I couldn’t let last evening’s Question Time Scottish extravaganza go without comment! What a leftist love-in from the caledonian socialist republic with a panel groaning with those on the political left! Did you see it? Naturally George Galloway – that doyen of the communist-loving dhimmified left – was given a rapturous welcome and his every utterance throughout the programme was warmly applauded. His praise of Castro in particular was revolting – but his sentiments were generally echoed by the other panellists to varying degrees. Might Castro become the patron saint of the Scottish Parliament? Every cliche about Cuba’s “World class” health service was repeated with no one offering a dissenting view. The poisonous SNP member Nicola Sturgeon was given free rein to spew forth her strident socialism, meanwhile we had Labour’s Cathy Jamieson and the Lib-Dem’s Nicol Stephen to provide even more …erm…left wing balance.The mild mannered and somewhat wet lettuce conservative Annabel Goldie was there as the token Tory. This edition of the programme was one of the worst I have seen in a while – with the rabble in the audience cheering on that on the panel. Do you think the BBC recruit in their audiences for this programme from the local socialist workers collective – or maybe that would be too mild for them?
STIRLING BIAS!
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“Fury as Jon Snow ‘thanks God for Drudge website’ for breaking Harry’s cover”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=522823&in_page_id=1770
another smug socialist living it up at our expense.There really are some good livings to made in doing good.
Snow is a rather creepy socialist. He cycles everywhere in his Lycra, which should just about sums him up.
As I predicted last night, Questiomtime just shows in my view that the time has come for England and Scotland to go their own ways.
Remember that “that lot” in the QT audience are electing socialist politicians to come down to England an influence OUR health, education and foreign policy.
The time has come to send them all back north of the border. And I mean all, Galloway and the jocks at the BBC.
Let them fund “Cuba lite” at their own expense.
I think David Vance is getting overexcited here (indeed if I may say so he seems to have a tendency to get overexcited.) So, there’s lots of lefties turning up on QT spouting, in David Vance’s opinion, absurd lefty opinions. Why shouldn’t they – that’s what they do. I accept that on average QT panels have a modest to strong bias in a lefty direction – ie you often get more lefties than righties, sometimes a draw, but never more righties than lefties. You get plenty of long way left pundits, but nothing further right than Freddie Forsyth and very little further right than Ken Clarke. And the “non politicos” are almost always Guardian/BBC progressive types. But in principle there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have a broadcast from Scotland from time to time where the panel reflects the very left wing political culture that does, however much some people might disapprove, exist up there. The bias problem isn’t that there’s sometimes a QT broadcast from Scotland with a 4-1 pro-lefty balance. It’s that we don’t get four times as many QTs broadcast from the home counties with 4-1 pro-righty bias.
Great language here in the QT link.
Tories “claim” while the SNP “believe”:
Goldie: “This month she claimed that the Conservatives, not Labour, are providing the “real opposition” to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament, after they claimed to have extracted…”
cf
“Sturgeon says she believes the case for an independent Scotland “is positive and forward-looking….””
fnord: Not a Scandinavian valley.
Firstly, I want to applaud the BBC and the fellow British media for behaving in a civilised way surrounding Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, for once the BBC did the right thing, and I hope that this site highlights this fact.
Secondly, QT last night was an absolute shambles, what on earth were the BBC thinking letting such egotistical and idiotic panellists on to the show?.
I hope the Scottish audience QT had last night were not representive of Scots in general?, if they were god help them!.
My gripe isn’t so much the panel, which as Lee Moore says merely reflects the general political culture in Scotland. As I’ve said on the open thread, it’s the audience reaction which bothers me, given that Stirling used to produce a Conservative MP until relatively recently.
Is there bias in the audience selection or does this really reflect Stirling opinion nowadays?
Didn’t see it, but it probably represented the ghastly bit in the middle of Scotland. If you go in the Borders, or Highlands, the locals are just as bemused by the central belt socialists as the rest of us.
The point that there should be 4 times as many QT’s broadcast from the South, with generally conservative audiences and panelists, is a very valid one and exemplifies the problem of institutionalised left wing bias in the bbc. Hence the need to end the bbc in its current form.
Watched for as long as I could stomache it last night, but rapidly came to the conclusion that it’s time for an independent Scotland. Having lived in The People’s Republic of France, I was reminded that the Scots, like the French, see the world in a very different (socialist) way to the average Englishman/woman (wouldn’t want to offend a Beeboid by being sexist). If they want tolive in a PC workers’ “paradise” that’s fine, but why should my taxes fund it and why should their Marxist MPs be able to vote on matters concerning the English?
