Hope you will come over to B-BBC liveblog on Question Time this evening. Here’s the panel – Frank Skinner, Hillary Benn, Norman Baker, Andrew Lansley and Leanne Woods. My advice? Have a drink handy. A large one.
BBC QUESTION TIME LIVEBLOG
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Frank Skinner !!!!!!
I’m thinking more along the ‘powerful antidepressants’ line for this collection of wingnuts 🙂
Won’t be there tonight as I’m flying off to foreign climes tomorrow and have to get up at some ungodly hour – but I’ll be with you in spirit(s) 😉
Leanne Woods cute. Will definitely tune in.
I completely forgot to mention that I have David Starkey’s performances on my website (on Youtube so no iplayer issues) including some of HIGNFY with Alan Duncan making an idiot of himself.
The Daily Politics
definetely need a few drinks with that line up
At risk of repeating what gets pointed out every week of QT, we have 5 lefties and 1 right again?
Dimblebore – Left
Hilary Benn – Left
Andrew Lansley – Right
Norman Baker – Left
Frank Skinner – Left
Leanne Wood – Left
The Beeb just doesn’t do balance these days.
Philip 10:34
Wish I could fly out of the country every time QT is on !
Llew 11:20
What do you mean “these days” ?
Yes, that really is a startlingly left wing panel even by the BBC’s standards.
A correspondingly right wing panel would be –
Andrew Neil – chairman
Lord Mandelson (right wing Labour)
Vince Cable (Lib Dem)
John Redwood (Conservative)
Nigel Farage (UKIP)
Freddie Forsyth
I guess it’ll be a while before we see a panel looking like that.
And did you notice the variety of people who actually asked the questions last week. The BBC outdid themselves. It was even more comprehensive than Ambridge. (I suppose the programme was broadcast from an exceptionally mixed community, I forgot to find out where.)
And even Andrew Lansley would be considered to the left of the Tory party!
Left, left, left, left, left and left. That’s balanced!
Can anyone remember when John Redwood , David Davis or Michael Howard were last on ?
Grant | 30.04.09 – 11:36 am
Yeah you’re right – of course the bias has always been there, but perhaps not so obvious (well to me). Nowadays though they make no attempt to hide it. They don’t care. They might as well just put up trailers between programmes saying “Vote Labour” & “Tories Bad”.
Odious chairman (“Sir” Michael Lyons) of Britain’s Pravda being interviewed in today’s Spectator. Give him hell in the comments:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3573491/yes-there-is-a-problem-yes-we-are-correcting-it.thtml
Can anyone remember when John Redwood , David Davis or Michael Howard were last on ?
the tories wouldnt let Dracula Redwood or Dracula Howard on again. They represent old scary tories, and the new image is younger, cool, PR friendly green tories.
Davis though is a decent bloke, they should have him on a bit more.
Good God, if that is a descrip[tion of the nu-conservative line, please bring in the bad guys. We cannot afford a PR lunatic in charge of the asylum, we are already broke. PR and green = billions of pounds we aint got.
Derek
Yeah I fear New Conservatism is basically New Labour, only for the other party. Davey C’s PR background should tell you all you need to know about our likely next PM.
and i didn’t intend bold text back there, don’t know how i managed it either!!
We look each week at the left-right composition of the QT panel, but this is of limited value compared to a quantitative analysis.
Take a 2 person panel for ease of explanation.
A panel consisting of tony benn and Norman Tebbitt is balanced left-right (1 from each side), as too would be a panel of Frank Field and Norman Tebbitt. But we know instinctively that the internal balance of each panel is different.
I would suggest that a weighted system where tb=-5, NT=+5 and FF=-2 illustrates the balance better because the 2 panels above equate to balance scores of 0 and +3, ie panel one is balanced but panel 2 is biased to the right. In other words, panel 1 is a stand off but NT is likely to dominate over FF (leaving aside the fact that we know the chairman would favour/support/nourish FF over NT).
I have researched the data and implemented this idea for all Question Time panels from 13/1/1994 to date (542 programmes) and it shows a consistent bias towards the left throughout that time.
Here are the results for March 2009:
5th March (Dudley): -10
douglas alexander, -3
germaine greer, -5
Andrew Mitchell, +1
shirley williams, -4
Toby Young, +1
12th March (Liverpool) -6
alan johnson, -3
susan kramer, -3
david mitchell, -2
Charles Moore,+1
Sayeeda Warsi, +1
19th March (London) -5
vince cable, -3
Ken Clarke, +1
fern britton, 0
tessa jowell, -3
Douglas Murray, 0
The weightings I have applied are my own estimates, a ranking which could be described as the order in which I would put these people up against a wall to shoot them. You could also add into the panel scores a weight of (say) -2 for the effect of the chairman helping the lefties and actively hindering/undermining the righties. This is not included in the above figures.
