The BBC is under fire after cutting short Angela Rayner’s interview about whether she broke election law due to “concerns” by Labor Party staff.
On Friday, Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt admitted he edited an interview with the Labor deputy leader three weeks ago to eliminate comparisons between the row over the old town hall and the “Beergate” saga.
In the clip removed from the original broadcast, Mr Watt asked Ms Rayner whether her position would be untenable if she was found to be wrong; just as Sir Keir Starmer vowed to resign if he was fined for allegedly breaking Covid rules. In “Beergate.”
Speaking live on Friday’s programme, he said the decision to cut the exchange was made “for good editorial reason”. But he also admitted Labor Party staff had raised “concerns” after the meeting that the “Beergate” comparison was unfair because Ms Rayner was not under police investigation at the time.
Greg Smith, Conservative MP for Buckingham, said license fee payers who “expect impartiality” will “want answers” as to why the broadcaster made the edit when “almost every media outlet is focusing on this story”.
The broadcaster first published the clip on Friday, after Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said it was launching an investigation into allegations Ms Rayner misrepresented which house her permanent address was on the electoral register, which constituted an offence.
Ms Rayner also faced questions over whether she should have paid capital gains tax on the sale of her town hall in 2015 amid confusion over whether it was her primary residence.
‘A good editorial reason at the time’
He and Sir Keir Starmer had called on Boris Johnson to resign after the police launched an investigation against him over “Partygate”. Both also said they would resign if charged over the so-called “Beergate”, in which the Labor leader and his colleagues drank beer and ate curry after a campaign event in April 2021, when most indoor gatherings were banned.
Since the Newsnight interview, Ms Rayner has vowed to resign if she is found to have broken the law. But she insists she “always follows the rules.”
In the cut part of the interview, Ms Rayner refused to resign if found to have committed a crime and said: “I have taken expert advice and I do not owe any capital gains tax on that property.”
Explaining his decision to edit the interview, Mr Watt said on Friday: “Now, in the last exchange we had with Angela Rayner just now, I was making the comparison between where we are today and the so-called “Beergate” issue, where two or three years ago we thought we shouldn’t have published it for editorial reasons.” I had decided.
“You can no longer inevitably conduct the entire interview; You have to make deductions. However, in the interest of transparency, I should say that the Labor team expressed concern about this exchange after the meeting.
“In fact, they said they didn’t see how you could make a comparison between Keir Starmer’s commitment two years ago after the police announced they would investigate him and Angela Rayner’s behavior after the police said they would not investigate her.
“Because when I met with Angela Rayner, the police said they would not investigate this matter. Look, it was a different situation back then, so there was a good editorial reason not to include that change. But frankly, things have changed today with this statement.”
He added: “This provides a rather interesting look into the world of relations between political broadcasters and political parties. It is quite normal (not always) for a political party to express concerns about the interview.”
“Sometimes they do it after a live interview, sometimes they do it after a recorded interview before the show airs, which is what happened in this case.
“Keeping this in mind and taking the entire interview in one round, I made the editorial decision. “But of course, in light of today’s statement, today’s development, namely the police statement and what Angela Rayner said, we think that the conversation in that interview should be published.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Nick Watt explained the whole situation transparently to viewers on Friday’s Newsnight, including the fact that it is normal to make editorial decisions about what to use and not to use from a pre-recorded interview.
“This was a forensic and challenging interview in which Angela Rayner was asked detailed questions about her tax affairs. We published this post when the situation changed, including the police’s decision to investigate. We have covered this story objectively from start to finish.
Mr Smith told The Telegraph: “Given that almost every media outlet has focused on this story, it is ‘bizarre’ at best that the BBC cut the interview short and it seems likely that license fee payers expecting impartiality will want answers as to exactly why.”
“The fact that it took a police investigation to get the full interview speaks volumes in itself.”
In March GMP said Ms Rayner would not face an investigation. But he was forced to reconsider his decision after Conservative MP James Daly complained that officers had not contacted witnesses or looked at electoral registers, papers and other relevant documents.
A GMP spokesman said on Friday: “We are investigating whether any crime has been committed. “This follows a re-evaluation of the information provided to us by Mr Daly.”