….spent watching Question Time
I think people here who believe that the BBC reads this blog are correct. I think Fiona Bruce has come across comments on her lack of clarity of speech and has decided not to take criticism from right-wing Neanderthals at Biased BBC. Indeed, she appears to have doubled down on her diction and is now swallowing every sixth or seventh word.
And whoever is responsible for selecting the panel almost certainly read a comment about panel selection being a touch more fair than it was during Dimbleby’s tenure. Four dogmatic Remainers to one leaver supports the supposition that the BBC is grimly determined to spurn constructive criticism from this blog.
Still, QT is sometimes worth watching. Five minutes out of the hour yesterday were quite instructive. Pro-Brexit Conservative Michael Forsyth held his wicket well against a determined attack from Brexit-hater and journalist Hugo Rifkind.
34:12 minutes in:
Rifkind: Speaking of being wrong consistently, I was reading today the vote leave manifesto – I believe you’re on the board of vote leave …. and not once in there was the Irish border mentioned, not once in there were the words customs union mentioned. All the problems that have come up with Brexit were not foreseen by you….by your movement….
Forsyth: Sorry, on the customs union…
Rifkind: The words customs union are not in there.
Forsyth: Well of course they are not in there because we were wanting to leave the European Union, which means leaving the customs union….
Rifkind: You didn’t happen to mention that that was part of what you were leaving. It’s possible perhaps you hadn’t heard of it at the time.
[Appreciative audience laughter at Rifkind’s snide comment]
Forsyth: Well it’s possible you haven’t read …
[More laughter and some applause]
….It’s possible you haven’t read….
[More of same]
….It’s possible, Hugo, I’m surprised [inaudible] it’s possible that you have not read the Conservative Party manifesto, which gives a commitment – every single Tory MP was elected on a manifesto that said we will be leaving the Customs Union and we will be leaving the single market and…
Rifkind: This was after the referendum….
Forsyth: …and that is what people have voted for and I did a number of…
Bruce: Why is the border not mentioned in there?
Forsyth: Because it’s not an issue.
[More laughter and some cries from audience members wanting to interject]
Rifkind: Seems to be a bit of an issue.
Forsyth: It’s an issue by those people trying to reverse the result of the referendum. The EU said….
Bruce: What do you think of the response from the audience when you say that Michael. People are just laughing.
Forsyth: I, no, well I think they, it’s because they’ve been listening to the BBC, who’s made this an issue when it’s not an issue.
Bruce: Ohh, it’s our fault.
[You have that one right, Fiona. Jeering and applause from the audience; jeering no doubt directed at Forsythe]
Forsyth: I mean, the EU….
Bruce: How could I have not realised – it’s the BBC’s fault.
[Now she’s really milking this, to audience laughter]
Forsyth: Well I can help you. The EU….
Bruce: I might pass on that.
[What makes me think she doesn’t want to hear what the eminent Forsyth has to say about the EU]
Forsyth: The EU have said they don’t want a hard border, the Irish government have said they don’t want a hard border and the British government have said they don’t want a hard border so who exactly is going to put this hard border in place?
At this point Fiona Bruce decided to move on to another issue. Can’t dwell on a statement by a Conservative that makes a strong case for Brexit.
And the only border the EU believes in is one that keeps its dictatorial clique safe in its ivory tower in Brussels. The British government doesn’t seem to worry much about borders either – except when it’s denying entry to activists whose politics conflict with those of the PeeCee elite or, to its eternal shame, denying asylum to Pakistani Christians at risk of death at the hands of their Muslim compatriots.
And the BBC? Not much for borders either but a great fan of employment barriers to any political journalists who are not to the left of the political spectrum – and the further left, the better.
First !
I disagree about the value of watching QT . Do any of these programmes have any effect on what people believe ? Is any one neutral ?
QT is just a ritualistic venting of views . Very occasionally there is a moment worth catching on Twitter – such as the tribal cheer of brexiters a couple of weeks ago at the prospect of a full brexit . I’d have cheered too .
But otherwise – not for me – I don’t know whether it’s HRH Dimbleby who shaped it as he is the BBC made flesh -but that’s my view .
Fedup2,
QT is a bit like a polished and civilized spectator sport, with the odd Conservative panelists at least not literally being thrown to the lions and the audience at least not literally screaming for blood.
The moment that you wrote about is really what I watch it for. I watch it on YouTube and zip past panelists like the awful Diane Abbot. I couldn’t sit through a live broadcast of the whole thing.
TrueToo
See – I disagree with you again . Me and Diane go back a long way . Every time she opens her mouth she is a reminder of the horror of socialism .