May I suggest that if this approach can be agreed in principle we put up an online poll each week to ascertain what our readers think the absolute weighting figure for each panel participant should be and work out a bias index for that panel from the agreed figures.
gordon-bennett
You’ve done this for 15 years’ worth of Question Times?!!!!!!!!!
Now that’s what I call dedication.
Six honkeys! QT is hideously white.
My advice is to have a strong drink handy. Ensure all potential projectiles are safely stored away in a locked cabinet, and your life assurance and will are up to date.
Receiving a full health check-up is advisable, before watching any BBC products, this one especially.
Please be reminded that suicide is against the will of god, and could result in your assurance company failing to meet its obligations.
Therefore if Question Time does finally push your will to live past an acceptable limit, may I suggest simply walking out in front of a big red bus, or driving your car into the nearest brick wall at high speed. These methods will draw attention to the underwriters, however they will pay up in the end. I hope it go’s without saying that they will only pay up if you do NOT repeat NOT leave a suicide note.
You could after all, simply watch or do something else. Which would clearly be the safest course of action.
However if your desire to inflict self harm on yourself remains too strong. My advice would be, keep the remote very handy whenever that Benn character appears to start opening his mouth to speak.
Remember this about chaps like BENN. They know where COMMUNISM comes from and who is really pulling the strings, even if most Labour MP’s do not.
The Benn’s are Fabians, as such absolutely nothing that comes out of there mouths, however logical or sensible it may sometimes sound, should EVER be trusted or taken at face value. All Fabians and other high establishment socialists are dangerous authoritarians and self confessed liars.
gordon-bennett:
Don’t forget the unbalanced audience as well.
gordon-bennett:
Nice try but you completely miss the point concerning achieving a full range of opinions, designed to obtain truth and a full and proper debate on world and national, political, or otherwise events.
This can not EVER be achieved by any structured format, especially one that involves primarily established party representatives, or anything else implemented or designed by The BBC.
We would be better served by a completely random system, uncontaminated by BBC manipulation. Involving ordinary members of the public, celebrities, scientists, and business men. With maybe the odd politician on show, as long as they swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, on whatever book they deem sacred on TV, before being able to open their mouths in public at all.
Starky for example was a revelation, and showed himself to be a true conservative. Which basically means he will never appear on QT ever again, or anywhere else if the BBC can possibly help themselves.
The best way to view politicians, especially self confessed socialist ones, is in the stocks while the children who’s lives and prosperity they have deliberately wasted piss on their heads.
The line will of course be a very long one. However if we leave the lying criminals until all of the innocents have done their business, at least justice would have been done, and seen to have been so, in some small and poetic manner.
I see Toenails Robinson was claiming that the vote on MP expenses was a VICTORY for Gordon Brown and the Tories will be seen as not so keen on change.
Funny then that ITV called it a humiliation for McSnot as did Sky.
Grant | 30.04.09 – 2:37 pm
Appearances:
John Redwood: 20, December 1985-September 2007
David Davis: 13, July 2001-June 2008
Michael Howard 21,February 1987-June 2007.
However, these stats don’t tell us much in isolation.
I guess it’s Family Guy for me then rather than tales of the expected. Funny though that this crew are dug out at this time of Labour catastrophe? What a programme it would have been in a land of the free.
Atlas shrugged | 30.04.09 – 6:24 pm
Nice try but you completely miss the point concerning achieving a full range of opinions, designed to obtain truth and a full and proper debate on world and national, political, or otherwise events.
I did miss YOUR point and I am not dismayed at that.
The real point is: are these panels selected with an ulterior motive? Perhaps numerical analysis can tease out whether or not there is a background intent and, if so, what is its nature ie what politics does it favour.
Let’s face it, the panel selectors are weighing up the entirety of one potential panellist against that of another and putting together a set which they hope will pass muster.
I am trying to establish if there is any intentional bias shown in the panel makeup or is it a uniform and random selection, as the beeb charter would seem to require.
Watching and listening to the coverage of the British running away from Basra today I couldn’t help but notice how POSITIVE the BBC has been about Basra compared to the other networks.
The BBC didn’t really call Basra a failure, which of course it was. The British army was beaten by a few towel heads with AK-47’s.
But why might this be?
You only have to see how Gordon McSnot has been saying what a great day it is for Iraq and what a wonderful job the army has done.
