I wanted to create a specific post for Question Time tonight.
‘David Dimbleby presents Question Time from Lady Thatcher’s former constituency of Finchley. On the panel are Conservative Cabinet Minister Ken Clarke MP, Labour’s former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP, former leader of the Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell MP, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and Lady Thatcher’s authorised biographer Charles Moore.”
I can’t liveblog it but I can those of you watching it …and I will be…to leave your opinions here. I fear the worst…
It was going to be from Rochdale wasn`t it?
Wonder if there has been racism at play here.
After all, the BBC did have an imam called Jim Al Savilli whose exploits could be appropriately shared with the local Council/Childrens Directorate and Mosque Community Panel.
Who the hell let them camp up at Finchley?…bit pro-Israel for the BBC I`d have thought.
What of former Rochdale MP Cyr al-Smithi?
Toynbee again, has there been a QT which she was not on.
“Toynbee again, has there been a QT which she was not on.”
Confirmation bias:
Polly Toynbee has been on QT 19 times in the last 31 years.
Melanie Philips 21 times in 17 years.
Can you show us the workings Dez, I would be interested to see the league table of appearances. (Then we could get Craig to do a time talking/ interruptions quotient and feed in the lefty audience /applause-ometer readings to see how it changed the table.)
Toynbee 19? Th’ts 19 times too many. She duplicates the other left-leaning panellists, and she has nothing to say worth hearing. Unlike our Mel, whose passionate insights are an oasis of inteligence amidst a sea of adolescent marxist claptrap and champagne socialism.
I used to live in Finchley (well actually Mill Hill East) and let me tell you that , that audience isn’t representative of the lcoal population;
For a start it has a lot of Asians from the Indian Sub continent, a large number of Greek Cypriots and shock horror it is full of Jews.
Mind you I do believe that the audience has not only be carefully picked, but that they have been given the gipsies that as the show is recorded any idiot who screams out will not only be removed, but his speech will be edited out.
However instead of asking people who were generally around when Maggie was in Power (Like the idiots in front of the camera) they are getting people who weren’t born, or even in the country. Lots of Yoof who I suppose the bBC is hoping will ask those questions they just want to air:
What she a dictator from a Paki, who you just know supports Sharia law. Another from a dark skinned bimbo, Christ she made Helen Flanagan. Then we had the prick who says she won her second election because she sank the Belgrano.
Nice to see a lot of truths coming out, Shame about bringing on Blunkett, sorry he was discredited more than once, I’d rather have his dog piss on my carpet than have him speak.
Pounce,
“that audience isn’t representative of the lcoal population;
For a start it has a lot of Asians from the Indian Sub continent, a large number of Greek Cypriots and shock horror it is full of Jews.”
Yes of course you can tell who’s Greek Cypriot or Jewish just by looking at them can’t you Pounce?
“full of Jews”
“What she a dictator from a Paki, who you just know supports Sharia law”.
Yes of course you can tell what someone believes in just by looking at them can’t you Pounce?
Just a shame there weren’t any Asian women invited to speak from the audience during the whole programme.
“Another from a dark skinned bimbo”
Nice. Racist and misogynistic. What a charming fellow you are.
When Beeboids live in glass houses, they should not throw stones, judging by the behaviour of their comedy department.
Better offer him a job then, charming fellows like that would fit right in at the nauseous BBC
As someone else who also lived in Mill Hill East (Hi Pounce!!) I can assure Dez that a Jewish woman can spot another Jewish woman at a 100 paces and I expect Pounce can do the same for the Pakis. And surprise, surprise Dez, the shops along Ballards Lane have always been a bit of a give away concerning the local population – don’t post Dez unless you have a proper point to raise.
Ignore Dez. He’d say it’s racist to state that Nelson Mandela isn’t white.
The key thing about PC is that you do not have to know anything (in fact knowledge is a handicap as it leads you to discriminate on the basis of that knowledge) you just have to parrot certain key words, like sexist or racist, and use them to close down any discussion that is not in accordance with politically approved thinking. It is like assessing poets not on the grounds of any literary merit but on the grounds that they have (or do not have) Party approved attitudes.
Yes, just ignore someone who has pointed out racism and misogynism. That’s how this site works.
