Euan McColm: Don't ask whether Tommy Robinson's a racist thug

It is quite the thing to attack the BBC, these days. Everyone's at it.

Your political party didn’t win the election? BBC’s fault, that. You lost a referendum? Only happened because of the bloody Beeb.

And this is not just sport for the usual suspects, the keyboard warriors and demo-attending ideologues. Now, senior politicians across the spectrum are enthusiastic BBC-bashers, with many of them echoing Donald Trump’s “fake news” mantra when it comes to reports they find uncomfortable.

The corporation is frequently unfairly maligned by grubby little politicians who know that the BBC is – for the reason that any counter-attack will be twisted into an example of partisanship – unlikely to hit back.

Tommy Robinson was co-founder of the far-right English Defence League. Picture: Jack Taylor/Getty

The fact that the same sort of criticism of the BBC – it distorts our position, it supports our opponents – comes from all points of the political compass should reassure us that things are not as whingeing politicians might have us believe. If the journalists of the BBC are upsetting right-wingers and lefties, unionists and nationalists, Leavers and Remainers, then they are doing what we should expect of them.

But… There’s always a but. This doesn’t mean the BBC shouldn’t be subject to the closest scrutiny. We pay for the thing, after all, so we are entitled to ask – at all times – whether it is living up to the standards we might expect.

On its coverage of Tommy Robinson – the former leader of the far-right English Defence League turned self-styled crusading journalist – the Beeb has questions to answer.

“Is Tommy Robinson a man raising concerns that others ignore or a far-right figure exploiting the victims of sexual abuse for his own ends?” asked an online promo for BBC’s Newsnight