Funny that when Bliar was PM the BBC never had a single good thing to say about Iraq.
Expect to see McSnot talk about Basra as one of HIS achievements over the next few months, backed up by the BBC.
Snot just claimed on C4 that he never intended to bring in the daily allowance!!!!
C4 reporter was almost laughing at snot for re-writing history.
McSnot is clearly mentally deranged.
Llew 2:37
Totally agree.
Atlas 5:38
I still have my doubts about you, but that was a great post.
I shall raise a glass to you tonight !
Red Lepond 5:37
That is right. The BBC just play lip service to “multicuralism”. They would never have a DG who is non-white.
Dirty hypocrites !
Oh God – not again – will this poor excuse for “topical debate” keep on going and going. Its dumbed down rubbish – it is meaningless drivel. My advice is don’t watch it – you’ll only encourage them to make more.
And Frank Skinner – who the hell cares what he thinks – no one voted for him. The orginal idea of the programme was, I belive, that an invited audience made up of members of the public had a chance to question their elected representatives. It has just turned into a soap opera. Every week is the same no matter who is on (David Stakey was a one off). Nothing of any meaning will be discussed – not one answer from the panelists will be given with any conviction. Dimberlby will sit in the middle and interupt continusly just in case anyone says anything worth listening to.
I don’t know if its me – but every politician that appears on that programme sounds the same.
I haven’t watched QT since the early 1990s so I’m not sure what I’m doing on this thread.
BTW, is Frank Skinner really a lefty?
Red Lepond 2:37
Do you think the BBC employ any comedians who are not left wing ? Name one. I guess Steve Punt might pass muster, but even then I have my doubts.
You don’t know what you are doing ?
Trolling ?
Have BBC employed Skinner since Fantasy Football ended? He’s an ITV regular now.
He may well be working class Old Labour, but I don’t think he’s one of the PC brigade.
BTW, is Frank Skinner really a lefty?
Red Lepond | 01.05.09 – 2:37 am | #
Most likely not. He is most likely just like the rest of us. He basically wants nice things to happen, and bad things not to happen.
Or put another way, he does not care too much what exactly the system is or who is running the show, or for what ultimate purpose. As long as it is honest, lawful, and works well for the benefit of those that have just about something worth having, those that have little, and those that have even less.
He possibly knows, as we all should by now, that things certainly could be forever better, for almost everyone, all at the same time, especially during peace time. Given the massive advantages of modern technologies, stable uncorrupted governments and currencies. Along with better and fairer trade agreements between the PEOPLE of sovereign nations.
However like the typical self confessed lefty, he has been lead to believe that governments especially socialist ones, of all things, can be trusted to bring this ideal about.
Or indeed actually give a damn, one way or other, as far as the ordinary people are concerned.
Skinner in common with 99.99% of the population repeatedly fail to understand that governments do not work for the people. The people may be paying their wages, bonuses, bribes, pensions, and expenses, but their employer is now, and has always been the establishment. This is the case whether MP’s understand it to be so or not. IMHO, by far and away the majority of them have never really even thought about it properly before.
The establishment is the ultimate source for ALL social and financial government policies. Policies are not invented or decided by political parties or their leaderships. They are passed onto selected party leaderships by the establishment, using a variety of long, medium and sometimes very short term methods.
It is not a mistake or an accident that The BBC, Prince Charles and his personal Bank manager, for example, are leading sponsors and promoters of AGW.
Which is an agenda that has been promoted within our schools and universities for 25 or more years.
I would go as far as saying that if you carefully list the thoughts and concepts closest to the heart of our future monarch. Then thoughtfully list the thoughts and concepts closest to those of the long departed leader of last German Reich.
Then compare the two together, you might start to understand something very important.
2+2=4
Atlas, seeking to upstage me is futile.
Atlas
This is from memory as I cannot lay my hands on my copy of the book.
During the war the Wermacht produced a glossy magazine in the picture Post style called Signal.
In ,I think 1943, a German academic wrote an article on the future of a post war Europe in the event of a German victory. The Europe he proposes is almost exactly the Europe of today or the Europe shortly to be.
Under German- Franco overlordship of course.
Whilst not being a conspiracy buff I am certain that we actually know far less about many events of WW2 than we do about the Napoleonic wars.
Atlas, everybody I know of every age from my mother (78) down through friends, colleagues and to my younger child (16) feels that something is just not quite right and that things don’t seem to work as they should. I point out to them some of the most egregious lies told by the BBC in favour of the Government and I then point out that the nominal Opposition has almost exactly the same policies (differently shaded) as the Government. There is only one real Opposition, and they don’t (yet) get on Question Time.