“He’d say it’s racist to state that Nelson Mandela isn’t white.”
No, he wouldn’t. But then again, straw men are so much easier to attack, aren’t they?
Deborah – Dez’s point was that you can’t tell what someone BELIEVES just by looking at them.
Yes, Chris, he would. Dez has called me a racist for doing something just like that. And he called pounce a racist for stating someone had dark skin, when he should only have focused on the possible sexist angle there. A dark-skinned person cannot be considered racist for stating that a dark-skinned person has dark skin.
Dez has form on seeing racists under the bed, and using this kind of Alinsky attack to avoid discussing issues seriously. Pretending that nobody looks like anything really isn’t going to hold up under scrutiny.
OK point taken on the dark-skinned front.
“He’d say it’s racist to state that Nelson Mandela isn’t white.”
Please provide evidence for that.
Still ignoring the misogynism I see.
And you still haven’t answered my (and Dez’s) point – you can’t tell that someone believes in Sharia law just because they look like a ‘Paki’, like Pounce seems to think.
Unfortunately, I can’t provide the evidence because the March 2, 2012 open thread comments got corrupted or something during the domain transfer a while back. I’m sure Dez will be happy to corroborate my statement. In the midst of the early screaming about how a white man shot Trayvon Martin in cold blood, which included the BBC hyping that meme, I posted this photo of George Zimmerman, which the BBC had at that point refused to publish, and asked if he (Zimmerman) looked white. Dez called me a racist for that.
And you somehow missed reading the part of my comment where I said Dez missed criticizing pounce on the sexist angle. So I did not ignore the “misogynism”.
I didn’t address Dez’s point about deciding what someone believes based on what they may or may not look like, so I didn’t see the need to address your additional remark on that issue. However, if you do feel strongly about that, I’d ask that you then consider if the BBC has been correct in their decision that the Tea Party movement is driven by racism because the majority of them are white.
“Yes, just ignore someone who has pointed out racism and misogyny.”
It is pretty clear I am ridiculing efforts (by wannabe Witchfinder General’s such as yourself) to issue certificates of correct thinking.
You object to Pounce assuming that you can identify race from they way people look, and you object to him using the word “bimbo” to describe an attractive but unintelligent woman.
Tough.
Chris wrote:
And you still haven’t answered my (and Dez’s) point – you can’t tell that someone believes in Sharia law just because they look like a ‘Paki’, like Pounce seems to think.
Good point, tell you what gave him away, the Islamic beard and the baggy trousers he was wearing instead of normal trousers. Hindu men tend to be cleanly shaven. Also there actually isn’t that many Hindus in North Finchley , but there are many Mosques with the main mosque in Narth Finchly being only around 200 metres away from the Grammer School where they held QT. As I said I used to live in the area and I know only too well of how Muslims drive into Golders Green in which to cause trouble. Mrs Pounce would to be called Levy and her dad used to ask me to pick up Jewish food for him if we were popping up for the weekend.
The looks I used to get whilst queuing to be served. I wonder if they expected me to utter ‘Allah ackba’ and self detonate.
Oh and Chris the vast Majority of Muslims believe in sharia law. How do I know, simply ask if their daughter can date (never mind marry ) a non-Muslim. Very very few Muslims will allow that aspect of Sharia Law to be broken. Now I must go as I have a race to run tomorrow
Hi Debs,
I was based at the camp from 94-6. (Gone now) However I do pop in now and again to shop at the big Waitrose. an Avid keep fit freak I was always out running (Out to Totteridge common and back through the fields) Seeing as not many asians used to go out running (I was the only one) I kind of stood out a little bit. Orienteering in Lincoln tomorrow. God its the back of beyond. Drove through Grantham on the way up today, Lots of flowers outside the shop where Maggie grew up . If I only listened to the bBC, I would have expected those flowers to be strewn all over the gaff. But they aren’t.
Dez, I think this is going to upset you, but pretty much the only way you can tell a white person from any other colour person is to look at them. I know it’s not PC, but sorry about that –
What Thatcher did is now history, why could we not have had a historian on the panel to give the truth rather than set Ken Clarke up to be savaged by a left wing panel with their own slant on past events.
