Professor John Ashton’s had quite a week, after appearing on the BBC’s party political Panorama in which he took up one-third of the interview time, to having old antisemitic tweets uncovered by The Jewish Chronicle – including comparing Zionists to Nazis, and asking if the Jewish news site was “in the pocket of Zionists”. We already knew he was Labour, turns out he’s a true Corbynista…

To help paint a further picture of just how biased this go-to ‘expert’ is, Guido has unearthed footage of Ashton at a TUC rally in 2012 – where he spoke alongside the likes of Len McCluskey and Andy Burnham – in which he calls the Coalition Government “carpetbaggers” and a “Dickensian mob who know the price of everything and value of nothing”, before rallying attendees to go protest LibDem conference.

Guido was similarly interested to discover Coronavirus hasn’t been the first time the Tories have had a row with the media over John Ashton. Back in 2012 when Ashton was campaigning against health reforms, CCHQ got sick of the BBC, issuing the statement “The BBC has a responsibility to report news objectively. They should always inform their viewers if the person they are interviewing has political motives”. Eight years on and the BBC are still refusing to adhere to their own guidelines…