Since WHEN did any QT audience ever feature a conservative audience??? For that matter, since WHEN did it ever feature a panel with four from the right and one from the left?
You know you are in QT country when someone like David Aaranovitch sounds like a right wing nut job.
I’m afraid both panel and audience *are* fairly typical, of central Scotland at least – one of the reasons I no longer live there.
The Scottish Conservatives are even more Tory-lite than their English counterparts, and even then are little more than a fringe party.
Basically, right-of-centre politics is dead north of the border. In that light, it’s hard to detect much Beeb “bias” at work here.
Joe (Maastricht):
Firstly, I want to applaud the BBC and the fellow British media for behaving in a civilised way surrounding Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan, for once the BBC did the right thing, and I hope that this site highlights this fact.
Joe, you are quite wrong.
If you accept that it is sometimes OK for the BBC to withold or distort information or give anything but what they know to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth then you concede the entire point of honesty in reporting.
You cannot be a little bit pregnant.
Note : For those who would seek to wade in with concerns about the safety of Prince Harry, that is absolutley not the point of my posting so please restrain yourselves or go to John Cravens Newsround.
bbc.anti american spinners have been reporting how an american website exposed prince harrys deployment to afghanistan.`New idea` seems to be a womens mag therefore beyond criticism by pcbbc,didn`t take long to find this.
AUSSIE mag New Idea bosses say they had no idea they broke a media blackout on Prince Harry fighting on the front line in Afghanistan.
British military has set its sights on the magazine after it revealed Prince Harry has been fighting on the front line in Afghanistan.
Americans please note,even when it`s not your fault…it is.(bbc borg directive..87h6tt5r4e)
Question Time had a panel of 1 Labour, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Conservative, 1 SNP (as the programme came from Scotland) and George Galloway.
The again, I suppose everyone is to the left of Genghis Khan.
Lee Moore: I agree with you over the point you make that if it’s OK for the BBC to give a 4/1 pro lefty in jockland, that when broadcasting from a Tory area they should have a 4/1 in favour of the right.
Never going to happen. Hell will freeze over first.
Joel:
Question Time had a panel of 1 Labour, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Conservative, 1 SNP (as the programme came from Scotland) and George Galloway.
………….so thats er, four lefties and one Conservative then!
…and your point is?
Joel,
So, that would be LEFT, FURTHER LEFT, MILDLY RIGHT, HARD LEFT, AND ISLAM LEFT. Yip – what could be more balanced?
Talking of Castro-loving socialists…
Hugh O’Shaughnessy is a huge fan of Latin America’s far left. His paeans of praise to Hugo Chavez have appeared in publications such as the Socialist Worker, the New Statesman and Counterpunch. His account of Chavez’s trip to London where the Venezuelan leader was greeted as a hero by the moonbat left is beyond parody:
“The atmosphere, even after more than three hours of solid speechifying was still electric, Chávez’s words drowned by the cheering of the audience… We spilled out onto the pavement and Chávez and his escort roared off back to the Savoy Hotel. London hadn’t seen such a demonstration of popular participation in politics for years and years.
In the 1980s Melvin Lasky described one of O’Shaughnessy’s Observer articles about Fidel Castro as a “bromidic exercise in Western hero-worship”. It’s hard to disagree:
“Breeding cattle and directing the operations of the firemen at a particularly nasty blaze in Havana, a proud father who has no time for family life, Castro is constantly achieving, active, never resting. He is the Moses to his people, leading them away from the captivity of their enemies toward a Promised Land that he himself will never live to see…”
So, just the man to provide a report about Cuba and Bolivia for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent. And they have the nerve to claim they’re not biased.
Joel: Why was Galloway on? He no longer represents a Scottish area. He was simply on so the BBC could “big up” that Cuban arsehole Castro.
It meant that 4 people on the panel were representing the various flavours of the left.
The audience is meant to reflect the public opinion of the Country, in this case NOT just Scotland.
Why is it that so many QT audiences are overloaded with bearded men and headscarf wearing women?
According to the stats about 7% of this Country is so called “ethnic minority”. That’s 7 in 100.
Look at any QT audience and that ration is clearly far higher.
Oh and how many taxi drivers or truckers etc are in the QT audience?
They always seem to be students, teachers and other public sector dross.