Just for the record, I met Maggie Thatcher in 1983. What struck me was just how small she was and how softly she spoke.
One didn’t get the impression that the Finchley which BBC-NUJ created for ‘QT’ had actually been Margaret Thatcher’s constituency for years. For instance, there was nobody in the audience who said (or could say) ‘I met Margaret Thatcher’, or ‘I voted for her.’ So again, BBC-NUJ built up the anti-Tory numbers in the audience, so as not to politically reflect the locality.
Pounce …. I remember reading something a long while back about her school years…. apparently her father encouraged her to be polite and softly spoken whenever she helped out in the shop… Unfortunately, due to her activities outside school being mainly based around helping her father and also extra curricular learning ( business, accounting, and politics ) it left her little time for making friends amongst her peers…. Most of her classmates were convinced that she was a snob and felt animosity towards her… By the time she was in her late teens the only people she really knew were customers in the shop and of course her fathers circle of politically minded friends…. This is why she had to be coached on how to speak in public, she had spent so much time listening and learning and had yet to put it into practice… People in this country seem to think that she spoke loudly and assertively all the time, surely if this was the case there would have been regular instances of laryngitis ?? I have seen video clips of her changing voice pitch once she thought the microphones were off….. What pisses me off most about the critics of the way she spoke is that they mistake the Lincolnshire accent as being posh… It is not her fault that most of her dissenters do not have a proper understanding of the English Language is it?? I`m starting to get vexed btw…. I`ve still not found a decent group of students planning a demo in my town yet…. haha!!!
I honestly thought Amy (You`re disgusting) Rutland was going to be in the audience…. I really did….
stale and boring,all question time last night was is this, i agree with you polly,ken,men,charles etc,i fell asleep with everybody agreeing with each other,just boring.
It has been noted in previous posts how labour often sits in the warm studio in front of a high quality microphone while the conservative will be held at the end of a crackly phone line. I have also noticed that the sound from right wing contributors sometimes seems slightly muted, somehow de-emphasised, especially in Question Time but also other BBC programs. It is more than just the way the panelists are speaking. Labour contributors always seem to come through loud and clear with much more audio punch and presence.
I do think that the lefties are more shouty anyway.
The Left constantly interrupt and talk over people. They do not like freedom of speech – except for themselves.
And of course the righteous “righty” contributors to this site roundly welcome those who disagree with them.
Any who make valid points are welcomed and debated. Ad Homs are not, and that is all most of you Beeboids are capable of producing.
It was actually quite a balanced Question Time…… but only because Ming Campbell kept destabilising the usual screaming Socialists by using *facts* and *logic*.
Of course, normally, facts and logic don’t count if they are uttered by anyone from the right…. but Ming as a fellow leftie scuppered the whinge fest time and time again.
The biographer was having a great pop at the BBC – but it lost its sting when he continued and started rambling about “the wicked witch of the East”. Shame really because Dimbleby wasn’t looking happy – but after the bonkers extended ramble, he didn’t even need to address the valid accusations of BBC bias.
Agreed, Billy. Dimbleby for once didn’t step on too many good points or call on the same audience member over and over. There must have been a major announcement to the audience beforehand. Maybe this time the BBC didn’t reach out to certain organizations to pad the audience out when it doesn’t reflect what they’ve decided is the political demographics of the area? In any case, I’m sure there will be “complaints from both sides” that Dimbleby let Clarke go first.
I had a lot of comments to make about this, but I think I’ll just say instead that what I took away from this was the very clear message that the Left and the BBC have lost the argument about how Labour didn’t ruin things that a Conservative (or Conservative-led) Government had to fix, and they’ve lost the argument that the unions are sanctified organizations who did no wrong, and that there’s no such thing as a dead industry that the government can keep propping up forever. Campbell and even Toynbee were essentially relegated to saying that Thatcher had to fix the mess, but she could have done it in a better way.
The same argument is being lost today regarding the mess Gordon Brown left and what the Coalition has to fix now. We’re in the middle of a similar argument in the US. Even the biggest Labour voices are saying that they’d also cut this and reduce that, only somehow they’d magically do it in a more humane way, which is absolutely meaningless because they can’t really offer any plans that are less objectionable to their base.
