I watched Question Time last night, the final one of 2012, and to be honest it remains as biased as it was back in the aftermath of 9/11. A panel full of leftists with a token “conservative” and a chairman who does not do impartial. Similarly, the “representative” audience represents BBC liberal views, not British society. And so it was last evening.
I felt sorry for Peter Hitchens, the token conservative. He was sneered (if not defamed)at by the appalling snidey Will Self and Dimbleby himself seemed to relish attacking Peter when he got the chance. The entire tone of the discussion was classic BBC trash. It was PRO gay marriage, mocking of Christianity (Not Islam though..no little questions about Mosques offering loving gays the chance to get hitched), massively PRO Immigration and multiculturalism and PRO legalisation of drugs. Hitchens was the only voice that was raised against these leftist shibbeloths ..so it was 5 against 1. That is the BBC’s idea of balance and it nauseates me.
I fell asleep with the TV on last night, thankfully before QT came on. Thanks for the warning, I was going to watch it on iPlayer as I like Hitchens, but sounds like I’d be better off missing out.
I had the misfortune of being woken up by someone shouting at the top of their voice. Yep, it was Owen Jones gurning his way through some rant about “the poorest 1%” on This Week.
The off button was immediately reached for.
I wonder of Owen “Chav” Jones has learnt the difference between Income Tax and Capital Gains tax yet.
The day he was reduced to word salad by Andrew Neill on the Daily Politics was the best bit of BBC politics coverage this year. It probably was the only good bit, but still……
I caught about ten seconds of young shoutie a few weeks back: when the subject turned to the BBC’s libeling of ‘the former Tory treasurer’, Shoutie’s two brain cells connected momentarily and out he came with,
‘Yeah, the thing about Michael Ashcroft is…’
The host, Nolan, had to point out that actually they were talking about Lord McAlpine’.
Before, yer know, the BBC started libelling someone else.
Take a heart of stone etc not to weep with laughter.
The Will Self comment that all those who question immigration are racist says it all for me.
No one actually challenged him on that one.
Desperate.
And Empire slavers when it comes to worrying about immigration n umbers.
And homophobic if they question the priority of forcing through gay marriage…lube or not.
Hitchens was right-the liberal elite and media intelligentsia…even our lofty academics at Brunel Uni..turn out to be sneering smearing fascists who will be bringing Christians etc to re-education camps before too long…and probably using pedal power to ventilate their gas chambers, by way of greening their Nazi tendencies.
Der Sturmer started with lazy abuse, unthinking cliches and supercilious entitlement to rule unquestioned…and Will Self is its “angel of light” based on all I saw and heard from this Brand with bigger words.
The Leftist brand of fascism in full cry, forcing their brave new world on a cowering electorate staitjacketed by political correctness and fear of being branded some form of ‘-ist’ or ‘-phobe’ if they try to disagree. They crush open debate and abhor democracy, gathering in their little network of Marxist cliques which secretly forge the agenda for the nation.
All aided and abetted by our shameless BBC.
” No one actually challenged him on that one.”
Actually Peter Hitchens Did challenge that, as well as the false idea that folk who don’t support gay marriage must therefore by definition be homophobic.
The challenge to the racist smear was probably lost among the general hullabaloo that was going on at the time, around the so called chairman.
The part that really disappointed me came during the discussion about homeless folk and is it right to offer money/food to those affected.
As usual it became a free for all laying the blame on HM Govt for not building enough houses. This in a week when the level of immigration has been laid bare by the census, and NO-one made the link between supply and demand for housing? Even the Labour shadow minister grumbled that in her walthamstow constituency rents will rise by 25% next year. Not a soul mentioned the effects of an influx of people creating those pressures.
I wouldn’t take too much notice of arch miserabilist Self, he is , so he says, an ex-drug addict, but i fear the effects of heroin are all too obvious.
truth if more was needed …
that they just moved the mock audience from the deliberately absurd “harry and paul” spoof, to QT
😀 … life imitating art … just painful more like.
oh the mystery and hilarious bbc plant here?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01p6yhc/ 28 mins 30
a true “pant wetter” 😀
well … i think we ve found her
34mins 10 😀
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01pf6tt/
Having seen the panel I decided not to watch, same went for TW after, the BBC are an awful shambles.
“I watched Question Time last night…”
One has to ask, DV…… why? I salute you for putting yourself through that. You must be a glutton for punishment.
Some make the sacrifice so that others do not have to suffer….
I gave up on it circa 1985.
