York is to host another major election event.
The two-hour Question Time Leaders’ Special is set to feature the leaders of Great Britain’s four largest political parties, the BBC has said.
It will be held at an as-yet undisclosed location in York next Thursday, with Fiona Bruce in the chair.
The event became the focus of today’s General Election campaigning, after Nigel Farage demanded a spot on the panel.
The Reform UK leader suggested the broadcaster should feature him in the line-up after a landmark poll put his party ahead of the Conservatives.
Based on the number of House of Commons seats before a General Election was called, the Conservatives had a majority, ahead of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats.
Reform UK had just one MP with Lee Anderson, in the Nottinghamshire constituency of Ashfield.
At a press conference in London on Friday, Mr Farage said his party had crossed an “inflection point”.
“We are the challengers to Labour. We are now the real opposition,” he said
“And this needs to be reflected, and it’s beginning to be reflected by the polling industry but it needs to be reflected by the broadcasters as well, because Ofcom and the guidance they’ve given to broadcasters say that really, the most important of all the factors is the performance in the last two general elections.
“I think we can demand of right now that the BBC put us into that debate.”
It will be the second time in three General Elections that York played a key role in a leaders’ TV show.
In June 2017, the BBC’s Question Time leaders special came from the University of York.
The programme saw then Conservative leader Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn face questions from an audience.
Hosted by David Dimbleby, that show did influence voters, according to later research by academics.
As for this election, YouGov’s poll for The Times, of 2,211 adults in Britain on Wednesday and Thursday, put Reform UK at 19% – ahead of the Conservatives at 18% and the Liberal Democrats at 14%. Labour led with 37%.
The PA news agency has averaged polls published by several firms including YouGov.
An average of all polls that were carried out wholly or partly during the seven days to today (Friday) puts Labour on 42%, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 21%, followed by Reform on 15%, the Lib Dems on 11% and the Green Party on 6%.
What the BBC says
A BBC spokesperson said: “Nigel Farage and Reform UK have received coverage across BBC outlets, including Mr Farage appearing on Question Time, being interviewed on the Today programme, taking part in the BBC seven-way debate, being interviewed on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, on BBC Breakfast, and participating in the Nicky Campbell phone-in on BBC 5 Live and BBC News channel.
“He is invited to participate in the leaders’ interviews with Nick Robinson.
“The BBC’s editorial guidelines and Ofcom’s guidance state that we should give due weight to past and current electoral support when determining coverage for political parties.
“The Ofcom guidance gives ‘greater weight on the actual performance of a political party in elections over opinion poll data’ taking into account the ‘greater uncertainty associated with support in opinion polls’.
“Our guidelines set out the broad levels of coverage each of the parties should expect to receive but we follow the story of the campaign, including continued trends in the polls.”