Reform, with 0.7% of all MPs, featured in 25% of BBC’s recent 10pm news bulletins

They got ~14% of the votes in that same election though…

Because I can’t help fixing the number of headlines every political party will get for the next five years based on how many MPs they get under an FPTP election doesn’t sound like a great system?

Only twenty five percent? It feels like eighty percent.

Reform with 35% polling numbers only feature in 25% of news bulletins? https://bmgresearch.com/news/with-a-record-35-vote-share-reform-are-upending-british-politics/

Almost like they have a large degree of popular support. The MP metric is such a stupid way of gauging support

I’m not saying Reform are being over or under represented, but…

Robert Zajonc actually led a study that, to put into simple terms, proves that repeated exposure to a stimulus increases attraction to it.

I remember there being an example where a series of photos of women would cycle through with one of the photos being repeated more than the other. In the end, all of the photos were shown, and the viewers were asked to select which they found the most attractive.

An overwhelming majority of people said they found the female whose picture was repeated more was the most attractive.

A secondary study, where all pictures were shown the same amount of times, resulted in that same woman being considered the least attractive.

And Chris Mason is rather excited in almost all of them.

Rounding on the BBC now? Thought they were a sacred cow here.

The only reason I know what Reform / Farage is up to is the non stop talking about Reform in this sub.

Response to a complaint:

Thank you for getting in touch with us about our recent news coverage of Reform UK.

BBC News is committed to providing our audiences with fair and impartial coverage of all relevant political parties. Whenever we invite representatives of any political party to take part in our coverage, we are careful to ensure that views are appropriately challenged and analysed, over an appropriate period of time. Our Editorial Guidelines make it clear that: “Evidence of past electoral support and current electoral support should be taken into account in making judgements about appropriate levels of coverage and prominence.”

Traditional voting patterns across Britain have been shifting, providing a challenge to established political parties, especially Labour and the Conservatives. At the 2017 general election, those two parties combined won more than 80% of the vote – at last year’s general election, that figure was well below 60%. Current opinion polls put their combined support at nearer 40% across Great Britain.

During the last year or so, Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) appear to have been the main beneficiary of this shift. Our assessments of “past electoral support” include both representation (ie how many MPs are elected) and also vote-share (ie how many people actually vote for a party overall). Although they have four MPs currently, Reform UK won more than four million votes in the 2024 general election, making them the third largest party in terms of vote share (more than 14%), behind Labour and the Conservatives, but ahead of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless returned more than 70 MPs.

In the 2025 English local elections in May, Reform UK won a majority of ten councils plus two Mayoral contests, securing more votes across England than any other party (an estimated national share of above 30%). On the same day, Reform UK won a parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, with nearly 39% of the vote in that constituency.

Assessing “current electoral support” includes an obligation to take into account legitimate opinion polls, especially where there are robust and consistent trends (as measured by voting intention polls conducted by members of the British Polling Council). All such surveys fully conducted since the May elections (a total of more than 90 consecutive polls) indicate that Reform UK are ahead of all other parties across Britain; during August, the party’s polling average across 17 opinion polls, from a range of companies, increased to 30%, ahead of Labour (21%), the Conservatives (18%), the Liberal Democrats (14%) and the Green Party (9%).

Recently, Reform UK announced its immigration strategy and we considered many people who had voted for the party (or say they intend voting for it) would be interested in seeing the proposals. However, BBC News hasn’t simply reported on the strategy, we have also provided political analysis, scrutinised its spokespeople and heard from many individuals and parties across the political spectrum, including the government, providing a wide range of views on the issue.

With regards to Nigel Farage, he is an elected MP and leader of a political party with clear evidence of significant electoral support. Many political analysts across the media, with different political perspectives, report that Reform UK are “making the political weather” – in other words, the reactions and policies of the other political parties can only be properly understood in the context of knowing what is happening with Reform UK and its increased level of support.

We give careful consideration to ensuring any story concerning Mr Farage and Reform UK are given proportionate and appropriate coverage on our networks and online. We thank you for taking the time to get in touch, and your comments have been passed along to senior news editors.

The overrepresentation of far right parties like BNP and UKIP directly led to Farage and Reform being where they are today. It appears the BBC has learned nothing since then about how their actions give these lunatics legitimacy.

This maths frustrates me. Reform are making waves in the polls. They have a groundswell of support. They’re highly divisive. There are tens of thousands of people marching through London in lockstep with their ideals. Like them or hate them (and I hate them) but they are the big story of UK politics right now, and the buggest threat to Labour if there was an election called soon. The BBC would be remiss not to report on this stuff. 

They toried up the Beeb so much over 14 years in accidentally turned into reform

Oh dear. There are far too many astroturf bots on this thread spinning the “Love him or hate him” boilerplate. It’s getting dull.