We all know that the American broadcast networks are de facto arms of the Democrat National Committee. All one has to do is look at Memogate to confirm that reality. But when all is said and done, private businesses have every right to support whatever political philosophy they want. After all, the public can simply cut into their bottom line. A tax-supported broadcast outlet, such as the UK's BBC, needs to remain scrupulously neutral. Guess what -- they don't, and have now been caught formenting the disruption of a Conservative Party event.

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".

These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair".

Mr Black's strongly-worded letter accused the BBC of staging the event "to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party". The letter said that BBC staff were guilty of "serious misconduct". At least one of the hecklers was seen again at a Tory event in the North East, Mr Black added.

Last night, the BBC claimed that the exercise was part of a "completely legitimate programme about the history and art of political heckling" and said that other parties' meetings were being "observed". However, The Telegraph has established that none of Tony Blair's meetings was infiltrated or disrupted in similar fashion.

So, how did these folks get caught? What evidence is there that this was a BBC set-up, not simply a program on the political heckling?

Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.

Mr Black said that they described themselves as "shoppers". In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.

Mr Black's letter said of the hecklers: "It is entirely clear to me that the success of their presence required an element of performance on their behalf, and that this was a premeditated event intended to disrupt the course of Mr. Howard's speech.

"I do not believe that the BBC should be in the business of creating news. It also appears that the same crew was at the Michael Howard visit to Stockton-on-Tees and it can be no coincidence that someone with them was one of these 'hecklers'.

Absolutely incredible! An arm of the British government supplied equipment to those looking to disrupt a rally featuring the head of the opposition party. This is serious stuff, given the fact that there is no evidence of the BBC sponsoring any such attacks on Tony Blair's Labour Party. Could you imagine the uproar in this country if PBS were to have perpetrated something like this against John Kerry during the last election? It would have been seen as proof positive that the Bush Administration was attempting to create a totalitarian regime (granted, the Left made that claim without any evidence whatsoever, but you see my point) and would have cost the president any chance at reelection. Heck, if the generally conservative Fox News had done this, it would have been viewed as a Karl Rove instigated dirty trick.

And yet this seems to have had little effect in the UK. That is too bad. If the British people had a little bit more spine, they would demand the resignation of the Blair government, the prosecution of those involved in this abuse of government power, and the end of the BBC as a tax-supported entity. Here's hoping there is at least enough spirit left in out cousins on the other side of the pond to see them reject Labour and its dirty tricks.