In the ECU’s view, the contributor’s comments about conspiracy theorists, in which ConservativeHome was not mentioned, were sufficiently separated from his earlier reference to the website for there to be little prospect that they would lead listeners to associate the two, and this aspect of the complaint was not upheld.

In relation to the comments which named ConservativeHome, the ECU noted the website’s description of itself as a forum designed “to champion the interests of grassroots Tory members and to argue for a broad conservatism”.  The ECU found no grounds for regarding that description as controversial, and agreed with Mr Wallace that it was the contributor’s description which was inaccurate.  Although the inaccuracy was not pointed out on air, the presenter of the item did describe the comments as “a very particular characterisation of populism”, which would have indicated that listeners should not take them as definitive, and BBC News subsequently posted the following entry on the Corrections and Clarifications page of the BBC website:

In a discussion about the impact Donald Trump has had on populist politics a contributor referred to the role played by the Tea Party, ConservativeHome ‘and other similar movements’. ConservativeHome has been in touch to make clear the company is a media outlet, staffed by journalists who write about the Conservative Party and Conservative politics, that it is not a ‘movement’ and it is not in any way equivalent to or similar to the Tea Party or any ‘other similar movements’.

In the ECU’s judgement, this would have sufficed to resolve the issue of complaint but for the fact that, while generally dissociating the website from populist movements, it did not address the characterisation of ConservativeHome as invasive and as standing in contrast to “decent political parties” – the elements of the comments which, in the ECU’s view, made them objectionable as well as merely inaccurate.  The ECU therefore upheld this aspect of Mr Wallace’s complaint.

Partly upheld