Self should talk to some of my neighbours about the downside of mass immigration, & then denounce them as ‘racist’. The gangling golem of metropolitan leftism would blow a fuse. The neighbours I speak of, are…West Indian, Greek, Indian, Vietnamese, all long-established, integrated British, & all deeply concerned about the numbers of, & suitability of, so many new arrivals to the UK. The writer, V.S. Naipaul had rich lefties like Self nailed, when he described them as, ‘Revolutionaries with return tickets.’ If Self really cared about social cohesion, he might try listening to an opinion base wider than that of the Guardian.
Self is one of those ex-heroin addicts, of whom one is of my acquaintance, who have replaced their heroin trip for a power trip.
Self was probably a much nicer person before and while he was a junkie. Now he’s addicted to hate and tries to project it onto others.
Exactly, those who suffer most from new waves of immigration are the previous wave, unless fully hooked on benefits.
Those of African descent tend to end up at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, hence Diane Abbott whinging about E.Europeans taking all the jobs at the Olympic Park, rather than her constituents (I’m sure she despises E.Europeans because of their skin colour too though)
In southern California, some of the most vocal opponents of Mexican immigration have been African Americans, as they’ve pushed them further down the scale.
That’s only true to a point. Pakistanis and Bangladedhis go all-out to bring as many of their extended families across as possible.
‘5 against 1’
Post 10:10, when the BBC had a 100:1 trashing of a Graun attempt at a whitewash as a ‘split’, it may actually represent a step towards a better version of ‘BBC stats, damn stats and BBC polls wot show…’
The bbc obviously chooses the audience to best reflect a liberal agenda. When people are asked in opinion polls about the issue of crime and immigration they tend to say immigration is too high and say they want to be tougher on crime. Yet on question time it seems to be the opposite.
I wonder what the age profile of TV viewers to QT is? The audience is always packed with young left ‘activists’ usually wearing something red so that Dimbleby knows which ones to call for their views. Do you think they watch QT when they are at home or is their only interest when they have the chance to be on the tele?
And how many older leftist viewers watch QT either? Mr D’s suggestion is that the programme is only on to annoy PLUs.
The political imbalance on QT is often a scandal, but I have always found that David Dimbleby himself is impeccably impartial.
There are those who either don’t perceive the BBC’s set of biases, or they still deny the existence of a left-wing BBC agenda.
Consider Will Self’s appearance on Question Time. He has an undeniable talent as a writer. His political and social views are decidedly on the left. In long past decades he might have been regarded as something of a bohemian, a libertine. But notice how it is that now, whatever he says on whatever subject no matter how far pitched to the progressive liberal left, he can utter nary a breath that might make our modern Auntie blush.
British-ness is an evil concept. It is primarily associated with that terrible period of our past broadly described as colonialism. (Enlightenment, industrial revolution, democracy – no no no, according to Will Self our history was all about white people being nasty to brown people. Oh and getting those cute ginger Celtic peoples who live on the fringes to do the dirty work) Gosh I do wonder how long that first ‘B’ in the old logo will last now it is practically a hate word? I might have suggested Will thinks British is a swearword but I guess being the thorough trendy progressive he must be ok with swears.
And what of the English? Didn’t you get the memo? Englishness doesn’t exist. No the 2012 Census, thank goodness, tells us white indigenous Europeans are now in the minority. That’s right, there may be Portuguese-ness, Uruguayan-ness, Ugandan-ness, indeed perhaps Kosovo-ness – but English-ness? No. And Will Self wants to make sure that in future we have no doubts about this. The CofE should be disestablished (he is actually not that keen on Christianity) and we should remove the Royal Family and declare a Republic. So his prescription should finally stamp out this false English culture.
So much for his politics. Having metaphorically removed the Union Flag from our City Hall what does Will Self think about social issues? Need you ask? Anyone should be able to marry anyone. Party time heh! And we should be able to console ourselves in whatever way we wish because, naturally, all drugs should be legalised.
I say again – not a word of this upsets either Dimbleby, the carefully vetted QT audience or indeed the wider BBC sensibility. Still think it’s not biased?
I haven’t watched QT for a few weeks but decided to give it a go last night as Peter Hitchens was on the panel. A big mistake because it was just as bias as normal. Hitchens never got a chance to really put his views over and the panel and audience were at loggerheads with my views on every subject. I basically learned that I am a Racist Homophobe.
…and those are just your good points?
You, me and several million others.
Why don’t you try and get on the audience, as I did? The BBC outsurce to a private company, which is basically ex-BBC workers and freelancers. The online application had leading questions, such as “what are your attitudes towards Europe”. Not even the EU, but it demonstrates the mindset of the recruiters: EU = Europe. I said I had no political allegiance and that I was an ethnic minority. The BBC audience recruiter actually phoned me up to firstly question my ethnicity – she thought someone with such an English name must be white, such is the inate racism of the white middle-class Left – then to ask leading question on my political views to judge whether I was ‘ok’ for the BBC.
