A little while ago I emailed the BBC about the BNP being described as "Far Right" by Today's John Humphys.
My full post is here but this was the thrust of my argument:
"In some ways their professed patriotism might put them on the traditional right of the political spectrum although it is, of course, true that many on the Left also love their country. I would argue, however, that many of their policies come from a Left-wing, big state mindset. This partly explains their success in traditionally Labour areas. I think, for example, of the BNP's support for high rates of taxation on higher income earners, their support for nationalising strategically important economic assets and also their protectionist policies on trade."
Ric Bailey, Chief Adviser on Politics within the Editorial Policy and Standards unit, replied to me earlier this week:
"I don't think this is something on which the BBC has a single public stance - descriptions of political parties will always depend on context. From my perspective, I advise programmes on the whole to avoid such descriptions if they might be seen as subjective. Increasingly, there's less need to attach a label to the BNP, as they are sufficiently familiar now to most people. On the other hand, it would be too proscriptive to ban such descriptions, where they help the audience. We could, of course, have an interesting discussion about if and where the far right and the far left meet. But I think there is common acceptance that the BNP is a party of the right, not of the left and although the left-right spectrum may have less meaning than it used to in British politics, we would be subject to ridicule if we pretended otherwise. I happen to think that there is no connotation at all here for parties which are given the label "centre right" or "centre left" - not least because those are not labels that we need to use for the main UK parties in normal coverage. Insofaras people may have a pejorative view of those closer to the extremes, the relevant part of the phrase for most is "far" - not "right" or "left". So I fear I must disappoint you, if what you want is for me to ask John Humphrys to mind his adjectives - "far right" is a phrase which I think is well understood by our audience."
I'm grateful to Ric for replying but I'm not entirely happy with what he wrote.
- He's completely right that "there is common acceptance that the BNP is a party of the right" but sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong and I would like an acknowledgment of that.
- I also think there is some (limited) damage to centre right parties of being seen as on a continuum with extreme parties that are labelled as the far right.
- I am, however, happy with his key point that "there's less need to attach a label to the BNP, as they are sufficiently familiar now to most people." If BBC journalists just call the BNP the BNP rather than the 'far right' BNP I'm happy.
