Today programme, polling day, and political coverage

[toomuchtooold]

Anyone else listened to the Today programme this morning think they were sailing a bit close to the wind with their coverage of Theresa May and whether or not she's still going to be in a job at the end of the week, among other things? I noticed they were careful in their choice of guest - they had Kenneth Baker on providing background about how things were handled around the deposing of Thatcher and Heath - but I would have thought that even the discussion of May's leadership being in danger was too overtly political for today, as the polls are open. Is it not usually all pictures of the party leaders going voting, obscure disease awareness and cats stuck up trees on polling day?

It's a news story, and they report the news.

There are OFCOM rules regarding politics coverage on TV and radio during elections, with particularly strict rules on coverage during polling day. The BBC has its own code of conduct on this, which the coverage of Theresa May's woes IMO could be interpreted as breaking. I'm not a fan of hers, but I'm surprised that they felt it was OK to talk about today, as she's in trouble because of the failure of the WAB to progress, and that's directly related to the election, certainly for the likes of the Brexit party.

I'm more worried that they didn't even mention it was the European elections in the headlines. The Chagos Islands and the Indian elections did, however, make it into the headlines.

Turnout is going to be abysmal if the media aren't even reminding people that it's election day. I've got someone visiting at the moment and it turned out they didn't even realise there was a vote today despite wanting to vote (alas, this means she won't be able to vote)

Oh bloody hell, that's not great. I mean I know that the UK is always collectively underwhelmed by the EU elections but you would've thought, this time... they probably can't do the traditional "Prime Minister goes voting with spouse" shot because May's still in number 10 sandbagging the windows. I'm kind of imagining her taking all the bog roll ("we paid for it Philip, and you can take out that lightbulb you replaced last week as well") and like writing "fuck you Boris" on the picture rail above the bed in the main bedroom.

I wondered that - local election day the other week was blissful for the lack of Brexit stuff on the Today programme. I thought they must certainly be pushing guidelines with today's content (and very surprised if they didn't already know that, so maybe it's different for the euro elections? But I don't think it is...)

The ban on election campaign coverage does not bar reporting of other political issues, and with the resignation of Loathsome last night this is very much a current issue.