BBC Verify Quietly Changes Farm Tax ‘Fact Check’ Amid Political Bias Row
Starmer used BBC Verify last night to support the government’s claim that only 500 estates annually will be affected by Labour’s farm tax:
“All of you can check out what that means in terms of impact, I think the BBC has already done it…It means the vast majority of farms are unaffected by this, and I think it’s just important we keep making that clear.”
In its video yesterday BBC Verify said that for 70,000 farms to be hit, as the CLA claims, “is almost certainly an overestimate” and the “true share of farms affected going forward is likely to be much closer to the Treasury estimates.” Making the same error as the Treasury – using old figures and only accounting for one half of the capped threshold…
Guido noticed that Verify has also been quietly making changes to its main farm tax “fact-check.” It gets worse than confusing hectares for acres…
After Guido pointed out that Verify refers to senior Labour activist Dan Neidle an “independent tax expert” the article has been quietly changed to call him “founder of the independent Tax Policy Associates.” More egregiously Verify has completely cut Neidle’s outlandish claim that “the number of actual farms affected is likely to be below 500 per year” – which just links to one of his tweets. No notification of the update – and still no reference to Neidle’s partisan activism…
