I agree with Mr Littlejohn that it’s time for the chop, though a replacement for Question Time would undoubtedly be much worse. BBC producers are so obsessed by their own lefty agendas that they are no longer capable of understanding, let alone marshalling, balanced debate. Many years ago, when Robin Day ruled the roost and it was broadcast almost every week from the Greenwood Theatre, I used to do the PR for the programme. It had its problems then, of course, but the current gimmicks had not even been thought about…it’s been a slow, painful and garish slide into today’s deliberately-rigged gang-bang confrontation in the name of viewer appeal. What say you?
Mr Littlejohn’s piece has been prompted, of course, by the news that the BBC’s madhouse social engineering – in decanting thousands of staff outside London – means that in future that the production office of QT will be in Glasgow, but production meetings will be held in London because David Dimbleby refuses to travel to Glasgow. This will push the programme’s carbon footprint and hotel bills into the stratosphere. It’s madness on a massive scale that goes against the BBC’s moral zealotry; clear evidence that they never let their so-called principles block their own plans, and are always keen to find new profligate ways of spending the licence fee.
And this pile of donkey leftovers is from the channel that laughs at Jeremy Kyle at least he doesn’t seem to pretend his stuff is anything other then what it says on the tin! [no I don’t partake just hate hypocrites who won’t face and embrace what the are!] .
QT’s decent into the painful student debating society lefty love ins is quite sickening it now feels more like a pub quiz for the politically challenged and morally vacuous who are too stupid to realise that shouting out the answers in a louder voice doesn’t make them right !
BBC question time is simply an obvious evolution that leftism always takes.
BBC QT has evolved into a Soviet show trial, a kangaroo court to highlight and promote leftist values, it is the modern version of the stocks where a carefully engineered audience are encouraged to jeer and boo the enemy and ‘throw rotten fruit’ at the antisocial/counter revolutionary elements.
The tricks of leftist propaganda are finely tuned, the audience rigged, the questions picked, the enemies carefully invited. This is the disease of leftism, its intolerence, its arrogance, its blind ignorance, its hatred for its political enemies.
The rabid Marxists of the BBC are pushing the boundaries of human behaviour, God help us if these bigots truly get real power over us.
Sums it up, Cassie !
Wouldn’t it be nice to see debates between two individuals, one from the left and one from the right, on topics of the week. Say Douglas Murray vs Mehdi Hassan on multiculturalism, Christopher Monckton vs Caroline Lucas on ‘climate change’, Nigel Farage vs Polly Toynbee on the E.U etc.
They could be chaired by Andrew Neil and it’d save the viewers having to put up with the predictable centre-left nonsense from the LibLabCon representatives who always have to interrupt when a decent debate gets going between left and right wing panelists.
Much as I would pay money to see the three slugfests you are promoting, you would then be guilty of doing exactly what the BBC does…organising a totally unbalanced contest!
My problem with it all is a little more basic: they move the factory, but one of the staff refuses to go, so they agree to fly a team down each week to brief him. Huh?
Is there any other company on the planet where this happens? And is there really only one guy in the country who has the skills to interrupt right-wing panelists and ask them if they’ve stopped beating poor people yet? No wonder these people are so out of touch – they make Prince Charles look like Steve Gerrard.
and still Mr Hunt MP allows this rubbish ,this is part of what they said when i emailed them about the BBC,
With regard to your suggestion to get rid of the television licence fee, I should explain that during the review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, the former Government considered whether the television licence was still the best way to fund the Corporation. They also sought the views of members of the public on this and other BBC issues as part of the Charter Review consultations. The television licence fee was widely considered to be the best way to pay for the BBC for the period of the new Charter, that is to say, until the end of 2016. None of the alternative funding options would enable the BBC to continue to provide its full range of public services while safeguarding the Corporation’s independence. It was therefore agreed that no changes would be made.
speaks volumes doesn’t it,sorry folks we’re in power but unable to change anything,of course the liebore party wouldn’t chaange the golden goose…..So what is the point in talking to MR HUNT about the BBC when all along this was their views even in opposition.I thought Mr MAJOR was bad but my views are changing fast
Jeremy Hunt is my local MP and the leaflets that I get through my door keeping me informed about his views on local issues completely contradict what his government is doing nationally.
