A quick lesson in media spin from Auntie Beeb

The BBC offers us the following information in the following order:

Local Referendums came back with 88% asking for a referendum.

A total of 152,520 people in ten Lib-Dem and Labour ridings voted, with 133,251 backing a referendum.

IWAR claims the turnout is higher than that in local council elections.

Higher education minister Bill Rammell dismissed the poll as "flawed".

36.2% voter turnout

Mr Rammell said the turnout figure in his Harlow constituency where a vote was held was "lower than any local government election that I have ever participated in"

Now, let's examine the manner in which this information has been presented. None of it is factually untrue. But the impression is carefully constructed to support the Labour position that there is neither a need nor a demand for a referendum on the EU.

First we are told that although 88% voted for the referendum, it is only a "claim" by the campaign organizers that this number is higher than the average turnout on local elections. This is immediately followed by noting that a senior member of Cabinet - an "expert politician" - thought it was rubbish. This is followed by the percentage, 36.2, which in turn is followed by a further elaboration from The Important Cabinet Minister on how the whole thing is rubbish.

By this time, the Beeb knows full well, the decision of the reader has been made since the average reader of online news reads at most the first 300 words of any article. We don't get a quote from an organizer until 450 words have gone by, a nice safe margin. And not until after there has been a nice little slur thrown in from the Official Government Guy about how it's all really just a Tory party stitch-up anyway.

The last nail? The photo is a shot of some old guy, dressed in an anorak and flat cap. A person, in other words, who bodily represents Old Britain, the Britain most despised by the hip young internet-reading, latte-sipping denizens of Beebworld. A person whose opinion, in other words, doesn't count and who can be dismissed as probably a crank. He probably even still goes to church on Sundays too.

What Auntie isn't telling you is what the average voter turnout in local elections actually is. Something that is very easy to confirm at 35.4%. (How? easy. Stick "voter turnout UK" into Google and all the official and unofficial documentation one could hope for, including that from the Beeb/Guardian Axis, is at the reporter's fingertips in 0.27 seconds.)

The average turnout for local elections (when not held with general elections) since 1996 is 35.4%. The average turnout in referendums on directly elected mayors - including in London - is 30.1%.

This means that the mini referendum, organised by local volunteers of every party, brought out the highest turnout in recent British electoral history. And the highest ever in an unofficial vote.

Our caretakers at the Beeb also decline to note what the ballot question was.

Voters were asked two questions:

Should the hold a national referendum on the EU's Treaty?

88% voted yes and 12% voted no. Less than 1% did not answer.

Should the approve the EU's Treaty?
89% voted against the Treaty and 8% voted in favour. 3% did not answer.

Auntie was also careful to censor the quotes, not including one from Anthony Wells from UK Polling Report, an independent expert who said: "A turnout in the mid thirties is stunning for a private referendum, higher than you'd expect to find in some actual local elections. Private referendums run the risk of only those sympathetic to the cause taking part in the vote, but with independent opinion polls consistently showing around four-fifths of those who express an opinion support a referendum, these don't seem too out of line."