Yes, the weekly farce that is the BBC flagship political debating programme “Question Time” graced our screens last evening and true to form it had the usual massive weighted majority to prop up the political left. There was smug SNP leader Alex Salmond who increasingly resembles a fat toad; then we had Charlie “Hic” Kennedy, the former Liberal leader; then there was John Denham the Labour MP who “courageously” resigned from his ministerial position when the UK government voted to remove Saddam, (And instantly became a BBC hero) ; there was business-woman Nicola Horlicks who looked completely out of her depth and was wishy-washy on all subjects and then..yes, the token conservative in the shape of wee Georgie Osbourne, the wetter than a wet lettuce Shadow Chancellor. It was banality incarnate, but the bit that gets me that there is ALWAYS someone in every QT audience who suddenly launches into an onslaught on the whole “Iraq was an illegal immoral war” mantra, to a resounding cheer. Where DO the BBC get these loons from?
QUESTION TIME WATCH.
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Where do they get these loons from? Er well the Socialist Worker party, any school or town hall.
Funny thing is they all go on about this illegal war, but just who voted Bliar and deformed jaw back into power in 2005? The Tories?
Until the electorate see fit in their wisdom to elect some right wing parties suitable for your taste I don’t see what can be done. Surely any panel has to have representatives of the 3 major parties? You’re then left with a smaller party (of which there are no obviously right wing ones with Parliamentary representation depending on how you define the DUP) and a random.
The bias lies in choosing the random (and Nicola Horlicks is hardly a lefty) and in the endlessly uberliberal audience.
There’s also the perennial issue in choosing a suitably all round unwishy-washy spokesperson for the stereotypical ‘right’. In my experience your average eloquent, economically liberal top business type tends to be too keen on migrant labour and the EU, whereas those who can put forward a convincing argument against immigration, EU, kids today etc etc tend to be a bit economically incoherent.
Cockney: Yes there is an answer. Cut the number of guests. Also why was Salmond on? That’s TWO SNP’s on in the last month.
As for your comment about the lack of right wing groups in Parliament, well how many “Green” MP’s are there?
NONE. Yet they are never off QT. How many MP’s does Liberty have? NONE yet that poisoned dwarf Chakrabarti is never off QT.
You are a typical BBC leftie. You make an excuse as for WHY there shouldn’t be right wing groups on QT but don’t apply the same rules to left wing groups!
Salmond seems pre-programmed to refer to it as an “illegal and immoral war”. But simply calling him “a fat toad” is a crude ad-hominem that doesn’t do you much credit, David.
Yaffle,
Salmond’s contempt for the United Kingdom does him little good, though I take your point and apologise. To fat toads.
Cockney,
In the days of Conservative governments, with a massively pro-conservative electorate, I don’t recall QT panels being any different. I think we both agree on the audience make up, and in a way, it’s construction is even MORE important than the panel.
It’s the Labour planted audience questions that make me laugh.
I am sure that it’s all pre-planned between Labour and the BBC…
Labour: “They will obviously go gunning for Alistair about his Budget Speech so lets deflect that and make sure we remind the viewers about the evil Tories – how about their 15% interest rate from 15 years ago?”
BBC: “No problem, which one will ask the question and where are they sitting so we can get the camera and microphone zoomed in time.”
The question gets asked and the Labour group in the audience break out with a sycophantic round of applause & whooping.
Meanwhile back at Spin HQ a sigh of relief goes up and a clipboard gets its tick box marked.
Without fail you can spot the planted questions and last nights were no surprise although in their excitement to get the point said, I think they mentioned 20%.
Last QT from Scotland and four Scots on the panel. This QT from London and, er, two Scots on the panel. What a surprise.
So, a budget-week panel with one member from each major party and topped up with a City fund manager is biased to the Left?
What planet are you from?
“a member from each major party”: SNP? It was in London.
Anonymous: Actually she was there simply for being one of the few “high flying city women”. As a guest she was useless.
Why was Salmond there? We’ve just had a show from Scotland where the SNP got to rant. Salmond isn’t even elected in England nor does his party stand here.
He was there to ensure a leftie majority on the panel as usual.
Personally I’d cut the number of guests to 4, with one from each main party and one each week from the smaller parties.
I’d have no greens, no Chakrabarti etc as these people have no democratic mandate.
Llew: Yes I commented on this in the general thread. As I pointed out interest rates were at 15% for about the same length of time as it takes a BBC employee to do a line of Coke.
One point about the ERM. Yes it was the Tories that tried ot take us in and just as McLabour wanted to take us into the single currency, had they not promised us a referrendum on it we would be in by now and our economy would have gone down the toilet pan.
The problem is our economy is different to that of much of europe. We buy and sell expensive items called houses. If we had interest rates of europe we’d have mad inflation. As the Government would be unable to raise interest rates to cool things off their only option would be to either raise taxes or bring in controls on loans.
Something no one ever thinks about.
The Question Time edition of Kombat Opera had a scene about the clichéd Iraq question.
The left lives in the past..past Tory govt,invasion of Iraq…past…they never plan for the future…unless to send us back to a glorious socialist/islamist past.