He seems like a nice guy, but in office he’s turned out to be as weak and pathetic as the rest of the front bench.
The problem with the Tories is that they are the “nice” party. It is time they turned nasty.
It’s about time the Dimblebys were put out to grass and give another family a turn at nepotism. Or maybe someone who doesn’t cost as much and who isn’t a smug socialist git. The best solution would be to scrap the programme and sack all those involved in it. Result – massive savings in wage and travel bills and a much lower blood pressure for us normal viewers.
The BBC has locked itself into a hard left bias with its relocation policy. It is bad enough already e.g. the Gert Wilders travesty of “impartial” reporting – but the move north must be an attempt to cull any remaining middle class London centric recidivists who might defy the party line. Question time is now quite unwatchable.
The problem, I think, is rather more deep-seated than just getting rid of QT or replacing it with a head-to-head confrontation.
First, the BBC (and, to be fair, its competitors) view everything – and I mean everything – as a species of entertainment. The aim is not to elucidate the particular problem under review but to get as many punters as possible to view. Hence, as RH notes, the endless gimmicks on QT. This plague has reached the presentation of the news. For instance: why must Jeremy Bowen be in Cairo to speak rubbish? He could as well spout the same crap in a BBC studio using a BBC stringer or resident correspondent in Egypt. The reason is to entertain: to give a spurious excitement and immediacy to Bowen’s blatherings and thereby attract the viewer, not by the excellence of the report or the insights conveyed by an experienced and knowledgeable correspondent (as if!) but by its entertainment quotient. Of course once the viewer is hooked he can be injected with any amount of partial bile.
Second, the politicians and presenters prefer entertaining rather than educating. Entertainment requires no effort on the part of the electorate and thus gimmicks and soundbites can replace any attempt at a serious presentation and explanation of a policy (or the reasons why a particular policy is adopted). “Education” requires effort by both politician and viewer – it’s too much like hard work. The BBC buys into this because it allows the BBC to deliver a single message in respect of those matters it deems too important to be the subject of genuinely open debate (eg concerning immigration, Islamism, climate change, Middle east, the “cuts” etc).
Third most of the politicians and those reporting on them in the media are members of the political class. This means that the discussion between them subsists in a very narrow band of disagreement and is thus extremely dull and uninformative: although such discussion is not educative, worse for the BBC, it’s not entertaining. The mock rows between politicians egged on by BBC presenters are empty because there is no fundamental difference – in effect – between Cameron and (what I think – he’s not very clear about it) Milliband and Clegg about their whole range of policies for the UK. For instance – not that you’d know this from Laura Kuenssberg – there are no “cuts” in aggregate public expenditure despite the endless propaganda from the BBC. Such cuts as there are are being administered, not by those who might demand a bit of common sense as to where public money should be redirected, but by the very parasites on the body politic who have brought this country to its present state. In the real world, while there’s one diversity outreach worker or hop-scotch coordinator (don’t laugh, we have those in Haringey although I have no doubt they are now retitled as some child protection official) employed or one “community” news/propaganda sheet in being there is no genuine shortage of money and the “cuts” to frontline services are entirely unnecessary. The fact that the dildos who cost Haringey £35 million in Iceland are still in post and drawing handsome salaries says it all.
I don’t know (but I can imagine) what the solution to all this is. It might have been that the BBC, because it is relieved from commercial pressure, could have opted for serious (ie “boring” to its editors and managers) programming. Manifestly it hasn’t and now we learn that the BBC Trust believes that the solution to the success of radio 4 and its popularity with an intelligent listenership is to fillet out anything vaguely challenging. The BBC’s only claim to taxpayers’ money is to provide broadcasting which is not solely geared to entertainment and the passing interest of those who switch on the TV/radio between visits to the benefits office.
Excellent Umbongo, except for one thing: you do dildos a disservice; I am led to believe they are both useful and entertaining.
Span,
Quite happy to take your word for it 😉
Have to say Spans right ! i have seen it on DVD !
