Complaint
This programme featured an archive interview with the former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.  A viewer complained that he was inaccurately described as “r²¹²Ô³Ù¾±²Ô²µâ€ and that a current representative of the Labour party should have been interviewed in the same way Sir Bernard Ingham featured in relation to a discussion about Margaret Thatcher. The ECU considered whether the programme met Â鶹ԼÅÄ standards of impartiality.
Outcome
In the programme Mr Wilson was described by the presenter David Dimbleby as “r²¹²Ô³Ù¾±²Ô²µâ€ and as having “exploded with fury†when asked about the fee he was paid for his memoirs.  The ECU agreed the footage showed the former Prime Minister remained calm and did not raise his voice but considered his anger at being asked a question he thought inappropriate was palpable.  Furthermore he threatened to abandon the interview and scrap the entire programme it was intended for, and made accusations regarding his expectation that it would be leaked.
Whilst not everyone would accept Mr Dimbleby’s assessment, the risk that audiences would have been led to misunderstand how Mr Wilson reacted was very low given that the reaction in question was seen and heard.  Audiences could therefore judge it for themselves, and it would have been open to them to disagree.  The guidelines explicitly allow for judgements of this kind, provided they are “rooted in evidenceâ€.  As it was Mr Dimbleby who had conducted the original interview, he was uniquely well-placed to characterise Mr Wilson’s response.
The section of the programme on Mrs Thatcher was markedly different from that on Mr Wilson.  The former looked at length and in some depth at her strained relations with the Â鶹ԼÅÄ, and the fact the Â鶹ԼÅÄ was constantly under attack during her tenure because she considered it “a nest of liberally minded vipersâ€.  It spent some time on the specific question of Panorama’s coverage of IRA actions in Northern Ireland, and Sir Bernard Ingham gave his view on what particularly had caused Mrs Thatcher to be furious and whether giving publicity to the IRA was an abuse of journalistic freedom.  He was clearly offering his own analysis, which was not always positive regarding Mrs Thatcher.  By contrast, the section of the programme complained of looked only at a single incident and it was unclear in the ECU’s view what point ought to have been put in his defence by an interviewee.  Mr Wilson’s contribution included his own rebuttal and his objections in his own words.
Not Upheld