The complaints arose from a passage in the interview where Mr Tice described the Government’s decision to defer four Mayoral elections as “dictatorial” and the interviewer said “You just mentioned the word dictatorial.  Let's talk about Nigel Farage's relationship when he was younger with Hitler, shall we?  You just mentioned the word dictatorial.  Because 20 people told the Guardian that Nigel Farage behaved in a racist and antisemitic way at school with direct quotes from pupils – and  some of them named – that  he was joking about gas chambers and saying that Hitler was right”.  The ECU considered that, while the interviewer’s manner of introducing a new topic was somewhat abrupt, the topic was a legitimate one for consideration in view of the nature of the allegations and the extent to which they appeared to have been corroborated.  The reference to a “relationship” with Hitler might have been regarded as an illegitimate slur if the interviewer had not gone on to specify what that relationship was alleged to have consisted of and, as Mr Tice would have been well aware of the existence of the allegations in question, there was no question of the interviewer taking him by surprise, as some complainants suggested.

Not upheld