The BBC has allocated every party more Election special airtime than the Green Party The Green Party will not feature in the BBC’s Question Time special leadership debates in the run up to the […]

The Green Party will not feature in the BBC’s Question Time special leadership debates in the run up to the General Election.

David Dimbleby will host a Question Time Leader Special with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, who will not debate but will appear one right after the other. This will air on 2 June.

Dimbleby will chair another Question Time Leader Special featuring Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon on 4 June. Later that day there will be ‘Election Questions’ broadcasts with Leanne Wood and Paul Nuttall.

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But the Green Party only appear in a seven-way podium debate on 31 May and the Newsbeat Youth debate on the 6 June.

Lucas v Nuttall

The Green Party held a seat in the House of Commons before the election. It is also the bookies’ favourite for the Bristol West seat, and came out ahead of both Labour and the Lib Dems on the Isle of Wight in last week’s local elections. The party won a total of 40 seats in the elections on Thursday.

Comparatively, UKIP has had no MPs since March and won only a single council election.

“We’re not happy”

“This is getting beyond a joke,” said Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Greens.

“The BBC’s love affair with UKIP is getting embarrassing and it is time it recognised that the Green Party is entitled to a fair hearing in its election programming.”

“As the local election results, in which 150,000 people voted Green compared with less than 100,000 for Ukip, demonstrated, when people see what we stand for, they support the Green Party. It’s time the BBC recognised the strength of the Green movement.”

The Green Party complained at the weekend that the BBC was breaching its political guidelines by covering Ukip’s Local Election results more than their own.

In a letter of complaint sent to the broadcaster, the party pointed to the fact that it won 40 seats in Thursday’s local elections against Ukip’s one.

“With the exception of a few items, most of the BBC’s coverage failed to report the Green Party’s results, while giving disproportionate coverage to Ukip,” the letter said.

Following the announcement of the BBC’s electoral specials, a senior source at the Green Party said: “This is a bizarre move by the BBC and comes just days after Ukip lost almost all the council seats they contested and the Greens made gains. We’re considering out options as to how we move forward but, needless to say, we’re not happy with this set up.”

When asked for comment, a BBC spokesperson said: “Our coverage is duly impartial, but in any given day editorial judgements will be made about what the most significant story is. That also takes into account past electoral support over two electoral cycles, as set out by Ofcom, and not just the recent local election results.”