John McKay #BelieveInScotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

We've just been passed the BBC's response to a complaint after Good Morning Scotland concealed an academic's links to Labour during an interview about the winter fuel payment and a warning from Age Scotland. We've reproduced the complaint and response below. We've also included the full interview. There's something untoward at play here. The complaint: Good Morning Scotland conducted an interview with professor June Andrews. The interview centred around the cut to the winter fuel payment and had been prompted by criticism by Age Scotland of the UK Labour Govt's decision to cut the benefit. The charity had claimed that cutting the benefit would see more old people admitted to hospital with hypothermia. The interview was conducted by Laura Maxwell who introduced the academic as follows "Well Professor June Andrews is an expert in the care of older people." The academic challenged Age Scotland's claims and backed Labour's decision to cut the benefit. Professor Andrews views were later used on the programme to challenge Scottish Govt minister Ivan McKee. The academic was presented as someone with no political allegiances or viewpoints. This was far from the truth. Professor June Andrews is a Labour supporter and party activist who makes no attempt to hide her political allegiance. A quick glance at her social media profile - publicly available at the time of the interview - makes this clear, with post after post promoting tweets from senior Labour party figures. The academic tweeted an image during the recent general election campaign showing her with other Labour party activists as they campaigned for Labour candidate Gregor Poynton. Section 4.3.12 of the BBC Guidelines states 'We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities and think-tanks) are unbiased. Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context.' Professor June Andrews was far from unbiased. Good Morning Scotland should have told listeners that the academic was a Labour party activist and supporter. In failing to do so the programme breached Section 4.3.12 of the BBC Guidelines. A public apology is merited. The response: We note your comments regarding Good Morning Scotland on 28 October and the interview with Prof June Andrews. As you mention, Prof Andrews was introduced as an “an expert in the care of older people” and was being interviewed for her view in this capacity, following Age Scotland’s claim that the cutting of the universal winter fuel benefit for pensioners will see more old people admitted to hospital with hypothermia.  Prof Andrews, given her area of expertise, has been a contributor on a number of occasions to items regarding the care of older people and was again introduced in this context, with a range of views on the subject heard within the wider programme – this included hearing directly from Scottish Government minister Ivan McKee, as you say. While we wouldn’t agree with a suggestion that simply holding any political views was a requisite for such an introduction, given the capacity in which Prof Andrews was invited onto the programme to speak, we would suggest that the conveyance to listeners of any political views that a contributor may hold is not limited to how a guest is introduced; for example, there is the opportunity within the line of questioning and by any political points being scrutinised and challenged – accepting that, in a live interview, in keeping the interview and programme on track, it isn’t always possible to challenge a guest on every point they’ve made and that it may be a subsequent interview or similar piece of our output that provides for other views and points to be put across. We note your call for a public apology but don’t believe it is merited here. We would, however, remind our teams of the merit of identifying and challenging, there and then, political points made during interviews. Thank you again for getting in touch.

Laura Maxwell pushing a cheap political smear against Neil Gray, she asks SNP MSP Gillian Martin "Does the minister only conduct business about sport when Aberdeen is playing?". This wasn't a question. It was a cheap juvenile jibe by a troll trying to smear an SNP MSP but who had no evidence whatsoever. Maxwell desperately tries to link the smear with Starmer's freebies scandal. Laura Maxwell regularly cheapens her profession with questionable behaviour during interviews. This was in keeping with her now notorious reputation. She's a troll. Plain and simple.