Last night’s episode made it very clear to me who has lost the argument, and who is poised to make real gains.
PS: I think Campbell better start looking over his shoulder if he ever visits certain areas again. I wonder if this will lower the esteem the BBC seems to have for him. And there was a decent, but not great reaction from the audience to Moore’s great swipe at the BBC. Too bad he blew his momentum with that awful attempt at a Wizard of Oz joke.
Good post. Some resonance in this review:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/concoughlin/100211852/at-last-a-question-time-that-was-actually-worth-watching/
‘But last night we had that rare treat – a Question Time panel that not only contained thoughtful, articulate contributors, with the exception of the ludicrous Polly Toynbee, but sustained a lively discussion on Baroness Thatcher’s legacy for the programme’s entire duration.
Ming Campbell, who surprisingly gave a stirring defence of Lady T’s confrontation with the unions in the 1980s, showed why he would still make a more convincing leader of the Lib Dems than the clueless Nick Clegg, while the ding-dong between Ken Clarke and David Blunkett over the Thatcher government’s replacement of old Labour’s statist industrial base with a flexible market economy was a joy to behold.
Suddenly you realised that, despite all the attempts at reform undertaken during the Blair era, die-hard socialists like Blunkett are still wedded to the obsolete – and unworkable – doctrine of state control. Our own, beloved Charles Moore, meanwhile, highlighted the fatuousness of La Toynbee’s interjections to the extent that, by the programme’s end, she had been reduced to an irrelevant onlooker. A triumph indeed!
My only regret is that, having enjoyed last night’s edition, I fear it will be a long time before we are treated to another discussion of similar quality. Next week, for example, the comedian Griff Rhys Jones will be appearing on the panel. I just can’t wait to hear the goofy actor’s insights on reforming the eurozone, tackling rogue states like North Korean and Iran, or whatever other big issues that happen to be dominating the news agenda next week’.
The comments actually got to some germane points about ‘facts’, that were spouted but left to a lone panelist to correct.
QT as a spouting board for BS, overseen by a person incapable of ensuring accuracy, renders it still pretty much a propaganda tool on the public purse.
I did find this a bit unfortunate, all things considered, as it seems unlikely to have been deliberate:
‘…while the ding-dong between Ken Clarke and David Blunkett…’
I watched it last time Griff Rhys Jones was on, and by the standards of left-wing comedian he actually wasn’t too bad from what I remember.
Where is evil Thatcher oppessor of the workers being buried.
I want to dance on her grave.
I’m sending “Uncle Norman” to deal with you … may God forgive your sins.
Who is Uncle Norman?
You’ll be finding out soon enough.
Clue: Surname begins with T. Enjoy!
Norman Tebbit
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I have to defend myself against him is a copy of the Morning Star.
Don’t feed the troll. It’s the same one how posted similar drivel the other day under the name “happy”. Someone sad enough to go through the effort of creating yet another new email address just do do this.
We all know it is Earls Court – it is just his sense of humour. At least he is not going on about lamposts.
He spells too well for Earl’s Court.
Well why not post his sockpuppet tags David?? Even better… Send me an email containing whatever details you have of his posting history along with any ARIN data ( Even if you just have the end proxy address, it really doesn`t matter.. it is just less time consuming if there is more data ) the site has relating to his posts… In return I will make his online life pretty miserable and also do as much damage to his reputation amongst the pro BBC online activist groups who as we all know attempt to divert deactivate and disengage the groups cohesion and capacity to process reasoned arguments on any forums discussing the many varieties and levels of criminal and unethical practices of a corporation which although it bears the name of our people and is officially its` media outlet, has little if any representation of the culture and moral values of over three quarters of the British people who see that the BBC and it`s staff are actively and deliberately destroying the reputation of the British people and giving the international sphere the impression that we are a direct polar opposite to that which we, the `majority` of the British people would pfrefer to be recognised as…
Examples…
The Church Of England is the official religion of our nation…
Yet the BBC have a Muslim in charge of their religion department….
