UKIP BBC FGM Attack Fails

After the latest self-inflicted foul-up to hit UKIP, when Nigel “Thirsty” Farage got stuck in traffic once again last Thursday and had to miss using his season ticket as a BBC Question Time pundit, the Kippers appeared in need of some improvement in getting their message and attack lines across. This was, they believed, duly delivered by MEP Louise Bours today as she went after the hated Beeb for its reporting.

Under the headline “BBC rapped by UKIP MEP for not reporting British Female genital mutilation statistics”, UKIP’s website tells “The BBC has been criticised by UKIP's Louise Bours MEP for its lack of coverage of female genital mutilation cases (FGM) in the UK. Today, Saturday, February 6 marks International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM and campaigners claim some 5,484 instances of the barbaric practice were reported in England alone between October 2014 and September last year”.

How is the BBC at fault, then? “The Health and Social Care Information Centre has released data today saying medical professionals had recorded 1,385 FGM cases in England between July and September alone … The BBC’s website carried no reports of the FGM statistics on its main front page website on either Friday or Saturday”.

Ms Bours trowelled on the indignation: “The BBC is meant to be the British Broadcasting Corporation, yet it seems to be ignoring or at east [sic] downgrading the reporting of a horrific scandal taking place here on these shores … I find it appalling that our national broadcaster fails to sufficiently recognise the significance of a widespread crime carried out against young women in this country”. So has the Beeb been lax here?

Well, no it hasn’t: last July their website reported extensively on a study, part-funded by the Home Office, that concluded “Victims of female genital mutilation are likely to be living in every area of England and Wales”. In September the same site reported that “There were more than 1,000 newly recorded cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in England between April and June, NHS data reveals”. And it gets worse for UKIP.

An article on the BBC website dated today tells “Mental health services will be developed to provide specialised support for victims of female genital mutilation in England … The news comes on the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM … Between July and September last year, 1,385 cases were reported, with the highest number in London [my emphasis]”. So the BBC did cover the story.

No, the story was not on the website’s front page. But at any one time, no more than four or five stories enjoy that status. UKIP’s Louise Bours is trying to suggest that the BBC has not been covering events, using terms like “ignoring or … downgrading”, but the reality is that the Kippers are just indulging in sophistry, or they assume everyone is too stupid to use the site’s search facility - or, indeed, a search engine.

And that headline of theirs is quite simply untrue. Bit like the rest of their propaganda.