major Zack Polanski interview

12 comments

1. [removed]

2. >”This was because there were overlapping party conferences (it was the Conservative conference that week as well) and the breaking news of the synagogue attack in Manchester.

   Zack is both Jewish and from Manchester, which politician is better to interview but him??

   Edit: according to the BBC, a Tory peer and a former Tory MP, both non-Jewish, apparently

3. The BBC had already said that Zack Polanski would have an interview in the coming weeks, and they’d just rescheduled it following the synagogue attack.

   On 6th October , from [Byline Times](https://bylinetimes.com/2025/10/06/bbc-laura-kuenssberg-interview-zack-polanski-accused-anti-green-party-bias-farage-reform/) …
   > A BBC spokesperson told Byline Times: “Zack Polanski has been interviewed across various BBC News programmes across the course of the Green Party Conference – during which he has been asked for his thoughts relating to the horrific attack at the synagogue in Manchester. **He has been offered the chance to be interviewed on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg in the coming weeks – the invitation remains open**.”

   The fact that it has indeed been rescheduled *literally* a few weeks later, *exactly* as the BBC said, is hardly a case of the BBC “caving”.

4. Let’s always remember who runs the BBC and who their mates are.

5. It shouldn’t have taken a public outcry for them to show some balance.

6. Good. Hopefully his insane party and policies are given some proper scrutiny

7. I must say, seems like the Striessland effect will probably benefit the Green Party. Which is exactly what I’d like to happen, and as Polanski’s highly engaging, I could see this doing the Greens some real favours- which I’ll not complain about, seeing as the only time I haven’t voted for the Greens has been a local election where there wasn’t one on the ballot (held my nose and voted for a Lib Dem over Starmer’s red Tory party). The blatant bias of not inviting a high-profile Jewish politician who’s also the leader of a political party polling at 13% in the aftermath of a hate crime, seems distinctly telling, but the BBC is full of rather establishment Tories, in truth.

8. This is the standard response when a complaint goes in to the BBC re biased coverage

   BBC News is committed to providing our audiences with fair and impartial coverage of all relevant political parties. Whenever we invite representatives of any political party to take part in our coverage, we are careful to ensure that views are appropriately challenged and analysed, over an appropriate period of time. Our Editorial Guidelines make it clear that: “Evidence of past electoral support and current electoral support should be taken into account in making judgements about appropriate levels of coverage and prominence.”

   Traditional voting patterns across Britain have been shifting, providing a challenge to established political parties, especially Labour and the Conservatives. At the 2017 general election, those two parties combined won more than 80% of the vote – at last year’s general election, that figure was well below 60%. Current opinion polls put their combined support at nearer 40% across Great Britain.

   During the last year or so, Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) appear to have been the main beneficiary of this shift. Our assessments of “past electoral support” include both representation (ie how many MPs are elected) and also vote-share (ie how many people actually vote for a party overall). Although they have four MPs currently, Reform UK won more than four million votes in the 2024 general election, making them the third largest party in terms of vote share (more than 14%), behind Labour and the Conservatives, but ahead of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless returned more than 70 MPs.

   In the 2025 English local elections in May, Reform UK won a majority of ten councils plus two Mayoral contests, securing more votes across England than any other party (an estimated national share of above 30%). On the same day, Reform UK won a parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, with nearly 39% of the vote in that constituency.

   Assessing “current electoral support” includes an obligation to take into account legitimate opinion polls, especially where there are robust and consistent trends (as measured by voting intention polls conducted by members of the British Polling Council). All such surveys fully conducted since the May elections (a total of more than 90 consecutive polls) indicate that Reform UK are ahead of all other parties across Britain; during August, the party’s polling average across 17 opinion polls, from a range of companies, increased to 30%, ahead of Labour (21%), the Conservatives (18%), the Liberal Democrats (14%) and the Green Party (9%).

   Recently, Reform UK announced its immigration strategy and we considered many people who had voted for the party (or say they intend voting for it) would be interested in seeing the proposals. However, BBC News hasn’t simply reported on the strategy, we have also provided political analysis, scrutinised its spokespeople and heard from many individuals and parties across the political spectrum, including the government, providing a wide range of views on the issue.

   With regards to Nigel Farage, he is an elected MP and leader of a political party with clear evidence of significant electoral support. Many political analysts across the media, with different political perspectives, report that Reform UK are “making the political weather” – in other words, the reactions and policies of the other political parties can only be properly understood in the context of knowing what is happening with Reform UK and its increased level of support.

   We give careful consideration to ensuring any story concerning Mr Farage and Reform UK are given proportionate and appropriate coverage on our networks and online. We thank you for taking the time to get in touch, and your comments have been passed along to senior news editors.

9. Can we now get the bbeb to adopt norman smiths nomenclature and refer at all times to nigel as ‘personality cunt’

10. Genuine question: where is the line between someone (anyone, not just the Beeb) “caving to complaints”and simply listening to feedback and responding accordingly?

11. “-and we’ll be speaking to a Reform councillor in some random, unrelated constituency for their immediate reaction right after, which is absolutely fair and balanced of us.”

    – Fiona Bruce, probably

12. The Green’s are a joke because they aren’t honest about their policies.

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