Question Time tonight comes from West Bromwich – and specifically from the new £77 million Sandwell College.
On the panel are Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, general secretary of the Unite trade union Len McCluskey, economist Ruth Lea and Midlands Business Woman of the year Julie White.
Although by ‘Business Woman of the Year’ we mean in 2011, limited to the Midlands, a title made up by something called Vitalise, she “bought the company from her father” and “is a champion for women“. Not sounding promising but it would be great to be pleasantly surprised.
This Week will follow, and we have the standard lineup of Andrew Neil with Michael Portillo, plus the failed postman Alan Johnson
You are very welcome to join us. Please play nicely though.
So, two card carrying members of the Labour Party (Burnham and McCluskey) and one Tory ( Clarke).
Its in the genes isn’t it Ms Boden !!
Can Clarke really be called a Tory or of the right , he is so pro EU it hurts.
I guess now there are two people who think Clarke is a Tory – JAG and Brave Dave! (no offence!)
On the plus side, Ruth Lea usually talks some sense.
Ruth Lea is excellent and really knows her stuff.
Sadly the Business woman of the year, was more left-wing than Len McCluskey and could hardly string a coherent sentence together at all.
The audience were overtly left wing, the microphone crew moved the mikes away from the audience at the first sign of any applause for Clarke or Ruth Lea, and Dimbleby had a knack of gesturing to move the programme on, as soon as there was any applause for those on the right (politically), whereas he allowed applause to continue un-hindered in response to any of the left wing panellists. He also allowed Len to interrupt and talk over and go on and on at length, spouting every left wing cliche about “fat cats” and “spivs” (bankers) without interruption.
I have rarely witnesses a BBC QT quite as overtly biased as this programme.
Probably the worst QT in recent memory.
Yet again for a visit to the West Midlands, the BBC completely got the audience mix wrong – what is it about the BBC up there? Whilst no doubt it served their purpose politically, it made for bad TV. Aside from the impartiality issue, a more balanced audience would have at least made for better argument and a better programme.
I got the impression that both Ruth Lee and Ken Clarke gave up, subdued by both the audience, and constantly interrupted by co-panelists and by Dimbleby.
And by the way, what a brass neck Burnham has. Did he say that things in the NHS were getting dangerous? This, from a health Secretary responsible for Stafford District General that managed to kill as many as 1200 patients. That’s about a dozen Hillsboroughs, Burnham.