BBC: Stephen Nolan’s Pro-Migrant Questions ‘Might Have Been Better Phrased’

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has admitted that one of its presenters, Stephen Nolan, did not phrase his aggressive, pro-migration questioning towards his phone-in callers as well as he could have, following a number of complaints about his “biased” reporting.

Nolan attracted the ire of listeners of his 5 Live radio phone-in last week after pillorying those who said that Britain shouldn’t accept tens of thousands of new migrants as announced by Prime Minister David Cameron earlier this month.

He was subsequently challenged to a debate on the matter, instead choosing to block many of his Twitter followers that urged him to accept, and rebuffed by radio presenter Jon Gaunt as a “fat boy, pompous pr*ck”. 

His opinions, which he clearly and robustly put across in his role as a publicly funded broadcaster, remain out of step with the plurality of British voters, who don’t want Britain to accept more migrants.

Now the BBC, while defending the general principle of his behaviour, admitted that Mr Nolan had made some mistakes during the programme. A statement seen by Breitbart London said: 

“As he would with any caller, particularly one putting forward strong views that some listeners are likely to find upsetting, the presenter challenged Jonathan and asked some searching questions about his opinions and beliefs. At each stage, Jonathan was given the opportunity to answer in full. We believe this was reasonable and expected in the context, while accepting that a couple of the questions might have been better phrased…”

The BBC did not suggest that Mr Nolan would be warned or disciplined over his actions, but immediately after the incident, the presenter was absent from his radio show for a week, with one source telling Breitbart London, “He’s usually bragging about his holidays on air. He seemed to disappear without a trace on this occasion.”

Adrian Goldberg and Nihal Arthanayake are sitting in for him for two weeks, with no hints on the BBC website of his return date.