BBC asks pollster how she votes before allowing her on air

The BBC has admitted asking a contributor to state how they voted at the last election, saying an employee had misinterpreted guidelines on impartiality.

Scarlett Maguire, a director at polling company JL Partners, expressed surprise at being asked to divulge the information before going on air.

The question was posed by a BBC journalist working on Adrian Chiles’ Radio 5 Live programme.

“Bizarre interaction this morning just before going into an interview at the BBC. Was asked how I voted at the last election as a precondition for coming on air,” she wrote on social media.

“Is this standard practice for guests now??”

The BBC said that the question was not part of standard BBC policy. A source said that a junior employee had made a genuine error.

“This should not have been asked. It was a member of staff who misinterpreted the guidelines around impartiality on this occasion and we are speaking with them about this,” they said.

The BBC’s editorial guidelines call for impartiality in news programming. 

One clause tells staff: “We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities and think-tanks) are unbiased.

“Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context.”

JL Partners is a polling and opinion research company co-founded by James Johnson, who previously served as strategy adviser to Theresa May when she was prime minister and Tom Lubbock, who previously ran analytics and polling at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

Maguire appears regularly on BBC programmes including Radio 4’s Today programme and Westminster Hour.