In fairness I respect a politician who has mastery of their brief – who know the basics – can even do a few numbers to support their cause.
But Diane is the epitome of over promotion and just incompetence cloaked by colour – who uses race to defeat legitimate criticism – who is a shame to her constituency by sending her kid to a non local private school thereby rubbishing the schools and teachers in her own borough .
No – if I knew Ms Abbot was on QT i d watch it on YouTube . She must be due again soon .
Fedup2,
I might have to agree with you and argue against myself here – a bit like you thinking about censoring your own comments!
Perhaps it should be regarded as a duty for self-respecting BBC-bashers to suffer through Diane Abbot on QT as a sort of refresher course in the kind of lefty PeeCee idiocy so loved by the BBC.
But I should add in my defence that I did notice Fiona Bruce contradicting Abbot re polls on Labour support (and sort of apologizing for so doing in the subsequent episode) so at least I did watch that bit.
“Do any of these programmes have any effect on what people believe ?”
Fed,
Not much I would think as the latest viewing figures must scare the BBC elites to death.
To watch Question time, i’d have to have a TV licence… their website already makes my blood boil… i’d bust a lung if i had to watch the TV as well…. and i don’t want to give them a penny.
Zip,
I’m not British so I can’t watch BBC TV. QT gets posted on YouTube quite soon after it’s broadcast.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of QT were the frequent references to something called ‘scawshunnerpennance’ which, at least in my case, resulted in an early retirement with a book and a sense of relief.
Beltane,
Took me quite a while but eventually I realised you’re talking about Scottish independence!
Pheewww! That’s a relief.
Detailed and frequent consideration by a Panel, in that sort of setting, of the matter of Scottish underpants does not bear thinking about.
I saw the segment you mentioned and it was evident that after a half promising start millionaire F. Bruce remembered who pays her salary and became Dimbleby mark 2.
Donbob,
Maybe Bruce will swing back again and be more fair. That was only her fifth QT. Perhaps she still has to settle down into the role.
There is an ITTB post on this
https://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-could-i-have-not-realised.html
BTW What about the issue of how the UKIP audience member Billy Mitchell got in a good gotcha question
..but has somehow been in the show’s audience twice before ?
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17419425.bbc-question-time-slammed-after-former-ukip-candidate-makes-audience-appearance-for-third-time/
Mr Mitchell, who refers to himself as ‘Orange Jacket Man’
..Could it be that the BBC had to have him on otherwise it would not have enough UKIP members in the audience, and it being Scotland not many had applied.
I wonder if there is a vetting question for the audience asking: “ have you ever been on QT before?” List the details … otherwise it’s just pantomime ( oh no it’s not )
StewGreen,
I seldom see that many comments on itbbcb. Maybe the site is starting to take off at last.
QT in Scotland – Cut!
Who actually believes the BBC?
This week we hear that the BBC has lost over a million radio listeners. (BBC TV audience still in decline), but mostly it appears from Radio 4 and R4 News particularly. The news on R4 hardly makes it anywhere other than ‘other’ BBC regional outlets. Other regional BBC Radio stations also have tiny audiences which are ‘slaves’ to the central political dialogue that is heard on the mainstream BBC, with ‘local’ news thrown in for local colour. The big hope (for the BBC apprentices) is that they are cheap ‘feeding grounds’ for aspiring (apprentice) Jocks and DJ’s. But the BBC central news feed does not care much for regional news. Unless its political advantageous to report. All news has been streamed and ‘edited’ into national ‘new- feeds’ from BBC HQ and then sent to the regions (for local repetition) of what is mirrored on BBC mainstream. The BBC are so concerned (as if) about local (regional) Newspapers going out of business they were willing to offer free news leads to local newspapers that sign up to the BBC directive (of offering the same colour of news) to its readers. Nobody running a newspaper would consider this unless mad. Or type one Brexit REMAINER isolated and effectively bust.
The reason for this ‘OFFER’ is quite clear when the former Editor of The Guardian said (a few years ago) that the BBC were killing his newspaper with ‘free’ news stories they broke and never got either a tribute or any payment (from the BBC who held all the money). The BBC has 27,000 so called ‘Journalists’ which is far larger than any other news organisation in Europe. The BBC described (due to BBC Charter advantages) that anyone working for the BBC was a ‘journalist’ including hopeless BBC football presenters and the Radio 1 through to Radio 6 and a half (with or without experience) trained (schooled) by the BBC to be news gathering newshounds and arbiters of good taste and discernment (as if).
