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| Katie Razzall, gritting her teeth |
Fans of BBC apologies can add this to their collection. It was read out by Katie Razzall on this Friday's Newsnight:
On last Friday's programme, as part of a studio discussion concerning the current state of British politics, we interviewed Steven Woolfe MEP about the impact of the new Brexit Party. The discussion may have been understood as suggesting a Mr Richard Tice may have been the source or one of the sources of funding the Brexit Party. Since that interview, we have been contacted by Mr Richard Tice, a founder of Leave.EU and a founder and vice-chair of Leave Means Leave. Mr Tice has confirmed that he is not the subject of any Electoral Commission investigation into the funding of Leave.EU and that he has not donated any money to the Brexit Party. The BBC apologises for any unintentional suggestion to the contrary.
The thing that particularly intrigued me there is that the statement leaves it pretty unclear as to who was the source of the "unintentional suggestion to the contrary": "The discussion may have been understood as suggesting...". So was it Mr Woolfe, another guest or the Newsnight interviewer? Well, it turns out to have been Emily Maitlis, who interrupted Mr Woolfe with this question:
OK, let me just ask you a quick question. Do we know where the funding is coming from? Because one of the thoughts behind it is that this could be Richard Tice, who is the co-founder, as you know, of Leave.EU, now under investigation by the Electoral Commission. Is that where the money is coming from for this new Brexit party?
and this follow-up:
Does it matter to you if you are representing a party that has funding from the same source as Leave.EU?
Mr Richard Tice is pleased with the apology:
The episode in question has been removed from the list of previous episodes available to watch again, so I had to transcribe those questions via TV Eyes.
