Guido couldn’t help noticing a familiar face on Channel 4‘s onshore wind segment aired earlier this week. The video above shows Dr. Ben Kenward, introduced only as a “Senior Lecturer” at Oxford Brookes University, insisting the government is “simply not acting according to the public will” unless they “strip back the layers of extra difficulty” to building wind turbines in the UK. The segment introduces him merely as a “critic” of the government’s current plans…

Just one small fact that Channel 4 breezed over here. Kenward isn’t just a critic: he’s a full-blown Extinction Rebellion activist who was even arrested at a protest back in 2019. The fact Kenward is still tilting at windmills this week isn’t so surprising when he’s used to yelling about the climate disaster as he’s escorted to a police van. Maybe Channel 4 were confused by the new moustache and hair combo. As always, Kenward is entitled to his views and Channel 4 is equally entitled to air them, though viewers have a right to know his activist credentials…

Yet again, the BBC is failing its basic duty to provide transparency to viewers. In a discussion about Nigel Farage’s de-banking, Newsnight invited on Frances Coppola to provide an opposing view. Before claiming Farage’s views were unrelated to the bank’s decision, despite the 40-page dossier which explicitly claims banking Farage was “at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation“, Frances was introduced simply as a “banking commentator” and then a “financial commentator”. That introduction is inadequate.

Frances is more than a banking commentator – in her own words, she’s also a “broke centrist remoaner”. Looking further into her Twitter history only confirms this…

Frances has called Nigel Farage a “hardcore racist and anti-semite” and compared him to the Nazis, she called for Suella Braverman to be deported and called Brexit “stupid”, its supporters “suckers” and its promoters “charlatans”. Frances has tweeted over 665,000 times, so Guido could go on. As always, Frances is entitled to her views – Newsnight just has to make sure that viewers know where she’s coming from in terms of perspective.

UPDATE: Just an hour ago, the BBC also published an online article, again quoting Frances and referring to her simply as a “banking commentator”. Will they never learn…

As the Court of Appeal ruled that the Rwanda plan is unlawful, Kay Burley brought on an “expert human rights solicitor”, Jacqueline McKenzie to discuss the potential outcomes of the ruling. Jacqueline made it clear that she did not think that the government was doing enough to cater for the international migration crisis, and reaffirmed that nobody was “likely to be sent to Rwanda very soon”. Smiling as she said it…

What Sky News failed to mention was that she was not only a partner at Leigh Day, but was in fact a member of and adviser to the Labour Party’s Race Equalities Task Force. Alongside this, she has also led the fight against the Rwanda deportation flights, and represented some slightly questionable clients including a Jamaican national that served 8 years for kidnapping. Guido’s not questioning her legal expertise, it would have been more honest of Sky News with the viewers to have mentioned this slight conflict before they brought her on…

Of course McKenzie is perfectly entitled to hold these views, and Sky News entitled to broadcast them. Broadcasters need to fully inform their viewers if their “experts” have an axe to grind…

UPDATE: Fuming Tories say of this “Utterly shameless bias from Sky News -no wonder their viewing figures are through the floor.”

Once again, the BBC has failed to accurately provide viewers with sufficient information to judge on the credentials of its guests. On Monday’s episode of Politics Live, Covid campaigner Saleyha Ahsan was introduced simply as a representative of the “Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group”, before she launched a stinging criticism of the government’s approach to the Covid inquiry. Of course, she is more than a non-partisan healthcare campaigner…

Saleyha has a long track record of partisan activism. In 2019 she stood for Parliament for the Liberal Democrats in Milton Keynes South, and then for the European Parliament under the UK European Union Party’s banner. One party is a political irrelevance with a rabid pro-EU perspective, the other is the UK European Union Party.

Ahsan’s activism doesn’t end there: in addition to regular gigs on Jeremy Vine on 5 and documentaries for Channel 4, she also shares her questionable views on Twitter. These extend to calling Boris Johnson a liar, sharing articles comparing “racist” Israel to the KKK and, of course, tweeting support for Jeremy Corbyn…

As always, Saleyha is entitled to her platform – viewers just need to be given sufficient context to make up their own minds.

As TransPennine were stripped of their government contract over poor service this morning and amid a period of widespread strike disruption, BBC Breakfast put out feelers for an impartial expert for their analysis. A fellow comrade was soon found in former Labour Party city councillor and one-time Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Keighley and Ilkley, Henri Murison. 

Murison was introduced as “chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, the organisation that has been campaigning for better connectivity in the North,” before he launched a tirade on the “tokenistic” and “politically symbolic gesture” of the government scapegoating TransPennine. Though Murison honourably noted that he was “not here to give a political view…”

The former Labour parliamentary hopeful then continued to not give a political view by saying:

“The government’s got to answer: What are they going to do to solve this national pay dispute? Two transport secretaries ago, they picked a fight with ASLEF and other rail unions to try and position the government for a culture war against workers,” before adding that the prime minister must personally “make sure ASLEF get the deal they need to go back and get the members to agree to it.”

Murison ran for Labour selection in Keighley and Ilkley in 2013, losing out to John Grogan. Guido’s not saying that Murison should not have been on BBC Breakfast, just that as per BBC guidelines, it might have been an idea to mention his partisan affiliations… 

As British supermarkets have been hit with vegetable shortages, ITV’s Good Morning Britain assembled a panel to get to the bottom of it in the only way they know how. By inviting on a remainiac Liberal Democrat activist, hiding her campaigning background, and nodding along as she blamed the unseasonable frosts in Morocco on… Brexit.

Liz Webster was introduced simply as “a farmer and chair of Save British Food”, before she launched a tirade concluding that the “underlying problem” was Brexit. Ignoring the fact that her argument was a complete fabrication – even the BBC agrees Brexit is “unlikely to be a factor” – the real issue is that voters weren’t given sufficient context to judge the credibility of the expert activist.

In addition to tweeting about the “criminal greed” of “evil” tories, and repeating how much she hates Brexit, Liz is a die hard Lib Dem. She’s spoken at their conference and it’s hard to find an elected position Liz hasn’t stood for – and lost. She’s been a Lib Dem candidate for parliament, police and crime commissioner and President of the party. As always, Liz is entitled to her platform. However, considering how much time she spends on the campaign trail, and the strength of her views, it’s clearly something GMB should have informed the viewers about…