The source of this deep and meaningful (fake) news ranking is best observed from afar, ignoring the falling radio audience, the volatile figure of far too many BBC TV channels (and repeats) and the fact that the BBC (Worldwide) runs its recycling via Freeview channels that is also happens to own. UKTV being one but you’ll find several others connected to the BBC Worldwide. You see any ‘profits’ can go via ‘Worldwide’ and losses can be funded by the UK taxpayer, that includes the cost of all BBC productions which will therefore be squeezed. Hence the BBC complains they cannot compete with NetFlix or anything that makes more money than they do. The BBC makes a lot of money by NOT doing as much programming as it spread around the regions and the BBC World service which is another grand loss leader of liberal fulfillment to the masses (those with internet used to watch TOP GEAR) the only world-wide BBC production to make it big league other than questionably Richard Attenborough – who has also given notice that he plans to move to Netflix (or was it Amazon). The problem is the BBC not only has no understanding of what people want, it pushes its own liberal and Marxist agenda onto all of us at any opportunity – at our own expense.
So competition is a good thing. The BBC will fail (as it does) but it can afford to fail again and again, even losing millions. The list is endless but so are the BBC pay cheques and bungs and expense accounts that will take you anywhere or everywhere. Its a privileged world working for the BBC, you don’t even have to have a broadcasting experience, just having read the Guardian (from the local library) and attended a local Labour political group to get up to speed fast.
Reading The GUARDIAN news paper is (to the BBC lefties) the fast track to BBC advancement and promotion to lost causes). Become rich by helping others like yourself. Smug and smart arsed. Petty and Metro. Talent free and care free with an expense account. Sod the taxpayer. And following on from that thought (and the reason for this long preamble is this devastating fact that the BBC audience is melting away and the Guardian has lost almost all its readership. So take a look at this web link and try to find The GUARDIAN readership figures (from 2018) 2019 may be even worse than this.
Its an eye-opener. The BBC loss of TV and Radio is far worse than expected and is in terminal decline…. Spot the newspaper the BBC read and wonder ‘who reads it anyway’ well not many actually….’ so spot the (BBC) newspaper sales for 2018 and wonder who actually bought that?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-market-by-circulation/
Phillip_2,
The Guardian continually publishes an appeal to readers for funds at the bottom of the page. I guess soon they’ll be getting desperate enough to publish it at the top of the page. May their decline be swift and sure.
The BBC, of course, is a much more problematic case.
No need to use the local library – even if still open thanks to ‘savageTorycuts’ – large bundles of Guardii are delivered to W1A and Salford every day. And although free to an eager if gullible audience, they still count in the ABC circulation figures.
So both BBC and G continuously contribute to the most fake of news, a pretence of popularity based on spurious figures.
Bit like climate change, come to think of it.
I see that BBC Rastafarian fella is in Marroco next week. He did a piece where he said to us slaves (while he was dressed up in fine linen robes embossed with loads of gold trim and of course gold rimmed dark glasses):
I shouldn’t keep doing this as I will become used to being treated like this!
Rasti! I have good news for ye – thats how the BBC liars intended you should travel/hotel all along and as an added bonus have 4 locals carry your wheel chair up mountain and down wine testing cellers. Aren’t they nice.
Yesterday, I was talking to 2 different people in their 70s who have given up television – not because of the politics and bias, just because they have better things to do with their time (ie. they find the BBC output boring). This morning I had the kitchen radio on Classic FM as I tend to do these days and said to Mr D that I missed having the radio switched to news in a morning. But as I thought about it, I qualified this with ‘but the Today programme is no longer about news’ and Mr D added ‘just propaganda’. When Mr Humphries goes (not that he is without bias but he is excellent at what he does), I wonder what the Today listening figures will be, but second rate ‘journalists’ such as Justin Webb and Mishal Hussein are not going to increase the number of people switching on.
The EU have said they don’t want a hard border, the Irish government have said they don’t want a hard border and the British government have said they don’t want a hard border so who exactly is going to put this hard border in place?
Since the Civil Service snubbed the visiting Swiss border chief, I have been wondering about this. Using my massive IQ of 164, I have come up with this imaginative solution as to who may create the hard border, so feared by Remainers.
Leprechauns with the help of 400 BBC Audience Services staff from Belfast will build the wall using bricks provided by Sinn Fein, paid for by rich Irish American backers of people who want to build walls. Leprechaun border guards wearing green uniforms with standard green cocked hat, will enforce the hard border by leaping on to the wall and spinning around, balancing on the point of their hats with heels in the air, scaring away any traders from entering the EU from Ulster. Entrance fee for anyone wanting to be allowed over the wall will be £39 billion each, although Blacks and Muslims are allowed in free, due to being more intelligent than BBC Audience Services staff, therefore improving the quality of those people who support the European Union in Ireland.