When are we likely to see somebody from the BNP or NF on QT ? i suspect never , i do not agree with most of these right wing partys agendas but they are legitimate partys and should be given the same chances as all the others however offensive people find them.
“In the days of Conservative governments, with a massively pro-conservative electorate, I don’t recall QT panels being any different.”
True, but then it was the same three + one parties in Parliament so unless you ‘balance’ things by giving another seat to the government it wouldn’t help.
Maybe the snwer is that the Lib Dem’s don’t justify a permanent seat so it should be 1 Labour, 1 Tory, 1 Other politician (broadly proportional to votes cast), 1 random righty, 1 random lefty.
If we had interest rates of europe we’d have mad inflation.
Something no one ever thinks about.
Martin | 14.03.08 – 12:32 pm | #
We’ve got mad inflation now in relaity 8%-9%. Nulab just lies about it.
When they are struggling they call local political parties to send supporters along.
That’s why you get a disproportionate amount of clapping at the platitudes spouted. The audience is not representative of “normal” Britain: there are lots of Lib Dems in the audience.
It really is hard to imagine a more contrived peice of BBC political bias than this story, on so many levels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7295735.stm
It really is hard to imagine a more contrived peice of BBC political bias than this story, on so many levels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_po…ics/ 7295735.stm
nrg | 14.03.08 – 1:53 pm |
It was a tiny story yesterday evening, yet it was another of those Nu Lab planted questions from the audience. However the panel seemed to dismiss the idea as a total non event.
Because the Nu Lab stirring didn’t work as planned during Question Time, they have clearly enlisted the help of the BBC by making sure it featured in today’s lunchtime news.
It’s a total non-story but that doesn’t stop the BBC trying to turn it into a major anti Tory story.
Where DO the BBC get these loons from?
They probably get on the phone to the Stop the War Coalition (who recently invited a propaganda chief for a foreign terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, which starts wars against soverign nations (admittedly only one in particular, ‘z0mg teh Israyul!!1!LOL’), is illegal in the UK, and which is committed to the wholesale annihilation of that sovereign state) and say, ‘Hey, do you want a platform to spout your hypocritical, irrational and downright nutty bullshit? You do? Great!’
I dont remember QT being dominated by tories back in the day – rifkind seemed to be on quite a bit,but i think if memory serves me rightly they even had Arthur Scargill on there who represented by then,about 3000 people.
The BBC is a lefty love in,always has been,what irks me is the smarmy attitude and pandering and hand wringing – dumblebee also comes across as pretty straight down the middle politically,but imagine when he retires and that horrible wark bird gets the job,or even Marr… YIKES
David, there’s no need to apologise. Even to fat toads. Read your post again. You didn’t call Salmond a fat toad; you said he increasingly looks like one. Which is, frankly, undeniable.
As for his presence on a London QT, it’s funny how the SNP are fine with the UK when it suits them.
I’m confused by the references to “three” main political parties. There are two plus the minority also-rans.
For true balance on current electoral arithmetic there would be two right-wingers (that doesn’t include Ken Clarke) and three lefties.
Horlick was a waste of oxygen. How did she ever get above being a secretary? She must have slept with someone.
Just Passing: I don’t think I would accept your suggestion as to political balance.
I would suggest that there is a 1/3 split each between the Tories and Labour (their core votes don’t drop much below that) and another 1/3 of the population that is split between Lib dems, minority parties and swing voters.
That is the balance that should be shown on the program.
This idea that 2/3 of the Country are lefties is utter nonsense and is a myth pumped out by the Socialists and bottom worriers at the BBC.
Look at the best selling newspapers. The Sun and the Daily Mail and even the Telegraph. Then look at the worst selling (Guardian and Independent)
Whilst not all Sun or Mail readers are regular Tory voters I bet most of them have at some point voted Tory.
We are told that around 7% of the population is “ethnic minority” they out of a studio audience of say 200 there are more than 14 ethnic minority people there.
The BBC see balance as having to tolerate ONE limp wristed right winger on the panel.
Oh and Ken Clarke is about as right wing as Stalin.
I sometimes watch Question Time on the internet but, panel aside, it’s painful to watch because of the the brainwashed lefty audience with its carefully-screened PC questions – which makes it lack spontaneity, honesty and balance. I’ve actually heard the audience start to applaud when some lefty on the panel is just starting to make a typical lefty point about the Iraq war. Talk about a programmed reaction.
Another thing that really bugs me is when they drown out audience reaction with those weird waves of sound. I’ve also heard it elsewhere. This is probably a dumb question, but anyone know what that’s about?
Sorry, put this on the general thread, but it seems more appropriate her. Seems everyone wants to get in on the biased BBC game. They’ll probably use it to demonstrate how unbiased they are:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/qts-protory-bias-the-bbc-replies-to-lib-dem-voice-2351.html
Yes what gets me is why one of the right wingers on the panel doesn’t ask the twats in the audience that applaud when the Iraq war comes up who they voted for in 1997, 2001 and 2005?
knowing how Nuliars behave and a little how the bbc behave and knowing A.C. still! has them wrapped around his little finger,
it would not suprise me in the least if some lazy bbc production staff had outsourced arranging the audience to a Nuliar rep. and they were being bussed in from the local Liebour HQ