I don't think Colin Irwin had a hidden agenda.

Anyone who has followed this closely can see the origin of much of his writing on the BBC message board. We'll never know whether he went through the message board on his own or whether Smooth Operations who run it on behalf of the BBC took out selective quotes for him.

He was clearly given the transcript to the BBC programme too.

He was given access to the nomination figures.

Clearly all this came from Smooth Operations in one form or another.

It was a very poor PR exercise on their behalf. A decent PR firm would have said "Take the heat out of it - publish the figures". Its advice would not have been "Give Colin Irwin an interview, that'll take the heat out of it".

It hasn't and it isn't finished yet!!