Category Archives: question time

Did you see QT last night? Wasn’t it a delight to have a cross-dresser in the shape of Grayson Perry on the panel – perhaps the only man/woman in Britain who wants to pay “10%” more tax if we believe what he says? I presume this was a blow for gender equality in the minds of those who put together this show? QT is increasingly a freak-show and should be viewed on that basis. This kind of dross dumbs down political debate – maybe that is the intent? And wasn ‘t Mr Dimbleby gentle on the financial expenses -challenged Ms Yvette Cooper?

I look upon it as a weekly endurance test – a televisual marathon! I refer to watching the BBC’s Question Time. The panel was a bit more balanced than normal last night, with David Davis and Nigel Farage getting an appearance in. That said, Dimbleby was very aggressive with Davis, barely letting him finish a sentence. Also what was Jerry Springer doing on the panel? I also thought that Hillary Benn got away with blue murder but then again I suppose the BBC is so in awe of his father that this was to be expected. I see that next week we will have the pleasure of “Peep Show” star David Mitchell on the panel. Great news – another sneering leftie whose reactions can be predicted well in advance! Frankly, I would like to see Zippy from Rainbow or possibly one of the Teletubbies make a guest appearance since at least that way the BBC would be honest about the calculated dumbing down of political debate.

So, did you see last evening’s edition of Question Time? Universal Shami was on the panel again, naturally. In fact the panel was once again heavily weighted leftwards. Mr Bean look-a-like David Miliband was there is his position as heir apparent to Mr Broon (and didn’t he perform poorly?), Vince Cable was there to represent the uberLiberals, Douglas Hurd that soaking wet conservative was there, doe-eyed Shami- naturally and finally Peter Hitchens. Now I like Peter and he mostly on the side of the angels BUT he is an avid opponent of the Iraq war and so his constant carping on that issue fits in nicely with the BBC narrative. I don’t think the opening debate on Zimbabwe got more than a few minutes before some left wing moonbat in the audience chirped up that had their been oil in Zimbabwe then we would have invaded – to cheers from the assembled masses. The imagined wrongness of the Iraq war kept coming up in entirely unrelated questions. The only two good moments were when Hitchens pointed out that if the nation keeps voting for Labour then raised taxation is all it can expect – to the evident irritation of Mr Dimbleby and when a man in the audience rightly eviscerated the serial incompetence of the Labour government. It all finished with the predictable panel love-in for Obama – no bias there folks. I thought Shami was pathetic, Hurd was smug and forgetful, Miliband ill-informed, Cable irrelevant and only Hitchens had the guts to opine at least some uncomfortable issues. But a ratio of 4:1 seems the going rate on a BBC panel for left/right expression of opinion. It’s not balanced, it’s not reasonable and it’s a weekly disgrace.

So, I settled down last evening to watch “Question Time” that flagship BBC programme for political debate. It was the usual uneven mix, with three leftists and two right of liberal panelists. We had the ubiquitous Lib-Dem Baroness Shirley Williams, a BBC favourite, who has now attained sainthood and whose every banal utterance is treated with due solemnity. Then there was Mr Bean look-a-like Labour Minister Ed Miliband. To balance we had David Davis from the Conservatives and Nigel Farage from the UKIP. I thought this provided a form of balance between right and left in terms of the political representatives but what is to be made of the sneering Marcus Brigstock, the alleged comedian, who made up the panel of five?

Naturally he was reflexively left wing but he quite clearly made an utter fool of himself when he declared that since he could not understand the Lisbon treaty, he felt the electorate was therefore not in a position to pass judgement on it via a referendum. It’s as if he did not understand the implication of his own words! Why does the BBC insist on stacking panels with this banal “Student Grant” type of left wing comedian? They add nothing to the quality of the debate and most of them just regurgitate whatever it is they have scanned in the opinion columns of the Guardian. Political debate should not be just for politicians, but the BBC’s odd idea that it must provide space for these clowns is equally unacceptable. I continue to think David Dimbleby an excellent chairman but this programme never achieves it full potential because it insists on being unbalanced in its guest list.