Michael Edwards

BBC's Nick Robinson covered the local elections by focussing on Blackpool. 

Prompting a social club to say who was going to run the council, he said he heard shouts of Conservative despite the first shout of "Labour". 

His editorial was that people weren't going to vote Labour.

Yet 2 clips stood out -
- the community activist pointing out a new school, a new doctor's surgery, a new city learning centre and some new housing;  "What I'm hoping is that people will remember everything that's gone on"
- the young family who said they're voting Labour because they are a young family and the tax credits work for them. 

Then, in fishing for opposition, he met a man saying he'd never voted;  and prompting someone to say something helpful about why they weren't voting Labour - "Iraq?" - "yeah, no, getting all these foreigners over here, they should ship 'em back". 

And in the whole piece he didn't meet anyone saying they'd vote Tory. 

Was this bias?  I know it's the obvious reaction but underneath it all, the frustration remains of a media that seeks to interpret moods rather than present the arguments that the local parties are making to run the council. 

One BBC radio journalist on Radio 5 actually boasted the other day that they were going to talk to people about the Welsh Assembly elections without talking to a single politician. 

A given then that politicians do no good. 

"What I'm hoping is that people will remember everything that's gone on" - Yeah me too. 

We've put out 4 newspapers in my ward to remind them.  But it now seems obvious that the Tory party's strategy is to say nothing. 

I'm told that in the neighbouring borough of Gedling, the Conservatives have not yet published a leaflet.