RP, I reached the same conclusion although I was thinking of a modern iteration of leprechauns, the Internet Troll, aided by the Russian agent that Five is certain is still in Wiltshire or somewhere else in the UK (no doubt hoping to recover that secret recipe stuff that was so carelessly discarded by some other leprechauns) but they just do not know where they are or who they are. That seems very Troll-like to me, so ‘Hey-ho’ as ‘they’ say.
“Leprechauns”
Only if they agree to wear an Orange sash though.
A cartoon I made on the Jeff Bezos story which depending on your interest in tinfoil hats is either simply gossip, or the tip of a much larger conspiracy:
QT is yet another of those BBC institutions that used to be a must see. Not these days. The bias in endemic, institutionalised and bloody endless. I don’t think my telly would survive!
I watch it occasionally on iplayer, like the other week when the gormless Diane Abbott got such a roasting.
And on the Parliamentary channel you can get some ancient editions that are worth a gander.
There was one they had on the other week, Tony Benn discussing the EU with Ted Heath. It was a real eye opener. Benn prophesised exactly what was going to happen to the EU. “It’s going to be run by bankers and bureaucrats. It’s undemocratic. It’s becoming ever more federal.” I couldn’t argue with anything he said though Ted sat there huffing and puffing his displeasure.
The audience are the main difference though. These days it’s like a work’s outing for The Guardian. Every snotty, sneering liberal in the country appears to have a seat.
These folk sat there and listened respectfully. The Momentum mob weren’t there en mass screeching and cat calling. It was refreshing.
The way politics used to be.
The way the BBC used to be.
Jeff,
Interesting. This is quite a treat – a blast from the past, as they say in the classics:
BBC Question Time, 25th Anniversary Special
Jeff, kinda ironic but civilised discussion tends to be on-line. QT is such a ‘bear pit’ these days that I would get fed up with it and reach for the off-switch. Heavyweight clapping,cheering and yelling especially if from an obviously stacked audience on the Radio 4 equivalent, annoys me and takes time away from the programme’s essential question answering.
Isn’t it wonderful the British blitzkrieg spirit. Despite a monumental tide of media orchestrated anti Leave carpet bombing. If only they realised that their pantomime villainy, and childish tripping up tactics, mockery of the British population (not the vested interest London liberal elite or confused Scotland independence seekers [the irony]) but the millions who want our sovereignty, nationhood, judiciary (they’ll need seeing to), and financial control within a Common Market (remember that concept?) all back. I am staggered at the lack of courage and enterprise by the media host screechers and their pitchfork-carrying, mob-like, audience shills. Forsythe does well and deserved respect.
You would think some enterprising media savvy group would spot a gaping hole in the tv news market area as all news stations are the same, far left, anti Brexit, anti trump, pro eu, pro BLT etc and we on here all know it.
Something like Fox News or even just an impartial broadcaster.
There’s at least a 17 million audience ready and waiting.
The strange thing is, if another broadcaster appears it will almost certainly be like the bbc and Sky, complete PC and the rest.
The bbc et al have so brainwashed the public and poisoned the national discourse that it would be almost impossible for a new broadcaster to speak some home truths. In print you could do it, but very difficult in broadcasting, unless there is a sea change.
Fox UK? Yes please!
I hear from BBC that knife crime statistics are rising fast in England and Wales and I’m wondering if there is a separate set just for the large population in London could referred too? BBC quoted the national statistics again today on R4 and then they cut to a large London hospital to do some interviews. The impression they give is that London is just an example of a wider national problem. In Northern Ireland for example the statistics show that such crimes are at very low levels and falling?
There have certainly been reports in local newspapers of large increases in S Yorkshire and Northumberland. I don’t have any official figures to hand but numbers in London seem to be widely reported without any reference to the stats on a per capita basis.
Googling “crime” and “northumberland” provides local accounts of double figure increases and that seems to be supported by anecdotal evidence.
‘County lines’ are spreading the drugs, and the concomitant crime and violence. Ah, enrichment – dontcha luv it?
It seems that the BBC have been working closely and in conjuncture with the poisonous Soros funded Trotsky group “Hope not Hate”, yet again, in their upcoming Tommy Robinson “Exposure”..
The BBC are akin to having a social justice warrior parked in the corner of your living room, constantly interfering with it’s leftist propaganda attempting to influence your thoughts with downright lies….AKA – Tommy Robinson is a baby eating Nazi, whilst proven H.N.H manipulator Nick Lowles is a beacon of all that is well in the world…..