When was the last time a member of the BNP was on QT? They are no more extreme than Galloway and his followers.
Regarding the Drudge Report: Watching the US media no one there has really attached the website for revealing it.
I just wonder how Americans would react though if Drudge gave away George Bush’s plans to visit Iraq before he went or the movement of American soldiers?
Yet again, the British army has been betrayed by the Yanks. I guess it makes a change from dropping a frigging bomb on our lads though.
“The again, I suppose everyone is to the left of Genghis Khan.”
Hey, at least he never did it for the money.
Martin,
Good points re the imbalance. The QT audience is a baying left wing horde and the selection of candidates – wherever the programme is broadcast – is consistently biased towards the left.
“The audience is meant to reflect the public opinion of the Country”
Yes exactly, and in General Elections, who gets elected? Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem. They are the major parties. Its not surprising therfore that almost every panel includes one of each. That is the traditional format.
What this comes down to is your interpretation of left and right and whether those terms are even helpful or relevant.
You are also guilty of ‘bias by omission’ as you neglect to whinge about QT when there are 2 Conservative Party supporters on the panel:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/7243252.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/7221383.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/7205489.stm
Joel: “You are also guilty of ‘bias by omission’ as you neglect to whinge about QT when there are 2 Conservative Party supporters on the panel.”
Two. Out of five… Can you see where I’m going with this?
And Melanie Philips and Sarah Sands aren’t party political panelists; they’re conservatives with a small ‘c’ – Unlike Oona King, who they once memorably had on as one of their independent panelists. Surprisingly, she thought the Labour party were generally right about most things.
Joel: You miss the point. What about the 40% that don’t vote? Who represents them then?
Galloway represented 20% of the panel, yet he had no right to be there. He’s not an MSP nor does he have a Scottish constituency.
I would also argue that if the BBC are going ot take the view that the audience should reflect the local voting population (such as last night everyone seemd to be a left wing Socialist or Communist) then the next time they broadcast from a leafy white suburb I expect to see almost no black faces or lefties in the audience.
I won’t however hold my breath.
If the BBC intends to be “balanced” then the panel must also be balanced.
I also found it quite interesting that the majority of the audience seem opposed to the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Yet wait a minute which party took us into those wars? The Labour party, full of Scots elected by fellow scots.
Your argument fails again Joel. Last night there were 4 lefties to one so called tory. Week in and week out we see the likes of Shami Chakrabarti on QT or some “Greenie” or Tony bloody Benn.
Please tell me the last time QT has a MAJORITY of right wingers on the panel?
George Galloway was of course full of crap when he spouted on QT last night.
On the one hand he continually claimed that no senior politician had sons serving on the front line in the armed forces. Yet Galloway then said that the BBC and other media were actively promoting the war by NOT reporting that Prince Harry was on the front line.
Er, hang on Galloway. Are you suggesting that if a well known or senior figure’s son serves in the armed forces that you think the media should give away his position to the enemy, simply because you don’t think the media should take sides?
Well at that rate NO senior person will ever let their children serve if they know they will be bullet magnets and those around them won’t be happy either.
Presumably Galloway thinks the BBC should have broadcast the D-Day invasion plans to the Germans, otherwise the BBC would be seen to be taking sides?
Yet again, double speak from Galloway and he’s allowed to get away with it.
I’ll give you another example. Galloway says that the west have no right to interfere in the affairs of other Countries. YET, he then claims that declaring war on Germany was the correct thing to do.
So what had Germany done to us George? Nothing. They invaded Poland if I remember correctly.
So Galloway has double standards again, simply because he opposed fascism. Oh and Galloway also says he would have fought in the Spanish civil war. Tut, tut George. Breaking your own rule again by interfering in the internal affairs of another Country.
I know it’s not the BBC but anyone else see Channel 4 news? Jon Snow and his grubby ex beeboids trying to stir up race hatred by hanging around outside a Mosque hoping for chants of death to Harry.
But er no, all they got was rather polite comment.
So they like the BBC turn to a bushybearded madman (that Choudry arsehole, Mr Rent a hate )and some dopey cow with a curtain wrapped around her head who clamined that soldiers shouldn’t talk about going off to war the way they do!
What are they supposed to do luv? Read the Koran?
I noticed she talked about the dead civilians in Afghanistan (mostly due to shit American bombing by the way not British soldiers) but failed to mention the thousands killed when the Communists invaded in the 1970’s.
Selective memory again luv?