Excellently put , Umbongo.
I didn’t see it myself, but apparently Newsnight had a debate (last night ?) on AV.
Teenage Lib Dem MP , Jo Swinson, supported it because it is used on the X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing. Even Paxo baulked at that I am told.
But, sort of backs up Umbongo’s points. Any distinction between entertainment and politics and journalism has been destroyed.
I find Politicians and Journalists more entertaining than, well entertainers. The point is that I shouldn’t !
Grant
One of the interesting points – and thus not really touched on I guess on Newsnight (I didn’t see it) – is not whether or not AV should replace FPTP but why this particular issue is deemed worthy of a referendum while other issues which excite the electorate more are ignored. What those other issues are was also not discussed I guess – they are never discussed.
As to the AV referendum, this is, of course, purely a part of the deal which created the coalition. It is something of interest only to the Libdems who, if it is approved, will thereby get their fingertips on some kind of power for the forseeable future. There was (and is) no significant impetus outside the LibDems for AV. Moreover, despite apparently intending to vote “no”, AV suits Cameron because with AV he can, at last, effectively suppress the conservative elements both as individuals in his party and in any policy he is responsible for applying.
Cameron’s priorities are clear: he dumped the far more important (to the country and to the Conservative Party) redistribution of seats in face of Labour tactics in the Lords. Instead of turning to the LibDems and saying we’ll never get the bill through and thus giving up both redistribution and AV (and fighting the imporatnt issue on another day) he opted to sacrifice redistribution. Now that’s a topic of real interest. However, you won’t see that discussed on Newsnight or QT or Any Questions for the reasons I noted in my original comment. Your observation concerning the depth of Swinson’s analysis is not surprising in the least.
Quite right, Umbongo.
And , as this is a fundamental change, it should only happen if , at least 50% ( or maybe a higher proportion ) of the ELECTORATE vote for it.
i think it is good all these things are happenning. more than ever their stupidity and their self importance becomes exposed. more of this please. since i stopped paying the licence fee and dont watch tv live, i am hoping this happens more and more. al beeba is like pravda with a 40% share of tv, 70% share of radio and a huge web presence. more profligate spending. more presenters who think of themselves as stars rather than facilitators, the better. who are these people who buy memoirs or biographies of new readers and tv hosts?
more of the same please. let dimblebore, paxo, wark et al. make a big fuss and it will expose how profligate and extravagant al beeba is.
As with most BBC output, I have axed QT from my personal schedule. I can no longer trust the BBC and always ask – why are they telling me this and what are they not telling me? Question time is a stitch-up and is pointless viewing.
Scrappydoo,
Same here. My only contact with QT is via this website. So I am still a vicarious QTer !
I will be honest and state that I did not see QT. However I am told that Cooper was asked what was the deficiet under Liebour. I am told she said she did not know and was allowed to make other points.
Cooper was a Treasury minister for several years. DD must know this and if she said what I have stated, then this is a blatant lie. If DD allowed this to happen then no amount of foul words from me, could express my outrage at such an abuse.
She said it, and laughed as if she’s proud of being an airhead. And yes Dumbleby allowed her to get away with it, as he wouldn’t have done with a Conservative politician.
Unfortunately she is far from being a airhead. However it does show that the subject of the deficiet under Liebour is a subject they not only do not want to get near; but also do not want any permanent record of them making any comments: interesting.
Yvette Cooper has never struck me as being very clever especially on financial matters. It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t know the size of the deficit.
I attended an event where Yvette was launching some Public Health programme as a Health Minister. I was struck by her exaggerated choppy hand-movements, like a puppet on a string, emphasising each point with a hand gesture – exactly as Tony Blair did. They have all had the same media training. Whenever I see a politician speak, watch their hands. If you can’t see them, be very wary, because they are probably in your pockets.
London,
You mean like a BBC presenter, but without the intelligence ?
Any Questions? should also be taken off the to knacker’s yard. David and Jonathan Dimbleby are a disgrace to British broadcasting.
Yes; ‘Any Questions’ with another part of the Dimbleby clan is also biased towards the red and the green politics, and deserves the same fate as ‘QT’.