The BBC is based in the UK and after spending over one billion of our pounds on a state of the art, digital and technological headquarters capable of collating and processing all its` material output in realtime, uses the Al Jazeera ( Islamic ) media networks news facilities and editors as the main source of its` Middle Eastern content… Even the BBC reporters who are actually British speakers are in many cases non British people such as Lyse Doucet (French Canadian) hold postions such as …. Chief International Correspondent….. or Rageh Omar ( a Somalian) who denies being a Muslim and yet travels throughout the Muslim world even venturing inside Mecca ( Non Muslims are forbidden ) and the conflict areas in which a non Muslims` life wouldn`t last more than five minutes…. Yet he emerges unscathed after each period of time he spends embedded with the most extremist Muslim factions active in the African and Asian regions…
Also the BBC relies on `Political Commentators` such as Polly Toynbee ( non UK resident until recently when she sold her rather large mansion with its` expansive grounds for many millions of Euros) to provide the gauge and sentiments of the common average waged British person who is worried about social cohesion and job security with each new influx of cheap foriegn labour flooding the employment markets and placing our infrastructure under a strain it was never ever designed to cope with…. Or Owen `shouty` Jones (champagne socialist) a third rate literal hack who wrote a book titled Chavs but whose original title and content had to be subjected to a quite heavy editorial process by the publishers after it became clear that its` contents had no structural thesis or even a basic premise from which a summary could be gleaned to provide its` readers with any understanding of the entire books literal contents….. Resulting in its back cover showing a picture and underneath the cradits of the photograper who had taken it…. just above the Publishers details and the BarCode (possibly the only example of written structural text which had a purpose or meaning for its` existence in the whole book and even that was written on the hardback sleeve jacket aand not actually inside the covers….. Owen Jones only examples of a literal nature which have not had to be heavily editorialised are those written on the semen splashed walls of the many public toilets around the UK mainland which also facilitate the provision of `Glory-Holes` for famous television personalities and nonentities in the area due to contractual obligations with the BBC to shout preposterous assertions and loudly on programs such as QT when the production needs call for more than the regular placement of fake members of the public in the audience to stifle any real or meaningful debate about the current events and worrying questions most of us in the UK are desperate to resolve…. So what better than a rich University Graduate with a retitled thesis on a topic of which he knows nothing but via the use of a gradual font size enlargement followed by implementation of the Ariel Black font and a Bold type style it was possible for him to [b]emphasize[/b] his questionable opinions before moving on to the next ill conceived notion an arrogant ar$ehole with an unwarranted sense of his own importance might wish to bull$hit about… In fact the only BBC staff members who actually reside in the British Isles are most likely on Police bail whilst they await a Crown Prosecution decision on thier involvement of the apparent `culture` of raping children and vunerable people whenever physical contact was enabled via the use of a specially BBC designed public (sexual) relations department which operated for over forty years and was one of the criteria a BBC Radio employee had to fulfill in order just to leer at a child, never mind touch or abuse them… They also used gangrape as a `team-building` exercise and to teach newly recruited child rapists the correct way in which to rape a child in a `controlled` environment….
“The Church Of England is the official religion of our nation…”. No it is not. It is the established Christian church in England.
If, as some here suspect, the BBC monitor this “poxy blog” some of your allegations could place you (and this site) on a somewhat sticky legal wicket.
Albumen …. Nobody on this site has replied to my request nor have any others posted any comments to the post I made.. Therefore this site has in no way helped or facilitated the future actions which I intend to undertake if I am able to do so…. As for myself I do not care if you report me to the “intranets police” …. which you might want to do ASAP as i have moved you to the top of my `to-do` list…. I look forward to meeting your pals etc…. You are the worst type of person online… one who consistently attempts to divert, denigrate and deride any opinions made by the majority of people by using implied threats coupled with the arrogance of a person who has a false idea of his validity and unwarranted self importance… You don`t bother me a bit… Neither do your threats…. You sit there defending the indefensible you shift blame for the crimes of peadophiles onto the victims… You play the race card the moment you see a description or post mentioning colour of any type, it doesn`t matter whether its in relation to a persons skin, the colour of the sky or even how many colours Josephs dreamcoat had woven into it… You will find a strawman arguement to turn the topic into one of racial inequality and further insult those on the thread by crying victim status for yourself… I don`t know if you are black, white, yellow, brown or even green with purple spots… I couldn`t give a flying f*ck, your package colour doesn`t matter to me, as far as I am concerned inside that packaging the only content is a complete void with an overflowing bucket full of sh*t in one corner being fed upon by dung beetles and those flies that always seem to lhang around the back end of a farm animals ar$ehole…. I think that if you ever contracted a tapeworm or found a leech on your skin the only issue you would have would be that you needed to kill it and eat it yourself becouse you are mean, disgusting and see these traits as something to be proud of… You have no issue feeding on things most people would not stomach, yet you thrive on it… You are the puss inside the boil… Now go tell on me, go on, I don`t care…. But remember that some people on here bite back, some also have the knowledge on how to bite back really hard…….. F00kin nub…
Astonishing Justin, very well said, vert entertaining, just hope Jones et al read it.
