11/05/2012 Newswatch

of the hour, but now it is time for Welcome to Newswatch. On this

week's programme, should these three candidates have got more of a

look-in during coverage of the contest to be Mayor of London?

Elections have been dominating the news. Last weekend sort of the new

French president, while the Greeks have also cast votes for a new

government. Before that there were local and may well elections in

England, Scotland and Wales. The results were brought to rise by

David Dimbleby in a marathon overnight programme. We are looking

at how people have voted in the English and Welsh... But a couple

of hours in, we were contacted with Other complaints were about that

Let me show you our key ward exercise and we would try and break

it down. We are looking first at key ward changed since it 2008.

This is the overall figure. Does that remind you of anything?

This is the overall figure here, and I will give it to you. I see

what you mean, Christine! Protests started well before last Thursday,

and they centred on the highly sensitive issue of how airtime

should be allocated to the various parties and candidates. The crucial

theme is to get police officers out there where the parties want to see

them. A debate on BBC London during the campaign. But only four of the

seven candidates were invited to take part. Later, one of the

missing candidates made their objections clear. It would have

been nice if I had been on the main debate tonight. We should all have

been given a say. Her complaint was I think what is going to become

known as the independent candidate problem, they ended up good and

almost at the same amount of votes as the Liberal-Democrat and the

Green Party candidates, with hardly any airtime, she was effectively

saying, I am serious, I have a serious record in the Civil Service,

I have well worked-out ideas, why shouldn't I have the chance to have

those presented to viewers and tested in front of viewers in the

same way as other candidates? with the BNP and UKIP candidates,

she was also excluded from Newsnight's debate over who should

become the Mayor of London. So why didn't the smaller parties receive

equal representation to the larger ones? The answer is that the BBC

allocates airtime mainly according to previous electoral success. But

some feel there is an need for both stricter laws governing this and

for an update of the BBC regulations. The BBC rules of

basically adaptations of those rules in an era long gone, when

British politics was completely dominated by the two main parties,

looking back to the 1950s. Labour and Conservative candidates mop up

19% of all the votes then. It wasn't an issue. But at the last

general election, more than a third of the public voted for parties

other than Labour and Conservative. 10% voted for smaller parties. We

also found recently in the by- election in Bradford, in which

George Galloway one, here was a situation which could become

increasingly common, where people who were traditionally Labour, were

dissatisfied with Labour, but didn't want to buy it for the

traditional parties, and sought another outlet for their protests.

There is clearly a growing appetite for the increasing numbers of

voters to look at the non- traditional, mainstream parties,

and this needs to be reflected in the BBC's coverage. It is a trend

that has been seen recently across Europe, with smaller parties taking

a greater share of the vote, from Greece to France. Closer to home,

is it time the BBC revisited its rules governing election coverage?

Our chief political adviser joins me now. Is your system out of date

and too rigid? One of the misunderstandings is we have a

single set of rules call elections, that is not true. We drafter new

guidelines before each election, we let people comment on that, and it

is specific to the context of that election. These guidelines were

drawn up for the last elections. What do you have to say about this

problem, an independent not getting any airtime because it they were an

independent. The system has been described as ridiculously skewed

towards the status quo, and very unfair. Actually, all the candlelit

in the mayoral election got enormous amounts of coverage -- the

candidate. There were only seven, they all got more coverage than

they ever have before. There were three TV interviews, six or radio

interviews, all the other candidates got a lot of coverage,

so the idea that somehow they were excluded is simply not true. And it

there were only four participant in the TV debate, that surely is not

fair? One of the things you have got to remember in elections is we

have to scrutinise not only the incumbent but the people who might

find themselves the Mayor for the next four years, so there is always

a balance to be struck between holding those politicians to

account and perhaps having a debate where lots and lots of voices are

coming in, that perhaps being less helpful to the electorate. There is

a bit of a chicken and egg situation for an independent, who

may be a valid and qualified person, but because they are not a party,

because they didn't stand at the last election, inevitably they are

disadvantaged in terms of party political broadcast and appearing

in formal debates like on Newsnight. You have got to make an editorial

judgement about the level of coverage people get, and the place

to start with that is how people vote in real elections. Clearly,

parties that have got a track record should get some coverage,

but that is not the only criteria. If you are a new candidate or a new

party, that doesn't apply, so we look at current electoral support,

we get all sorts of things to judge what sort of level. Opinion polls

can play a big part in that. We made those judgments, I think we

got the right level of coverage for top do you think the BBC is

adequately reflecting what many people think are significant

changes to the political landscape, not just in the UK but across

Europe? Fragmentation of the established party system, new

parties, are you not off the pace? We look at each election separately.

In the European elections, way UKIP have a good track record, they get

the same level of coverage as the main parties. But this may roll

election, 85% of the people voting last week, voted Labour or

Conservative. So the idea that the boat so suddenly disappearing in

lots of new directions in all elections isn't true, you have to

look at each one separately. Thank you. Elsewhere we watched the

appalling news of the nine men accused of sexually exploiting

teenage girls in Rochdale. The way the men were described was a

Thursday saw the latest stage in the build-up to this summer's big

sporting event, with the lighting of the Olympic flame in Greece.