Tonight Question Time comes from Burnley, best known for the fact the more Bénédictine is drunk in one bar there, the Burnley Miners’ Club, than anywhere else in the world. LibDem Gordon Birtwistle, elected in 2010, is the first non-Labour MP for the area since the Great War.
On the panel we have lone Tory and serial QT underperformer Caroline Spelman MP, Simon “The Straight Choice” Hughes MP, below average cat-impersonator George Galloway, below average human-impersonator Alastair Campbell, and, unbelievably, Burnley Football Club central defender Clarke Carlisle. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
The LiveBlog will also cover the surreal This Week, with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo.
Your friendly moderators David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be repelling boarders here from 10:30pm.
Does Carlisle know anything about politics? No.
Is he the right colour? Yes.
On the strength of the following, INBBC will get Livingstone on ‘QT’ as soon as possible:
Peace Prize winner Ebadi and other Iranian dissidents denounce Livingstone
Clarke Carlisle could well turn out to be the class of that bunch
As we pretty much know what we are going to get from the rest, you may well be right and he’s a Christian, so that might be interesting.
I have just remembered that the Universal Alistair Campbell is a Burnley supporter !
It’s been pre-recorded!
When Will the British National Party Be Back on Question Time?
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/when-will-british-national-party-be-back-question-time
Galloway will veto that for INBBC.
Amazing that the venue wasn’t a college or hall as usual but was actually held in the local Labour club!
In the interests of balance , the next QT will be in a Conservative club.
So to sum up last night’s QT:
Labour don’t even bother to send actual politicians any more, just spin doctors. But not just any spin doctor; the man who was instrumental in all that was wrong with the Blair years.
The Lib Dems send a man who is for the coalition one minute, against the next. An advisor to the government one minute, keen to point out that he isn’t part of the government the next.
The Tories, as usual, send an uninspiring choice. They seem to alternate between women (check that box) and slightly drippy social liberals (Lansley, etc). Spelman wasn’t dreadful but when you see her speak, you can see why the Tories didn’t get (and won’t get) a majority government.
So far, so strange, but at least it’s the 3 main parties represented. Then we get to Gorgeous George; friend of Saddam, hero of the oppressed peoples of the middle east, all around fighter against the global Zionist conspiracy. He’s no longer an MP, doesn’t belong to a party (not one that has more than 10 followers at any rate) and is no more than a rent-a-quote mercenary these days. His presence there was either a lame attempt by the BBC to stoke controversy, or they just wanted a good old fashioned left winger represented. Don’t worry about the fact that in so many ways he’s far more extreme than Nick Griffin; Gorgeous George may be a bigot and a racist, but he’s the acceptable sort of bigot and racist for these shows.
Then there was the footballer. A dreadful attempt to be down with the kids? Or another box ticking exercise? Compared to Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole etc, I suppose he did come across as a nobel prize winner, but his presence there seemed mystifying too. He knew nothing that he hadn’t read in the papers, and I can’t help wonder what anyone learnt from him being there.
The questions; well Iraq was discussed for the millionth time – with very little new ground covered. The EMA discussion omitted all the actual factual basis for why it’s been cut; there was no mention of Warsi’s article (which I was hoping for) and there was a load of rubbish speculated about Ed Balls and the Labour reshuffle.
Hanson,
Excellent summary ! Glad I didn’t watch it, but pleased that the BBC exhibit their usual toatal lack of bias.
Galloway is as “extreme” as Nick Griffin.
But when Grifin appeared, it was all a set-up against him. And no chance of any further invite.
By contrast, the BBC seem to want to encourage Galloway – last night sounded like a set-up against Alastair Campbell, just a long rant about Iraq and even Dr David Kelly. The BBC may have Campbell on screen quite a lot – he is actually a damn sight brighter and more angaging than most Labour politicians – but the BBC will NEVER stop trying to get back against the findings of the Hutton Report. And that includes using scum like Galloway.
Now that Mr. A. Coulson has resigned from his press role at Downing St, it can be expected that he will appear on the BBC-NUJ-Labour as often as Mr. A.Campbell does. (Only kidding.)
No surprise that the BBC treats shouty nobody Galloway like a star. Only the BBC could treat like a hero. When Griffin was on everything was about BNP policy, yet Galloway, far more of a racist than Griffin is allowed to spout on. I understand that as Respect doesn,t draw any support other than from the fascist left or extreme Islam, his next move is to try for a seat in Scotland.