THE BBC has published a full, unedited interview with Tory Party deputy chair Lee Anderson after the MP claimed he could not trust the broadcaster to “be fair to me”.
At the end of the 11-minute interview – pre-recorded with the MP on Wednesday and broadcast on Thursday – Anderson attacks the BBC, threatening never to talk to them again if they broadcast parts of the interview and not its full length.
After being told that the interview would be too long to broadcast in full, Anderson said: “I’m asking you not to put it on then.”
He went on: “I’m asking you now not to play it. I can’t trust you to play the whole lot and be fair to me.
“We’re supposed to be talking about my role as a chairman. Listen, listen! We’re supposed to be talking about my role as deputy chairman, not the other stuff.
“You went off on a tangent … So don’t play it please. If you do, I will never give you anything again.”
Interview below: Dishonesty raised around 7mins 30, Anderson challenges BBC around 9mins 40
The outburst came after Anderson, who was elevated to deputy chair of the Conservative Party by Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, flatly refused to answer questions about his dishonesty put to him by BBC Radio Nottingham.
BBC host Verity Cowley pressed the deputy chair on a video from the 2019 General Election campaign which showed him asking a friend to lie to journalists and pretend to be a swing voter angry at Labour.
I made Lee Anderson Deputy Chairman because he represents the integrity and professionalism that I value so much. Like that time he lied to a journalist and got his mate to pretend he didn't know him. Please don’t share. #Reshufflepic.twitter.com/FJo0YuWPg7
— Parody Rishi Sunak (@Parody_PM) February 7, 2023
Anderson, the MP for Ashfield, did not answer but instead asked 10 times if the BBC journalist had “ever told a lie”.
After the lengthy back and forth where Anderson insisted the host had to say if she had ever told a lie in order to have a “balanced conversation”, he insisted that voters did not care about the incriminating video because they had elected him anyway.
Anderson’s election was a part of the fall of Labour’s “red wall” across northern England. It was the first time since a 1977 by-election that a Tory had won the seat.
The clash over dishonesty came after Anderson – known as “30p Lee” for his insistence that people can cook meals from scratch for that cost – was challenged over his views on food banks by the BBC host.
Told of reports that nurses and firefighters, some earning £30-£35,000 a year, have been forced to use food banks, Anderson made clear he did not believe it.
"Even though nurses, firefighters, people who've got jobs are saying 'I need to use this' you don't believe them?" Anderson was asked. He replied: “No.”
He challenged the BBC to find any nurse or firefighter in Ashfield who has to use a foodbank, insisting that the “facts” were that no one earning more than £30,000 would need to use such a service.
Cowley then asked if people should just believe Anderson given that he “might be a bit dishonest”.
The BBC published the full interview, as well as broadcasting it.
It comes after Anderson stoked further controversy by saying he supported the return of the death penalty. He told the Spectator: “Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.
“You know that, don’t you? 100% success rate.”
The death penalty for murder in the UK was outlawed permanently in 1969, with it totally abolished for all crimes in 1998.
Prime Minister Sunak rejected Anderson’s calls for the return of the death penalty, saying: “That’s not my view, that’s not the Government’s view. But we are united in the Conservative Party in wanting to be absolutely relentless in bearing down on crime and making sure people are safe and feel safe.”
Speaking on the BBC, Anderson said: "They say I'm controversial but it's the media that stokes controversy by picking up on these sorts of stories.”
