Over time

Don't forget to bear this in mind whilst criticising the BBC!

Anyone wanting to complain about last night's A Point of View, where Michael Morpurgo was granted a 10-minute platform by the BBC to call for a second referendum to encourage us to stay in the EU, will doubtless get a fairly swift reply from the BBC saying that balance is provided over time and that the reason there wasn't an immediate right to reply was that (a) that's not the point of the programme and (b) that plenty of previous editions of the programme have featured similarly one-sided talks from the likes of Roger Scruton and John Gray putting the other, pro-Brexit point of view. And the BBC would be right to say that. Professors Scruton and Gray have delivered lots of splendid pro-Brexit pieces for A Point of View in the past couple of years, so it's hardly unfair to have Mr Morpurgo - and others - deliver some strongly anti-Brexit piece too. After years of getting it wrong, bias-wise, this programme is now getting it about right - if only on the Brexit issue. Credit where credit is due.