BBC Question Time Audience Laugh And Jeer As Peter Oborne Calls Daily Mail 'Extremely Accurate And Fair'

'Hats off to Peter Oborne for keeping a straight face.'
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Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne provoked jeers and laughter from the BBC Question Time audience last night after he defended the tabloid as an “extremely accurate and fair paper”.

With Thursday night’s panel debating the terms of Brexit, one outraged audience member demanded a second referendum, appearing to blame pro-Leave newspapers for Britain’s decision to exit the EU.

“We didn’t know what Brexit was going to mean when we voted for it in the Referendum,” the young man said.

This Question Time audience member accused the Daily Mail of printing lies during the referendum campaign
This Question Time audience member accused the Daily Mail of printing lies during the referendum campaign
BBC

“Lies were printed in papers like the Daily Mail... and people voted,” he continued as others in the audience began to applaud.

“Don’t we have a responsibility to the British people to give them a referendum when we know the facts?”

Asked by Question Time host David Dimbleby: “What were the lies in the Daily Mail?”, the man quickly rebuffed: "£350 million to the NHS per week?”

Peter Oborne defended the paper as 'extremely accurate and fair'
Peter Oborne defended the paper as 'extremely accurate and fair'
BBC

But a ruffled Osborne sparked laughter and heckles from the audience when he hit back: “The Mail is an extremely accurate and fair paper.

″[You] may not like it, but it is read by an awful lot of people - honourable, decent people - I imagine a lot of you in this audience,” he continued.

“It’s a great newspaper - it doesn’t tell lies.”

Many viewers on social media appeared to agree with the audience, with journalist Tim Walker praising Oborne for “keeping a straight face” while defending the Mail:

Hats off to Peter Oborne for keeping a straight face as he trots out Daily Mail line on Brexit on #bbcqt. I couldn't do it without laughing.

— Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) June 22, 2017

@bbcqt There are many many reasons not to read the Daily Mail and last night on QT, Peter Oborne added his name to the ever growing list.

— Paddletramp (@newsboy23) June 23, 2017

There really should be an emoticon on here to show incredulity and/or wetting oneself... #bbcqt #DailyMail

— David Erwin (@utb1889) June 22, 2017

Oborne was backed by broadcaster James O’Brien who suggested the journalist should not be judged by the the standard of his “toxic colleagues”:

Peter Oborne is a good man & a journalist of rare integrity. Hardly any jobs in British journalism come without toxic colleagues these days. https://t.co/YTVZWS3lGF

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) June 23, 2017

Campaigners claim that the tabloid - alongside The Sun and the Daily Express - prints “relentlessly hostile and often inaccurate headlines” about migrants and minorities and must be stopped.

On Thursday the Mail launched an extraordinary attack on the Guardian claiming the newspaper was the real “purveyors of hate” after the it ran a “sick and disgusting” cartoon it claimed smeared its reputation in the wake of the Finsbury Park mosque attack.

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