BBC opts against the term "second referendum"

Just under a week ago, a question...

...led me to half-complete a post. 

It originally ran as follows:

Hmm. Checking TV Eyes for Radio 4 from 6-9am that morning [i.e. 24 September] and listing all the mentions of "referendum" by BBC reporters and presenters found the following: 

"another referendum" - 6 

"a second referendum" - 3 

"a further referendum" - 3

"a new referendum" - 2 

So that's 3 uses of "second referendum" compared to 11 uses of the (non 'People's Vote') alternatives to "second referendum". Two of the uses of "a second referendum" came in a single sentence by Nick Robinson.

Well, maybe I should have finished it as it turns out that, yes, there really is a BBC editorial policy about it and, yes, "second referendum" genuinely is deliberately being sidelined as a term by the BBC. 

Here's Roland White, writing in The Sunday Times today:

It’s not just Labour and the Tories who are tying themselves in knots over a “people’s vote” — the BBC has joined in, too. Its presenters and news reporters have been ordered to stop referring to a “second referendum” on the grounds that it annoys people who think we’ve already had one. 

“Some people regard 1975 as the first referendum,” says a memo from Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser. “Others insist that, even if 2016 was the first vote, calls for another referendum now would be asking a very different question and therefore should not be described as the second.” The accepted terms are “further referendum” or “another referendum”. 

A BBC radio source seethes: “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

It's also absolutely typical of the BBC.