So I didn’t get to hear this when it was broadcast last night but unfortunately I did catch the repeat earlier today and I have to say that it really was a classic in sustained political bias. As ever, the beat is left. For once there were no politicians on the panel – with Univeral Shami (Left) Gulam Noon (Left) Joan Bakewell (Left) and Peter Obourne ( (No fixed position or indeed no fixed hairstyle) – but there was quite the consensus amongst this commentariat. They all agreed it was vital that a public enquiry was held RIGHT NOW into the disgraceful UK “invasion” of Iraq; they mostly all agreed that until the Palestinian question was sorted out there would be no peace inIraq or Afghanistan; they mostly all agreed that our capitalism of the past twenty years was morally wrong and that Brown’s Masterplan of digging deeper when in a hole was the inspiring way forward; Joan Bakewell came across as a really bitter uberleftist, Shami is so sweet when she talks of her patriotism whilst simultaneously bitterly undermining the basis for our armed forces ever going into action. The audience whooped and cheered each time every left wing cliche was spouted. When it came to the issue of whether it was right to have liberated Iraq from the Saddamite diktat, out of an audience of 300-400, around half a dozen felt that our presence had achieved at least some good. This programme achieves the impossible and makes Question Time seem almost fair and balanced and it is another instance of the BBC using its taxpayer funded bully pulpit to endlessly propagandise left wing values.
ANY QUESTIONS UPDATE.
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Now now Dave, it is pantomime season after all. Think of it like a crap turn on Blackpool Pier and you’re halfway there!
So which end of the Pantomime horse is Shami?
If Any Questions is bad (and it is!) what about Any Answers?
It confirms the BBC’s role as the Guardian of the airwaves.
Any Answers is the 7th level of hell.
Caught Shammy worrying about the elderly and the young. “They don’t all wear hoodies, you know” Only the ones that stab you Shammy. What a load of toss this bint speaks. The only good thing about QT is you don’t have to look at this small indian boy.
It is the venues which tickle me. Schools and Church halls are a safe bet for pink happy-clappy, just what the Beeb wants.
How about getting into Working Mens Clubs, British Legion Clubs and city centre pubs!! The R4 audience would go into meltdown, but may just get a smell of what the world is really like.
In the Sunday Times, Portillo (surprisingly) writes robustly about Iraq with the UK cutting & running from the enemy, in part to seek to difuse the (BBC) opposition in the UK.
The extent of Britain’s fiasco has been masked by the media’s relief that we are at last leaving Iraq. Those who have been urging Britain to quit are not in a strong position to criticise the government’s lack of staying power. Reporting of Basra has mainly focused on British casualties and the prospect for withdrawal. The British media and public have shown scant regard for our failure to protect Iraqis, so the British nation, not just its government, has attracted distrust. We should reflect on what sort of country we have become. We may enjoy patronising Americans but they demonstrate a fibre that we now lack.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5375770.ece
Amazing to think that Portillo might be regrowing a backbone.
He’ll have to be cautious, though – that cosy relationship with the BBC as ‘an acceptable Tory’ could be under threat if there’s much more of this!
no mention whatsoever by any of the panellists on who precisely liberated Basra – which was the iraqi army and u.s. marines.
as the EU Referendum blog has pointed out time and again, the British army was actually defeated in Iraq. no mention of this fact either.
Gulam Noon, a curry millionaire, threw in how he was so proud of Britains diversity and that since he came here in the 60’s, now over 300 languages are now spoken here.As well he was speaking in the only one his audience understood – English. I swear this obsession with diversity is a form of mental illness.
ASL: exactly, it’s hypocritical, patronising bollocks. Can anyone see a BBC reporter going to a sub-Saharan African country and moaning about its “lack of diversity”, or noting that Islamic Arabian countries don’t “celebrate diversity”? One law for us and one for them. BBC inverse racism.
He (Portillo) have to be cautious, though – that cosy relationship with the BBC as ‘an acceptable Tory’ could be under threat if there’s much more of this!
GCooper | 21.12.08 – 12:23 am | #
Ah — and I remember the days when in the BBC, “Portillo” was a swear word. He was the British Dick Cheney for unhinged leftoids.