I would prefer to get a go on the panel. The more home truths are spoken the better. Naturally that is reason not to be on panel.
Get on the audience? Dear God, no. At least on the television you can press the off button. The thought of being trapped in there for the duration with all these right-on “I’m-so-caring-because-I-want-to-spend-other-people’s-money-and-impose-my-views-on-everyone” windbags just doesn’t bear thinking about.
Not much of a surprise though was it? 5-1, audience loaded with lefties, pro-immigration, gay marriage and drugs, anti-conservative. Just another QT in other words. The most sensible comment was from the beautiful black Christian lady. Other than that the rest of the audience comments were moronic. Thank God for Hitchen’s though. He hit the nail on the head when he talked of liberal fascism and Self’s homophobia/racist comments reinforced the point. Stella’s discomfort (moving in her chair/harrumphing) when Hitchen’s reeled off Nether’s accusation was a picture too – The Labour Party know immigration is their achilles heel. When Hitchen’s said that Cameron was pursuing the gay marriage proposal because he hated his own party, I could have sworn for a fleeting second that Greening knew exactly what he meant. And Will Self is a great example of why people shouldn’t take drugs. With his hollowed out druggy, skull-face he should be on a government health warning.
“The Labour Party know immigration is their achilles heel”
And it’s an achilles heel that Labour also knows is extremely well protected by a praetorian guard of BBC stooges. There is an enormous pile of broken arrows surrounding them.
Last nights This Week and postman Johnson was telling bare-faced lies when he denied that immigration went up virtually straight away when Labour came to power. (he’s either lying or he’s such an idiot he doesn’t know what his own party were doing whilst in power) These figures -http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/pdfs/MWK001-Migration-UK-report_Print.pdf (thanks to Johnnythefish on a previous thread) prove he was lying. Net immigration went from 50,000 in 1997 to nearly 150,000 in 1998! He just denied it and Neil didn’t pursue the point. Is this what we pay our licence fee for?
Johnson’s lies at 41 minutes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pdy1k/This_Week_13_12_2012/
Good on Neill for challenging him – the only person I can think of on the BBC who is prepared to challenge Labour’s barefaced lies.
The question that springs to mind is: is Johnson the kind of postie you could trust with your Christmas mail?
‘Is this what we pay our licence fee for?’
Hate to come over all ‘It’s worse than that Jim’ on a fellow poster, but of course we don’t even ‘pay’ our licence fee.
It is a mandatory tax uniquely extracted via legal compulsion imposed by the powers that be and who include Chris Patten, the judge on the 28gate case and a culture minister who thinks Leveson was only to give her a means to muzzle the press side of the media estate when holding her to account, along with Mrs Hodge in opposition.
So what we appear to be paying for is propaganda backed by censorship supported by totalitarianism.
Which seems oddly familiar to me and possibly anyone whose studies went beyond the ‘contemporary’ and whose memories have not been fried by drugs to the level of a BBC market rate afflicted by that odd Alzheimers bug they have now that renders them on par with a Regal Blue Tang.
It seemed like a good line to end with, I didn’t think anyone was going to deconstruct it.
Original too.
So think of my running with it further as more of a further piggy back in homage.
Any offence taken unintended.
” The most sensible comment was from the beautiful black Christian lady. ”
Totally agree! And did you notice that after she began to speak so confidently, and logically (if you accept religion at all of course), and being so sure of her ground, that EVERYONE on the panel decided not to cross swords with her?
It would have been wacist.
I believe they feared she might be too articulate for them. They all went quiet.
Well, well.
QT was an utter disgrace; if that audience was representative of the general UK populace then I’m a Martian. Will Self’s comment that anyone who is concerned aboiut immigration was utterly appalling – and Dimblebore effectively endorsed this slur. The lie was launched at Peter Hitchens, who was the most rational person on the panel and behaved with great dignity. Self was really in gutter politics mode – and looked very thin – maybe he’s back on the heroin again; once an addict always an addict.
It is also astonishingly hypocritical that millionaire Self, who lives in a Georgian terrace is so happy to inflict the misery of uncontrolled immigration on the ordinary working class people of this country. He of course won”t have to live next door to a multiple occupancy house with 50 African migrants in it. He will have private health care and his kids will go to private school – or a state school which is effectively the same as a private school throgh local house prices.
I used to quite enjoy Self’s radio ramblings but after last night I realised how truly nasty this liberal fascist really is. Hitchens had him bang to rights; these people WON’T debate the issues in a rational manner; they don;t even accept that anyone even has a RIGHT to a different view. If you don’t kow-tow to the current liberal fascist orthodoxy, you are heading for the Gulag – and Will Self will be one of the ones wielding the whip.
Will Self – Stockwell NKVD.
