Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,

The BBC news editorial guidelines (http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editoria...) state:
- "News in whatever form must be treated with due impartiality, giving due weight to events, opinion and main strands of argument."

Under the transparency afforded to me by the Freedom Of Information Act I would like to know, please, if payments either in cash or in kind have been received by the BBC from any political organisation since 1st January 2000 that have influenced the production or output of any news-based BBC programming.

By political organisation I refer to those based in the UK (such as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, etc., as well as those not currently represented in parliament, such as UKIP, BNP, etc.), together with the European Union and those based in the USA (such as the Democratic and Republican parties).

By news-based programming I refer to television news bulletins, News 24, Newsnight, Question Time and similar, as well as news-based radio programmes such R4's Today, R2's Jeremy Vine Show and similar.

A simple "Yes" or "No" answer will suffice.

A response of "the information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’" could, of course, be open to unfavourable interpretation.

As usual, I look forward to you dealing with my request as promptly as possible, and at the latest within 20 working days.

Yours faithfully,

A Willmore