Then something happened to Portillo. I think he was “eliminated” and replaced like a Stepford Wife.
Three to one is bad. Four to none is totalitarian. This is the slow natzification of British broadcasting. HOW CAN WE STAND BY AND LET THEM DO THIS TO US ANYMORE! Especially at Christmas time. at this time of year they should be giving us presents instead of whacking us over the head with totalitarian repression . . .
When we leave Iraq, notice how any chaos or problems that result will never be the fault of Iraqis. Even fighting between themselves seems to be out fault.
Portillo said a few weeks ago his confidence was severely dented when he lost his seat. Maybe he felt safe by submitting and surrendering to the political establishment which took the form of a conversion. Or maybe his original convictions were never deeply held.
DV
“Joan Bakewell came across as a really bitter uberleftist”
I didn’t hear the programme but I’m amazed as to why should she be as you describe. Everything she’s believed in and subscribed to has come to pass and she – and we – are living in the paradise which she has spent her life trying to create. True, there are a few things left from the “old” Britain which Bakewell and her fellow travellers at the BBC do their best to ignore (where they cannot deride) but I fail to understand why this should embitter her.
Bakewell used to be known as “the thinking man’s tart” but alas now is well past her “best before” date. For left wing gerontophiles there’s always Germaine Greer.
The phrase was ‘thinking man’s crumpet’ attributed to Frank Muir. Easy to see why ”tart’ would seem aposite when the bird’s surname is Bakewell
You are quite right, “crumpet” was the term at the time. It must be about that length of time ago I had crumpets, it needs modernising. How about “the thinking mans bagel”? “The thinking mans pitta bread”? “The thinking mans whole-wheat Irish sourdough with sesame”?
Whether tart or crumpet, she’s a has-been
yer wan from “liberty” (that doesnt really believe in liberty – only socialism) , shamri chakrabati, said numerous times at how she was in agreement with EVERYONE on the panel, and how she was encouraged by the responses in the audience.
which made my ears prick up.
the “any questions” episode was broadcast from Horncastle, in deepest rural Lincolnshire.
i have personal connections to that place – and you can not find a more conservative area of England elsewhere. Seriously. It is solid blue territory.
And i dont mean the Cameron set – i mean the REAL pre-heath Tory kind of stuff.
this is the county that gave rise to one Margaret Thatcher , remember.
Born down the road, in Grantham, Lincolnshire.
the gall of the BBC to broadcast from a solid right wing area with an entirely left wing panel, and a hand picked left wing audience.
i got to hand it to them – in the run up to christmas, most folks wont notice it.
by the way – i am aware that places like hampshire, surrey, dorset and other counties are true blue as well.
but its something i’ve noticed – that only in lincolnshire, does conservatism go across class boundaries… right down to working class. and its rock solid.
this is a county that gave the world the Pilgrim Fathers – they sailed from Boston, Lincolnshire.
and thus, indirectly, they gave America “Thanksgiving”.
for Any Questions to have such a loaded left-wing panel and a left wing audience , is just a slap in the face to such history. but then, its the BBC – and they dont give a fuck about history pre year zero 1997.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/anyquestions.shtml
“This week Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the programme from the Banovallum Secondary School Boston Road, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, LN9 6RZ”
DAME JOAN BAKEWELL: Broadcaster and Voice of Older People : left
SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Director, Liberty: left
PETER OBORNE: Columnist on the Daily Mail and author : soft-right, anti iraq war, anti-bush – and fits right into the panel.
SIR GULAM NOON: businessman : labour donor, made a sir cos he gave money to labour.
and all from deep blue licolnshire. staggering… couldnt they at least have nodded to where they were , and had a few more Tory locals on?
archduke
Oborne isn’t ‘soft right’. He isn’t ‘soft’ anything. He’s one of the more robust Tories around.
Just paleoconservative, not neocon.
Bakewell – she was certainly described as the thinking man’s crumpet back in the day.
I think she was a fox well past the age most women lose it. Leftie credentials notwithstanding.