Vote Leave Bullies Marr Show

The EU referendum campaign is only a week and a half away, which means that after today there is just one weekend left to get the campaign messages on to the Sunday political shows. And the Sunday political show that both the Leave and Remain camps want to get their messages on to is The Andy Marr Show (tm), which hosted both Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and Young Dave yesterday.

Ah, Vote Leave chaps - I'll ask my own questions, thanks

So what message did they all want to get across? Well, for the Outers, the fixation was on the Sunday Times story by Tim Shipman about a million Turks supposedly having the doors “thrown open” to them. Sadly, with a programme fronted by an experienced journalist who can count editorship of a national title on his CV, comes an ability to correctly identify a steaming pile of horseshit at 100 paces.

But hope, initially at least, sprang eternal: “Explosive in Sunday Times: Leaked UK plan to open doors for 1m Turks” told the official Vote Leave Twitter feed. Sadly, the level of inspiration was patchy: “Democracy & NATO are key to peace in Europe, but EU is undemocratic. Even @stellacreasy & @HarrietHarman can't name 5 Presidents of EU”. NATO is not a democratic institution. And naming politicians does not create democracy.

It got worse: “Even the pro-EU and EU-funded CBI say we will get a free trade deal with the EU”. Untrue assertion on the CBI, and free trade does not mean tariff free trade. Try again. “Europe is not the only market in the world. In fact - the only continent in the world experiencing less economic growth is Antarctica”. That is not true either.

But whatever was happening that was bad, it was someone else’s fault: “Cameron claims he's running a positive campaign - has he not read the papers this morning?!” Yeah right, I saw that Syria and Iraq leaflet too. Would Sir care to pitch another whopper? They certainly would: “We are giving more than £1 billion to Turkey so that they can join the EU”. No we’re not, it’s less than half that, but facts, eh?

And by now the realisation was setting in that Marr had not taken any notice of their pet story, so a little winding up was in order: “If Turkey isn't joining the EU, why do we have a dedicated team in Ankara?” Because it’s the capital of Turkey and we have an embassy there. “#Marr ignored it but this is very important from @ShippersUnbound - Leaked UK plan to open doors for 1 million Turks”. It was crap earlier, and it’s still crap.

So Marr had ignored the denizens of Vote Leave? They would show him - they would publish, er, something: “The full documents from Sunday Times story will shortly be posted on our website”. Big deal. It’s still a crap story. So if all else fails - hey, it’s the BBC, so make a wild accusation of bias. “Andrew Marr disgracfully [sic] refused to ask Cameron about the Sunday Times story despite having the documents - #Marr in full campaign mode”. Sir! Miss! That Marr bloke isn’t listening to us! It’s not fair!

Vote Leave can’t tell the difference between their own crap propaganda and news. No surprise there, then.