Craig Murray Didn't Deserve Coverage, But UKIP Did

Craig Murray has been whinging in the Mail on Sunday again. "S'not fair," he whines. "The media wouldn't give me any coverage." Perhaps if he had done anything worth reporting, he might have got some media space, but the fact is that the "honest man's" sole noteworthy contribution to the campaign was to put out a virtually libellous leaflet about Chloe Smith. Desperate men... It's rather odd as Mr Murray's entire reputation, such as it is, is built on playing the media for all he's worth.

Whatever I might think of Mr Murray (and I try not to), the media did indeed get the coverage of the candidates from the big parties very wrong. As Nich Starling pointed out yesterday, the BBC in particular gave massive coverage to the Greens, yet managed to completely ignore UKIP. In the event UKIP's vote was substantially higher than Rupert Read's. The Green record in Norwich is what led the BBC to go down that road, but many of us pointed out that their support was largely confined to wards in Norwich South rather than Norwich North.

I do think that the BBC needs to re-evaluate its policy towards UKIP. It has tended them to pigeonhole them along with the BNP in the "too difficult" tray. I understand why, but when they can nearly beat the LibDems in a by-election, perhaps they need to be treated more fairly. I say this not as a supporter of UKIP, but as someone who has come to believe that national broadcasters (and I include ITN and Sky in this) have made very little effort to understand why UKIP is gaining such levels of support or indeed where that support is coming from.

Caroline Lucas is new Green Party Leader

The leading Green Party blog, The Daily (Maybe) brings news that the Green Party has a new leader. Yes, that's one leader, not two. They have finally grown up and realised that co-leaders do not work.

The new leader is the very media friendly MEP Caroline Lucas. Her new deputy is the very able 26 year old Green councillor from Norwich, Adrian Ramsey, who is largely responsible for the fact that the Greens are now the second biggest group on Norwich City Council, and could conceivably take control in 2010.

It's very easy to deride the Green Party as an irrelevance now that all three main parties have signed up to an environmental agenda, but their role as a pressure group rather than a political party is still an important one. At the moment they are still able to retain a certain innocent idealism. If they actually take control of Norwich City Council it will be interesting to see if they are able to retain in while exercising political power. Lessons from other countries show that gaining power normally splits them right down the middle, with the more fundamentalist elements accusing the more practical ones of selling out.

Anyway, congratulations to Caroline and Adrian.

On Sunday AM With Andrew Marr

Tomorrow morning at 9am I will be on Andrew Marr's Sunday AM programme reviewing the Sunday newspapers with Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party. Jeremy Irons, Billy Bragg, Alistair Darling and George Osborne are also on the programme.

UPDATE: You can view the programme HERE. My bit was about 10 minutes in.

How Similar Are The Greens to the BNP?

Samizdata has a well sourced piece comparing the policies of the Green Party to ... wait for it ... the BNP. I was a little sceptical when I saw the headline, but if you actually read it, the article makes a pretty good case!