Beeb responds to criticism over Osborne coverage

I see that the BBC has responded to criticisms that it has been bias about the reporting of the George Osborne scandal.

This morning's Sun editorial asked

According to its own internal memo, hundreds of listeners accused the Corporation of bias against the Tories — pointing out that the party received NO cash at all.
And it’s strange that the BBC only went into overdrive on the story AFTER George Osborne’s name was linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
When just Labour’s Peter Mandelson was involved it boasts it resisted making much of any allegations

Steve McWhinney replies on the editors blog

Here was a specific allegation of wrongdoing - indeed possible law-breaking - against the man holding the most sensitive post in the shadow cabinet outside of the leader. The claim - vehemently denied - that he solicited a donation to the Conservatives from a Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, and talked about ways to secretly channel that donation to the party, on the face of it could have put him in breach of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

and on the reason why Mandelson has been left relatively unscathed?

The reason the coverage so far has not been at the same level as that of George Osborne is that up until now there has been no similar specific allegation that Lord Mandelson has broken any laws. Nor, in Lord Mandelson's case, was there a specific, credible complainant in the same way as there was with Mr Osborne.