I promise I’m impartial, says Jon ‘**** the Tories’ Snow

JON Snow yesterday denied he had ever said ‘**** the Tories’ – as he hailed his own ‘precious’ impartiality as a journalist.

The veteran Channel 4 newsreader said he was ‘pretty certain’ he had never sung the foul-mouthed chant because it is not a sentiment he shares.

‘I’m pretty certain I never said it and it’s not something I would say and it’s not something I believe,’ he told the Edinburgh TV Festival. Snow was accused of breaking impartiality rules earlier in the summer by chanting ‘**** the Tories’ at the Glastonbury festival.

He later claimed that he had no recollection of the incident. But yesterday he went further, as he tried to fend off growing concern that his overtly Left-wing views undermine his position as a news broadcaster.

In an interview with the Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson, he said the Glastonbury row had to be taken within the context of the ‘melee’ of a music festival.

He added: ‘Just suppose there was a group of people around me, who were actually shouting it – I didn’t hear it, but let’s suppose there was – and I was going “Argh!”. Well, what are you going “Argh!” to? I’ve absolutely no idea.

‘So you have to view where I am and the kind of melee that there is when these things happen.’

The controversial Glastonbury episode came to light after a Twitter user claimed Snow, 69, used the phrase.

He was given a dressing down by Channel 4 bosses over the episode, and Tory MPs called for the presenter to be sacked.

Snow also appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, where he insisted he was impartial and heaped praise on Ofcom rules which demand that news presenters are unbiased.

‘Impartiality is a very, very precious entity in our media and I’m grateful for the fact that we do have a regulated broadcasting system and that you and I are impartial,’ he told interviewer Nick Robinson.