Thoughts on our Campaign Press Launch, April 2015

It has been one of the recurring bug bears of trying to get our political party up and running and publicised, that whenever we are entitled to a little bit of coverage, the coverage that we have actually been given has generally been the niggardly minimum that the BBC can get away with.

As part of standing in the General Election or any major election the rules say that we are entitled to a press launch to be covered by being mentioned on the BBC News and on the BBC website and perhaps also an interview on the BBC’s Politics Show.

Over the years the BBC have chosen to minimise the effectiveness of that coverage by various means. On one occasion they showed supporters milling about rather than the display we had organised or anybody making a speech. On other occasions they have panned around to show that the rest of the room is quite empty. Of course they knew that it would be as this is a completely artificial arrangement, designed only to get some publicity rather than proper meeting! On some occasions they have shown me making a speech but done a voice over of whatever not so encouraging thing they wanted to say about us!

So on this occasion I thought there wasn’t much point in making a great effort to prepare a detailed speech. So, of course, this is the first occasion where they have actually broadcast my speech, or, at any rate, part of it, on the BBC Parliament Channel! Here is a link to view the outcome of that >>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05qqfjp/election-2015-english-democrats-campaign-launch.

Naturally had I known that they were going to broadcast 10 minutes of speech, I would have made sure that it was much more punchy and slick. I would also have focussed more on covering the key points as to why England is so badly disadvantaged by the current constitutional arrangements.

On the bright side, perhaps what they have done in this case is part of the growing recognition of the English Democrats. In future I may need to expect my speech to be covered! If so, I can promise far less um’s and r’s!

What do you think of the video?

Also here is what was put up on the BBC website >>> Election 2015: English Democrats launch campaign with attack on ‘traitors’ – BBC News

What do you think?