The only good panel I recall was the Question Time spoof on Not the Nine O’Clock News. Mel Smith was the spitting image of GLC/ILEA harridan Frances Morrell
A classic! “To my left, and indeed to everbody’s left, the sylph-like figure of Frances Morrell.”
Doubtless out there, somewhere, in the far reaches of the Interweb, there is a site protesting the right-wing bigotry and institutionalised anti-left sentiment dripping from every pixel of last night’s QT.
Can’t find it though. Maybe Jim Dandy can give us the link?
Dez is your man for the links, but you’ll have to wait for him to begin his nightshift at the beeb.
How about here
or<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/bbc-coverage-nhs-bill" Here?
I think you are trying to get this
here if that helps.
I posted to say that Jim suggested Media Lens yesterday, but I seem to have overstepped the mark linkswise and been put into moderation purgatory.
Here’s the New Statesman article arguing QT is biased towards the right. Alan did a post on it.
http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2012/11/there-bias-bbc-question-time
Ten days ago:
“BBC Newsround has apologised to Caabu after it submitted a complaint highlighting severe factual inaccuracies in a video report broadcast on 21 November.”
http://www.caabu.org/news/news/bbc-newsround-apologises-caabu-inaccurate-report-gaza-edits-video-report
Yet for some reason, not one person (on a blog supposedly about BBC Bias) seems to have noticed.
How can this be? How very strange…
I am about to take the dog out for his morning constitutional.
In comparison to the deranged pearls of logic from The Red Flokker’s Flying Circus, what he comes out will at least serve to warm my hands before being consigned to the nearest bin.
Ha, still playing the pompous twit.
Kind of comes a little bit too easily these days doesn’t it?
Irony alert.
‘To this day Israel remains in control of the West Bank. And although they left Gaza in 2005, they still remain in control of who and what goes in and out.’
Nice little airbrush of the Gaza/Egypt border. They can’t even get the apology and correction right!
I’ve always suspected that most Beeboids, rather than being active Gramscians, are actually just the dumb, over-qualified and over-promoted morons that our education system produces in such vast quantities these days. Yet again, Dez, your attempted refutation has actually made the opposite point to the one you intended.
Keep up the great work!
I guess Christianity is mocked because its very easy to do so. Jesus himself said Christians should expect their beliefs to be ridiculed because of how preposterous such views are.
Oh well, sure you can always forgive them
5-1?
As Hippoepooter says, Dimbleby does a good job of being a balanced chair.
So we had p. Hitchens, as right a winger as you can get. And Greening, a Tory MP. So that’s two from the right
Then Self, certainly very left wing, and Creasy. So two from the left.
And Bilmoria a cross bench business man.
Ooh the terrible bias.
There are, of course, fundamental limitations to the taxonomy of ‘left’ and ‘right’. And the largely indistinguishable policies of the 3 main parties don’t help.
Also, the fact that somebody is a cross bencher certainly does not mean they are neutral or even centrist.
I totally agree that the program was, as usual, partial and biased, although just having somebody like Peter Hitchens on it was a rare “blessing”, a gift that Question Time donates less and less these days.
The only times that QT is worth watching is if there is Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and, when he’s in good form (not always), Douglas Murray.
I watch Question Time anyway, even when all the panellists are appalling, it’s just a habit hard to stop.
But the best part of the show in my opinion was the fact that not one but two members of the audience stood up against political correctness and “gay” marriage, defying the ostracism that this generally entails.
This is what I posted about it:
Peter Hitchens, Will Self and Gay Marriage on Question Time
I have to say Peter Hitchens was at the top of his form. Sometimes he is a little too peevish for his own good, but on this programme he had two long soliloquies responding to questions which are well worth listening to again.
The audience which was unusually biased and silly was stunned into loud silence.
Hitchens was of course harried by Dimbleby at every turn but held his ground for a while.
The Indian beer Baron who was a little coy about the Parsee view of gay marriage became more vocal when hysterically trying to defend London Metropolitan University (of which he is Chancellor) against its current suspension from issuing visas to foreign students.
Most don’t turn up, but this was not an issue for the Lord as it brings untold wealth to the education sector.
Dez and Jim very active, not to mention perky, across the site today.
Christmas bonus time at the Beeb, boys, or just looking forward to spending your triple time dosh dahn the old multicultural boozer tonight?
Years ago, the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph had an imaginary panel prog’ called “Hear All Sides” (clue: antiphrase!) All of the panel were Leftists, of course, except for one semi-lobotomised policeman who was there to put the Fascist (i.e. slightly right-of-centre) view … in the interests of balance. As often with the Peter Simple inventions, there was a lot of truth in it. Question Time isn’t quite that bad but thank heavens for Hitch, Mel Ph and Starkey, who do better than the “policeman” above.