Oh and how about the dead in Bali, 9/11, the African Embassies, the USS Cole, Madrid, London and so on?
Joel:
Question Time had a panel of 1 Labour, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Conservative, 1 SNP (as the programme came from Scotland) and George Galloway.
………….so thats er, four lefties and one Conservative then!
…and your point is?
Lurker in a Burqua | 29.02.08 – 5:35 pm |
So if the Conservatives splinter into 5 parties, there would be 9 people on QT, 4 from the left, and 5 from the right?
How many MPs Respect has, again?
Joel’s examples of right-wing QT panels are quite entertaining.
You are also guilty of ‘bias by omission’ as you neglect to whinge about QT when there are 2 Conservative Party supporters on the panel
It’s true that two of the three panels (the last two) had two Conservative supporters on them, but even those two had 3-2 lefty majorities. As regards panel 1, Joel obviously imagines that Melanie Phillips is a Conservative supporter, which I doubt very much. She used to be a standard Guardian liberal-leftist, and I imagine a solid Labour voter. She’s moved right on social policy and Israel and she’s now floating somewhere near the Roy Mason wing of the Labour party • ie socially and militarily right, economically left. I doubt she can bring herself to vote Tory. But even if you take Melanie Phillips as a Conservative supporter, that panel is also 3-2 to the left.
Joel’s examples also illustrate the points I made earlier • aside from politicians and journos, all the so-called independent panellists are lefties. And all the Conservatives are centrists • the furthest right wing is Amanda Platell, which is equivalent to never venturing further left than Alistair Darling.
Joel • I don’t want to ask the impossible, so I won’t ask for a 4-1 right wing panel. See if you can find us a 3-2 right wing panel. Ever.
I used to love Question Time – if the audience figure is down- then count me as a lost viewer. I tune in week after week only to switch off after 10 minutes due to overwhelming left-wing bias. The points made above certainly match my experience.
Lurker in a Burka, you misunderstood my post, I applaud the BBC for not reporting the news that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan (as well as the rest of the UK media) for the simple reason that to have reported it would have put any other British soldiers lives at risk.
I have a brother serving in Iraq, and I can assure you that his entire company support the British media’s actions in not reporting the Princes deployment to Afghanistan.
As for your point that ‘I do not care for honest reporting if I accept the withholding of the Princes deployment’ then I resent your accusation, tell me where you draw the line?, would you expect the media to publish our atomic bombs release codes?, the addresses of our political leaders family addresses?.
Tell me LIAB exactly where you draw the line?, otherwise retract your stupid and simplistic accusation.
The QT audience is a baying left wing horde
David Vance | 29.02.08 – 5:52 pm
❓Can we prove that?
Question Time audiences have to fill in a Join the Audience application form supplying a complete political profile. This includes party preference (Q9) and ethnic group (11). Religion is not one of the questions although it is a fair bet that anyone belonging to the Pakistani group is a Muslim as is anyone named Mohamed, Hussein or Abdul.
If there is any doubt the BBC contacts each applicant (Q16).
Seems like a FOI request for the application forms for this QT (or perhaps all in the last 12 mths) would clear up the question of whether the Beeb stacks audiences, very well. 😉
Does anyone else give a shit that a renowned Castro sympathiser was chosen by the BBC to propagandise for his brutal dictatorial regime?
“If you go in the Borders, or Highlands, the locals are just as bemused by the central belt socialists as the rest of us.”
I live in Glasgow, and I’m bemused by the Central Belt socialists.
Tories are still 1 in 5 of the population up here, and that, it must be said, was reflected in the QT panel. Not so sure about the audience, though…
Sam,
That’s an interesting point. The audiences are, if anything, more lamentable than the panelists.
Deegee,
Great idea – can someone please pursue this and let’s NAIL this issue once and for all. Over the years I have been in audiences and yes, even on the odd panel (With me there it was very odd!)but the construction of the audiences was overwhelmingly left. Like 90:10.
deegee | 29.02.08 – 9:23 pm |
Did you ever see the Question Time broadcast on September 13th 2001?
That was THE worst.
deegee:
Question Time audiences have to fill in a Join the Audience application form supplying a complete political profile. This includes party preference (Q9) and ethnic group (11).
………………………..
So in(11), some five or so specified groups are offered the privilege and courtesy of description by reference to country or geographical region or ethnic group, while all others are treated as if they are no more distinct or distinguishable than the contents of a tin of paint. See here:
11. Which of these groups do you consider yourself to belong to?
White
African-Caribbean
Indian
Pakistani
Chinese
African
Mixed Origin
Other (please specify)
…………….
