#fail

Sammy Wilson - not a Tory

It's interesting the lengths some will go to to discredit criticism of the BBC. 

The Independent has the headline, "Many MPs who complained about BBC's coverage of Brexit are 'hardline Euro-climate sceptics'". It cites a "report" by the pressure group DeSmog UK claiming that 18 of the 72 MPs who signed the letter condemning the BBC's Brexit coverage are 'hardline Euro-climate sceptics'.

Well, for starters, the DeSmog folk are just the kind of trustworthy analysts who think that Sammy Wilson of the DUP is a Conservative MP:

“Within this group of hardline Euro-climate sceptics are also Conservative MPs, David Nuttall, Andrew Bridgen, David Davies, Richard Drax, John Redwood and Sammy Wilson – these men have voted consistently against measures to prevent climate change and have previously rallied against the BBC’s coverage of the topic,” DeSmog said

and the Independent is the kind of (online) newspaper that fails to correct them over that.

The Independent is also the kind of (online) newspaper that misuses the word "many" in its headline. Given that a simple bit of subtraction tells us that if 18 out of 72 MPs are part of this "hardline Euro-climate sceptic" tendency (as DeSmog and the Independent claim) then that means that 54 out of 72 MPs (probably) aren't - and that's "many" more than those who are. 

The headline should, therefore, have read:  "A few MPs who complained about BBC's coverage of Brexit are 'hardline Euro-climate sceptics'".