They spin me right round, baby, right round

I suppose if this blog were to adopt an MP as our patron saint it would have to be Andrew Bridgen. 

He's by far the most prolific, high-profile complainer about BBC bias in parliament. 

If there's an article in the Telegraph or the Mail featuring MPs complaining about BBC bias Mr Bridgen is bound to be among them.

And I salute him for that.

The Telegraph reports today that Andrew Bridgen has now written to the BBC complaining that Newsnight and Today are "biassed (sic) towards the EU":

In the run up to the EU council, pro-EU voices heavily outweighed sceptical voices on Newsnight (which on two out of five nights in the week of the council was Nigel Farage). 

Meanwhile Today continues to give greater prominence to pro-EU guests. The 6.15[am] business slot in particular has become an opportunity for a business leader to quickly claim that we must remain in the EU with little to no scrutiny behind the arguments for this. 

Eurosceptic business leaders meanwhile are impugned for wanting to leave for either reducing workers’ rights or dodging the bonus cap.

You may have heard more of the BBC than me this week. Is this true about Today? 

I will obviously have to investigate.

As for Newsnight, I will admit to being puzzled. I get the bet about...

In the run up to the EU council, pro-EU voices heavily outweighed sceptical voices on Newsnight 

but I don't understand how the following bit in parentheses is meant to reinforce that point: 

(which on two out of five nights in the week of the council was Nigel Farage).

...especially as my own survey of that week's Newsnight shows only one interview with Nigel Farage (though there may have been a brief clip of him in one of the week's reports).

How does Nigel Farage (allegedly) being on twice 'prove' that the BBC has a pro-EU bias?

My survey also shows (in the four days prior to the deal) a (roughly-speaking) 7:5 pro-Remain ratio. 

That's a slight pro-Remain bias, but does it justify the words "heavily outweighed sceptical voices"?

I don't like being spun to by any side. Am I being spun to here?

Is the BBC deliberately undermining a critical MP?

(h/t Alan at Biased BBC)

The BBC now has an enemy in parliament: Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen MP. 

He writes in the Telegraph that he is "going to war" with the corporation because he's "sick of its bias and misrepresentations".

Mr. Bridgen is the MP who led the charge for the decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee because it amounts to some 12% of all magistrates cases in this country. The BBC publicly disagreed with him and, according to Mr Bridgen, its ex-employees in the House of Lords have been successful in delaying his bill for another two years. He's not impressed, to put it mildly.

Some of his arguments about bias and the need for radical reform at the BBC will probably be familiar to you. What was new to me, however, was his description of the BBC's actions against him personally. If true, they are truly astonishing:

By leading the debate and setting the political agenda on the decriminalisation of the licence fee, I have set myself on a collision course with the might and influence of a £5 billion worldwide media organisation, which has attacked my family business, falsely reporting “facts” and attributing comments to me which I did not make.

I am fearful of retribution from the BBC after having been picked last week, out of a possible 46 East Midlands Seats, as a focus for the regional news programme in the upcoming election, effectively granting my opponents a disproportionate amount of prime BBC airtime to attack me.

Did the BBC intentionally smear Andrew Bridgen? Is it deliberately seeking to unseat him?  

If either of those charges holds water, then it's absolutely scandalous, isn't it?