Thankyou Robert… I know it was rather longwinded but in my defence I was drinking coffee at the time and had stubbed my little toe an hour before… (stubbing the little toe in my opinion is the worst kind of pain, it also drives a person mad as they wonder why such an accident hurts so damn much) Albumen just happened to be there and I needed an outlet…. In hindsight I guess I could have offered my point of view in a calmer way but that was how I felt at that time…… I hope he hasn`t told shouty that I made his public toilet activities public knowledge….. It would be something like the wikileaks scandal x 1000…
At sea.
At sea no way.
That is water and as a Marxist/Socialist/Communist soap dodger I hate washing.
I have never ever known this programme to be so biased, you never had a single person on the panel that strongly opposed Maggie thatcher which sums up how disgusting the bbc really is when you consider the amount of suffering she caused to innocent people across the world, you had Menzies Campbell saying that we should show respect to our past leaders so does that mean that Germany should show respect to Hitler?
Complaints from both sides. The BBC is divisive. QED.
Godfrey:
Stop using the staff room computer when you should be teaching 3R Nelson Mandela Studies.
“suffering she caused to innocent people across the world?” Eh? The only people I hope she caused to suffer Godfrey, are people like you. Which planet are you from, remind us?
Good to see that the “christian” right are still with us and that the “freedom of speech” they constantly argue for is encouraged in such a civilised manner.
Albaman – you must try harder.
F
You’re absolutely right mate! She also deliberately prolonged apartheid and caused thousands of deaths during the falklands war… QT has always been biased.
Not thousands of deaths in the Falklands War:
British 258; Argentine <700. And the Fascist regime in Buenos Aires did invade, after all.
“the amount of suffering she caused to innocent people across the world”
I was a Staff Sergeant in the Falklands War Mr Godfrey and I can tell you 100% of those islanders whose doors I knocked on whilst helping them recoup their freedom are eternally grateful for the guts Margaret Thatcher showed relieving these innocent people from having to live under a despicable Dictator. No time for you boy.
Can anybody intelligent imagine spending their time visiting specific websites created and inhabited by idiots who spout drivel about something ridiculous just to insert contrary comments?
I know I can’t.
Yet judging by the trolls that continue to post here on a daily basis, usually claiming some ridiculous ‘high ground’, it shows that this site really scares them, and they’re doing their best to try and discredit it.
Well Done Everybody 🙂
Looking at the 16.6M counter, and all the sudden bunker retreats when the daft points they think they are making blow up in their faces, they seem to be a doing a bang up job.
Well done them, too.
It is an organised opposition. Folks here wont accept the bbc is capable of running its own team of moby’s, trolls, etc, but if I had ownership of a £4 billion slush fund, i’d make damn sure some poxy blog was not going to discredit it.
Why would anyone need to organise opposition against a “poxy blog”?
As for the counter it would appear to count every individual hit rather than discrete visits. Have a look at what happens whenever you refresh the page.
Well, you certainly seem to be refreshingly doing your bit when it comes to hits vs. discretion.
I listened to the return of “The News Quiz” (Radio 4 18:30 Friday) and was pleasantly surprised. It was quite funny, there were only a few mild anti-Thatcher jokes and it seemed reasonably balanced. I also thought “Any Questions?” (20:00) was balanced. The BBC can be fair, if it tries!