Tonight Question Time comes from Inverness.
Everyone is welcome to come along but I want to make it clear I want best behaviour, no ad hominems. Or else.
On the panel we have the most convoluted, adjusted and argued-over panel for many a year.
On the panel, Deputy First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon MSP, former leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy MP, Labour’s leader in Scotland Johann Lamont MSP, Conservative former Secretary of State for Scotland Lord Forsyth, Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips and the actor Alan Cumming.
Or not. Possibly.
In fact, TheEye will defer to a post on the ever-entertaining Subrosa blog which details the shambles. It’s worth reposting in full here although TheEye would encourage you to also head over there and show your appreciation on my friend’s excellent site.
This week there has been quite a stooshie about tonight’s Question Time which is due to be broadcast from Inverness.
The SNP MSP Kenny Gibson made a formal complaint about the imbalance of the panel, with two supporters of independence and three guests from the No campaign. Originally Johann Lamont and Michael Forsyth were to be joined by Melanie Phillips, the Daily Mail columnist.
The BBC’s reason for including Ms Phillips was because the programme discussed UK issues.
This is the first Question Time since the launch of the Yes campaign and the announcement that Alistair Darling will head the No campaign. Flying a London-based journalist to Inverness to represent the UK is lamentable although predictable.
Couldn’t they have engaged the services of that prominent journalist frae Dundee if they were desperate to provide a UK view? I believe Mr Cochrane resides in or around London.
But Kenny Gibson’s complaint has not gone unnoticed by those of influence at the BBC. Ms Phillips is to be replaced by Charles Kennedy who will join Nicola Sturgeon, Alan Cumming, Michael Forsyth and Johann Lamont. This will be Ms Lamont’s first appearance on QT and it will be interesting to see how she performs.
The panel balance is now reasonably fair but it would have been even fairer if someone from the ‘undecided’ camp had been included. Lesley Riddoch is one who would fit the bill but there are plenty others who may welcome the opportunity to challenge both sides.
Update: Nicola Sturgeon has withdrawn and will be replaced by Alex Neil and Melanie Phillips will appear. Thanks to Grogipher for keeping an eye on Twitter.
Sooooooo basically nobody has a clue who is turning up. It is, as Subrosa observes in her Comments section, changing by the hour.
There is no This Week this week. It’s replaced by something called Proof which is billed as “A young woman is concerned about having inherited her deceased father’s insanity.”
That’s what you get from watching the BBC, love. Turn over and save yourself. Make us a cuppa whilst you’re in the kitchen, eh?
Oh, and CoverItLive has changed format and might play up tonight – apologies if it does but it is not our fault.
A note on Moderation: We have been extremely relaxed here (rightly) with a policy of free speech and rolling banter. It’s going over the top a bit recently and people need to calm down. We *are* going to start restricting un-modded status and not just letting every comment through. Some are becoming potentially actionable. Fun at the time, maybe, and especially after a good few beers – but your site admins are legally liable under some circumstances and that’s not a good thing for us.
Don’t do it. Ta.
I wouldn`t trust this blog, based on what Subrosa is quoted as saying here.
I heard Lesley Riddoch on Any Questions back in January…a Guardian Shortbread tin caricature of a lefty who clearly HAS made up her mind….or had done THAT day.
If St Melanie has been bumped-they can f*** off…she`d be the only reason to watch this flea circus of a show.
Maybe the Beeb are gathering their bawbees up there to offer her her OWN programme…Melanie is a heroine of us all!
Even if Melanie is on the balance will be 5 left to 2 right. Pretty fair as the BBC say.
Interesting thought, I caught a bit of Milliband’s Scotland speech this morning where he accuses English Nationalism of being much nastier than the Scottish variety, particularly with regards to anti-Scottishness. However, the SNP MP above has clearly exhibited anti-Englishness with his demand that English people shouldn’t be allowed to be on the panel when in Scotland!
If the BBC acquiesce to his demand then will that mean they will no longer have any Scots on the panel for QTs held in England? That’s a rhetorical question of course.
Typical left wing BBC sticking up for every minority cause; SNP = good, even if they are anti-English, narrow-minded and bigoted (The BBC, of course, doesn’t view the Scottish Nose Pickers as racist because the English are the majority – and majority = bad in infantile socialist psychobabble. The BBC and the SNP have much in common though in their rust-bucket, antiquated and laughable adherence to A-Level textbook socialism. I will bring my vomit bucket for tonight’s foul episode
I live in Inverness, well Dingwall actually, and I didn’t even know it’s on! I should turn up with a Bias BBC placard and heckle David Dimbleby over his choice of ties!
