Another day, another BBC blunder. This time the broadcaster admits that it was wrong to describe Richard Tice’s Reform UK party as ‘far-right’ in a recent news report:

In an article about the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference we wrongly described the political party Reform UK as far-right when referring to polling. This sentence was subsequently removed from the article as it fell short of our usual editorial standards.

The original article, which relays Sir Ed Davey’s plea to the Lib Dems to ‘make this a once-in-a-generation election’, has also been amended. The BBC attributes the error as being down to ‘news agency copy’, adding in its corrections page that ‘we take full responsibility and apologise for the error’.

Tice has since responded to the apology, warning news outlets that he views the claim that his party is far right as ‘defamatory and libellous’, before adding that his lawyers ‘are also in touch with other news organisations who repeated the BBC line’. Crikey.

The rather humiliating climbdown comes some months after the broadcaster’s chief executive Deborah Turness claimed BBC Verify would receive even more investment. Mr S would suggest that instead of funnelling more cash into the service — whose own ‘disinformation correspondent’ was accused of inaccurately embellishing her CV — perhaps the Beeb should take better care over checking its own facts first…