By God I’ve had enough of the BBC now…
We should all admire your reserve and control at being able to listen to Q/Time-do you still have the TV set ? Perhaps we can understand that it is now sitting down the bottom of the garden. I just had to stop listening to QT some time ago as I got so mad at the continually selected audiance whose knowledge in most cases about anything was ZERO.
Listening to Private Passions on Radio 3 today ( I promise it’s the only station on the foul BBC I listen to ! ) and Michael Berkeley was interviewing Preti Taneja (?) who was plugging her book based on King Lear. She was describing Lear as a tyrant without a filter, who expected flattery, and was deeply misogynistic. I must be psychic because I anticipated where the conversation was going. “ Not too far from some of the world leaders we are dealing with at the moment – very very worrying” says Taneja. “ I can’t imagine who you are talking about” says Berkeley knowingly. Why they could not name Putin, Mohammad Bin Salman, or any number of repressive Islamic states I just don’t understand, obviously they couldn’t mean the leader of the Free World could they ?
Donbob – It’s extraordinary how many of these lefties don’t understand Shakespeare. I am sick and tired of them trying to make us see the plays through progressive lenses and radical updates that always suggest that the villains and the corrupt regimes are right wing. Lear is nothing like Trump. Don’t know if you saw Ian McKellen as Lear in a recent NT production. He got Lear completely wrong. Far too tranquil. Lear goes mad because his anger is so great that it drives him over the edge. But these lefty arty-farties don’t understand that. Nor does this Preti Taneja, going by what you say. To describe Lear as “misogynistic” is modern cant and completely misses the mark. Lear is a fool who has no judgement and can’t read people. Only at the end of the play does he acquire some wisdom and realise that he loves and is loved by his daughter Cordelia. Her death breaks his heart and he dies too. How trendy and superficial and just plain wrong to call this pitiable character “misogynistic”. Sorry, Donbob, I am really angry. I am a Shakespeare nut and I hate seeing his work twisted by progressive fools. I am so glad I didn’t hear that programme. I might have gone mad with anger just like King Lear.
Well said.
Regietheater – a widespread disease doing damage to some of Europe’s greatest achievements, and I’m not just referring to Shakespeare. It is true philistinism because it refuses to accept that these works have any value other than what these fools can superimpose upon them in the name of “relevance”. If they could overpaint the Old Masters, they would. Parasites.
I’m not sure that it succeeds in its claimed intention of attracting young people either.
Zel, (if I may be so familiar), I don’t have a deep knowledge of Shakespeare although being English I feel him in my bones,but could you think of a character in his works that approximates to the BBC ? I would offer Iago, but I’m sure you could think of someone more appropriate.
Donbob – great question. You would be looking for some duplicitous character, certainly. Iago is a good suggestion. Edmund in King Lear too. But I can’t think of anyone who is a perfect fit. The trouble is that the cultural Marxism that infects the BBC is a relatively modern phenomenon and has no real correlative in the works of Shakespeare. Not that I can think of anyway off the top of my head. Orwell of course drew on his knowledge of the BBC when writing 1984.
Panderos
Nottingham : Melanie Shaw news : ” she is being sentenced for on February 11.”
\\ Obviously, even in the event that Melanie served the full term of her two-year sentence from January 11, 2017, she would be due for release in January 2019.
However, she has been remanded in custody in connection with the arson offences which she is being sentenced for on February 11.//
\\ When she was 16 she was sent to Beechwood children’s home in Mapperley. She stayed there for around a year.//
\\ No charges have been brought against anyone who she alleged had assaulted her at Beechwood. And she has said she has a fear that she is going to be found dead//
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/who-is-melanie-shaw-2381898
There have been 13 convictions with other cases from Beechwood
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/beechwood-nottingham-1858764
BBC DJ’s Wimmin’s online mag leaves wimmen unpaid
In 2015 Lauren Laverne and her Cosmo mate started “The Pool”
After 4 years it’s been liquidated after racking up £4.6m losses for investors over 4 years
\\ freelancers who have found themselves thousands of pounds out of pocket after its collapse//
\\ journalist Laura Craik vented her anger at a missing £7,250//
Seems the corp was illegally trading when effectively insolvent.
Apparently Laverne had already resigned in August ..that’s almost worse.. cos means she knew something was up.
\\ Assessing the figures, a leading accountant said: “This company was a disaster from start to finish. There seems to have been no profit-making business model and trading was reckless. //
Court date Feb 13 for winding up order
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lauren-laverne-and-sam-baker-may-face-personal-liability-for-the-pool-s-collapse-xkndhgvhh
Yeh I’d never heard of “The Pool” either