I’m not the first person to have been on the receiving end of BBC bias, and I won’t be the last. But with an election campaign under way, I had expected our state broadcaster to behave responsibly in its coverage of this pivotal moment for democracy in Britain. Not a bit of it. On Sunday I was on The Andrew Marr Show. I anticipated a tough and free-flowing interview about the Brexit Party, our candidates, their strikingly different backgrounds, our campaign, and the merits of MEPs and the EU elections.

Instead, shortly after the interview began, Marr produced a piece of paper and started reading scripted questions relating to things I allegedly said or thought years ago – questions, by the way, which I am certain I have been asked by others on many previous occasions.

I am well aware of the saying “For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea”. But I genuinely thought Marr wanted to learn more on behalf of BBC viewers about what is happening now rather than focusing on positions I reportedly took a long time ago. I am not scared to discuss the past; I just happen to believe that the present and future are more urgent. Britain is politically paralysed. The stakes could not be higher.