Now, why this disparity in treatment?
Did you ever see the Question Time broadcast on September 13th 2001?
Disinterested Bystander | 29.02.08 – 10:14 pm
No, but of course, I’ve heard about it. For some reason it doesn’t appear on the Classic Question Times page.
Still, the observation that the audience was overwhelmingly anti-American doesn’t prove BBC stacking. By all means FOI the audience applications for Sept 13th 2001, someone.
Still, the observation that the audience was overwhelmingly anti-American doesn’t prove BBC stacking.
deegee | 29.02.08 – 11:17 pm |
Quite.
However I’d never seen so many hijabs, or dark skinned people on Question Time before or since.
I seem to recall the BBC admitting that that audience was stacked, but I can’t remember from quarter that came.
The BBC admitted that the show was biased. I think that arsehole Greg Dyke actually appologised at the time.
If the Police had arrested that entire QT audience, most of the Islamic extremsits would have now been in prison.
Come on!I found Question Time hilarious.George G is a true comic turn in the best music hall tradition and that audience was beyond parody.Full marks to the guy at the end who saluted George’s indomitable courage.Even my cat was grinning.Nobody could take a program like that seriously
We should encourage the Beeb to follow it’s heart.Fill every panel with 5 assorted mild,medium and strong lefties.Make sure the audience is full of raving leftwing nutters and enjoy the ride.
And why stop there?Let the BBC have it’s head and indulge it’s fantasies of Britain as an EU province run by people just like them.
The country’s mood has changed.It is not that brave champagne laden dawn of 1997 any more.It’s over lads and what is coming is not what the Beeb will like at all.Let them have their fun.
dave s | 01.03.08 – 1:12 am |
🙂 Long live the Kingdom of Cuba, Hail King Raul.
Dave s…a nice summary of qt and the future for the beeb…left me feeling all warm and fuzzy!
Is George Galloway on retainer with the BBC? He seems to be everywhere these days. I saw him telling Paxman that Cuba was actually a democracy, amongst other fibs, on last night’s Newsnight Browbeats America compilation recording.
At least Paxman made it clear he’s no fan of Castro.
We know the BBC pays politicians an other talking heads a little retainer fee to be available for appearances, so is Galloway now getting a regular 30 pieces of silver out of the license fee takings?
It’s easy for them to stack the audience.The last time I looked, the 2 “filter” questions on the QT application form asked your opinion on 1:The EU and 2:The situation in Iraq.
Isee problems for chanel4 over Jon Snows remarks, with many now saying they will boycott his programme. I don’t blame them, also and interesting comment on Galloways remarks on QT from an editorial. ‘Yes Mr Galloway,Taliban are our enemy. They are the enemy without. But the most disturbing thing of all is that the enemy within is now so strong and so numerous that it has representation in Parliament’
Indeed!!
Link
Sorry that link didn’t work.
link
but this one does 😉
Anyone noticed how much time is devoted to green issues and the leftist green agenda on Channel 4 News and BBC News. If, let’s say, as much time was devoted to the Conservative Party, then the lefties would be screaming about right-wing bias, but the left-wing green agenda is rammed down our throats non stop. I’m sure this is a subtle way of showing left-wing bias in the media as no other issue seems to get as much attention.
Think on it, people.
The Greens have NO political mandate (there is not a single Green MP) yet they get far more time that they deserve.
This is simply due to the fact that the “green agenda” has become the new rallying flag for the unwashed homosexual/lesbian, snakebite drinking, drug taking arts students.
It used to be nuclear war, then road building, then save the Newt, then globalisation and now it’s “climate change”
Did you see the lot on top of the Commons? Again, it’s white middle class arts students who parrot “climate change” but none of them understand the science and that the IPCC only gives an interperation of the science.
These unwashed liberals don’t care though, they just want to force the planet back to a way of life we had before industrialisation.
A lot of it is that they see it as a way to attack America.
James Whale on Talksport had one of these dopey dykes on from “plane crazy” this week. When he challenged her with a perfectly good point of view (that climate change was natural, that the planet had always changed and would continue to do so) she lost her rag and put the phone down.
When the station called her back she refused to talk to him again.
This shows that these morons don’t understand or care about the climate, nor are they interested in having an intelligent debate.
As usual with the vile left, if they don’t get THEIR way they resort to violence.