Douglas Carswell

BBC's Simon McCoy virtue signals

"We have a moral duty to act" over the refugee crisis, I began the interview.  

"There are genuine asylum seekers" and we could do more to help them, I continued, as I made the case for doing more.  

Got that?  UKIP MP saying government should do more to help Syrian refugees?  

Pretty middle of the road stuff, I'd have thought.  If there was any angle to put on it, I'd have thought - at the most - it would be to point out that even UKIP thinks the government should do more.  

Not according to the BBC's interviewer, Simon McCoy.  Clearly told to expect his UKIP interviewee to make all sorts of outrageous points, he tried his best to confect a bit of outrage.

Watch it for yourself.  He seems at times to be literally clawing around to find something objectionable that I've said.    

This interview reveals more about the prejudices of BBC presenters than it does about the migration crisis, or how we might respond to it.   

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