And Miliband is on PM tonight to continue his dialogue of the dead.
In a mental facility, it`d be delusional droolings-yet when the likes of Eddie Mair encourage him to join the sane community; we`re supposed to take it seriously.
File under Owen and the EU…if Miliband is discussing Englishness, I`d watch the ports of the Caliphate hordes.
Must be code for the takeover…and the BBC happy to call this “news”?
Apparently the salient characteristics of the English are:
1/ Stoicism
2/ A desire to conserve their institutions
3/ Openness to outsiders (e.g. no sympathy for extremists who don’t mind if the Scots push off or want the UK out of the EU)
Inspiring stuff.
I’ll be watching. Like Alcibades when the Persian fleet turned up.
So, will they end up with an all-Scottish panel if Melanie Phillips doesn’t attend? If so, how typical of the BBC – ‘we’re in Scotland so must only talk to Scottish people, so as not to offend’. Has anyone noticed how they never field an English reporter in Scotland – yet plenty of English people happily live and work there? By contrast, we have plenty of Scots as reporters, newsreaders etc in England (sorry, that would be ‘Britain’, wouldn’t it).
Shooting themselves in the foot by unfairly, but unwittingly making the Scots look insular.
It’s the same as it’s very rare to see an English MP representing a Scottish constituency. So rare that I can’t remember even one. I’m sure there must have been some but I don’t know of any. There have been many Scots representing English constituencies though.
Good grief, asking the most recent one makes a good pub quiz question….
The easy example is Churchill in Dundee but that was a century ago and no idea since then.
I think it’s pretty fair as I said but I don’t want anti-Scottish commenters joining me thanks. Although I support independence I am not an SNP party member and I resent anti-Englishness as much as I resented the anti-Scottishness I – hopefully calmly – tolerated from some English people when working in England. Strangely I was always their bestest friend when we met in Europe. 🙂
Melanie Phillips is OK, but I do think someone even more controversial up here, such as Alan Cochrane, may have been better.
I can’t see too many English people viewing though unless there is a representative of England present. God forbid that QT had an all Scottish line up.
Best moment in last night’s QT? Melanie Phillips managing to get in at least one defiant anti-warmist rant, managing even to claim on BBC TV that the entire man-made global warming phenomenon was a scam. Dimbles was nonplussed (well, he would be, wouldn’t he?) whilst the panel’s resident luvvie (someone calling himself Alan Cummins), entirely predictably, retorted with the hilarious comment that he was ‘still reeling’ from Ms Phillips comment and therefore felt the need to make a pathetic, though wholly ineffectual, ‘defence’ of the dominant (if entirely discredited) narrative on climate change, whilst calling for ever-more investment in completely useless ‘renewables’.
A very revealing moment. The audience didn’t boo Ms Phillips. Non of the assembled politicians challenged her assertion that AGW was a scam. Her words – loud and clear – were left hanging in the air. One might even imagine someone at the BBC might notice that kind of thing and wonder if perhaps there might be more public support for her point of view than previously imagined – that perhaps there might even be a public discussion to be had there… you know, on a public service broadcasting channel…
If it had the impact you suggest – brilliant, and about time. Sorry to repeat myself here, but this book (link below) should be compulsory reading for all politicians and journalists. I urge everyone visiting this website to buy it, whatever your beliefs on the issue. It destroys the only defence left for the warmists now it’s clear temperatures have not risen as predicted i.e. the IPCC must be right as it is made up of the world’s top scientists, using only peer-reviewed research from the world’s top scientific publications. It’s the biggest sham ever perpetrated on mankind (no exaggeration – honest). It also gives a neat summation of the key points of the science, especially the ‘positive feedback’ assumption which underpins the rapid temperature rises predicted by the IPCC models.
The book has never had a mention on the BBC nor have I seen mention of it in the MSM, probably because – frustratingly for them – they can’t disprove it’s findings.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/my-book/
Lot of English people in the audience weren`t there?
The Labour Party in Scotland is rightly done with that low grade woman that heads them…Lamont was it?
Reminded me on that Ian McCartney they used to have up there…about the same wattage in the tam-o shanter department.
SNP bloke looked blind to me.
Hard not to like Kennedy as a person, but Melanie was a joy to listen to…isn`t she always/
Maybe we should set up a fan club for the likes of Melanie, Peter, Douglas and our queen across the pond…Sarah(sigh!)