The Telegraph is accusing the BBC of planting hecklers in a Conservative meeting last week.

And the BBC admits they gave three people microphones.

Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a “completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling” and said that other parties’ meetings were being “observed”. However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair’s meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.

One of the questions raised was why the BBC hasn’t done the same with any of Tony Blair’s meetings.

BBC3 says it is doing a show on the history of political heckling.

Last night a BBC spokesman said: “This is a completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling. The programme observes hecklers at other parties’ campaign meetings and not just the Conservatives. The hecklers were not under the direction of the BBC and their activities did not disrupt the meeting in any way. The incident at the Michael Howard meeting only plays a small part in the overall programme. However, we will be investigating the complaint very fully and will be replying in due course.”

The spokesman was unable to provide details of any other campaign meetings attended by the BBC3 crew. He said that the hecklers had not been paid a fee, but could not say whether they had received expenses.

BBC 1, 2 and 4 need to communicate with 3. A show on political heckling?
I’d like to aggressively challenge that defense.

Heckle: To interrogate, or ply with questions, esp. with severity or
antagonism, as a candidate for the ministry.