The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Rev

Fuck that custard bastard psychopath and everything he stands for. Absolutely delighted with the result. This is how you do it England. Well Done.

dynamiteReady

Not sure if it's just me, but it felt like BBCQT tried to stack cards against Matt Lynch.
Ignoring the obligatory plants, the questions were reasonably fair, but Fiona Bruce was notably tough on him, in a way she's not been with other guests.

b0r1s

Because she always lets Tories speak, the audience is packed with nutter gammons and the production company are about as right wing as they come. Oh, and her husband runs advertising for the Tories to the tune of £3.9m. Good old BBC balance.

Funkstain

I cannot watch that somehow simultaneously turgid yet hot mess - how did he acquit himself?

equinox_code

dynamiteReady wrote:

Not sure if it's just me, but it felt like BBCQT tried to stack cards against Matt Lynch. Ignoring the obligatory plants, the questions were reasonable fair, but Fiona Bruce was notably tough on him, in a way she's not been with other guests.

yea I noticed this too. She really deprived him of any moments of applause, repeatedly cutting his answers short of their crescendo or conclusion, and not even allowing him any time for some key rebuttals.

Funkstain

gotta put the man in his place, dontcha know. didn't even have to go to proper uni to get his job!

dynamiteReady

Funkstain wrote:

I cannot watch that somehow simultaneously turgid yet hot mess - how did he acquit himself?

This is the thing.

In the one on one and three way discussions he's found fame in, you can see he's not a natural public speaker, but he knows where he wants to lead the argument, and naturally doesn't tolerate bullshit. Which is what you want. And in those interviews, presenters are generally fair to him, because there's not much room for anyone to hide a bias.

On Question Time though, people can play off the audience and the rest of the panel quite a bit. But when the host is doing it, it can be frustrating.

There was a time when one dude in the audience openly heckled Lynch on a point that had little to do with him (something about sharing resources between Charring Cross and Victoria Station), and Fiona Bruce allowed the rant.

I know it's the Daily Mail, but the first couple of paragraphs here, outline the above fairly well - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10947589/Mick-Lynch-splits-Question-Time-audience-booed-Spanish-practice-maintenance-teams.html

That set the tone for the rest of the night.

He occasionally seemed one dimensional... But his single dimension is the one that currently seems to be missing from British politics. So good for him.

GooberTheHat

Upity little bald man. What right does he have to inconvenience the good hard working veterans and doctors and teachers and nuns and charity workers?

Yossarian

Nicked from here

https://twitter.com/BenChilton/status/1540254282892693504

tin_robot

The RMT strike is likely the first of many, and as such those on high are going to do everything they can to try and make it fail. Because if it succeeds, everyone else will follow. (I see the Government have already started to talk again about banning essential workers from striking...)

Those who are well paid for jobs that achieve absolutely nothing useful are very keen that we don't start properly paying the people we're all dependent on.

Diluted Dante

Question Time audience members showing that they are absolutely thick as pigshit, and convinced they are right despite having no knowledge of the situation.

Brooks

They're selected on that basis, so why watch it at all.

Diluted Dante

"Other peoples lives are shit, so yours should be too".

Top contribution love.

dynamiteReady

Diluted Dante wrote:

Question Time audience members showing that they are absolutely thick as pigshit, and convinced they are right despite having no knowledge of the situation.

This was what galled me. I was doing something else when the guy started ranting... As soon as I caught the gist of his argument, I was like 'why the fuck was that even allowed?'. Even kids know that different lines run different trains, and different stations sell different tickets.

I can see how a layman can get hung up on that point, and it is technical... But it's pretty simple.

Demonstrates the value of glib polish. The logic was there, but because it wasn't wrapped in a soundbite, the Daily Mail gets to sow seeds of doubt against an airtight argument.

C'est la vie.

davyK

Brooks wrote:

They're selected on that basis, so why watch it at all.

This. Gave up on QT some time ago.

handsofblue

Me too. As soon as Fiona took over it was very clear she wasn't an impartial chair.

RedDave2

I only watched a little of it last night but there was almost a touch of that politic debate in Alan Partridge season 1 where he tries to encourage the useless Tory Candidate on (in this case it was Fiona trying to get Rachel Maclean to pipe up)

regmcfly

I'm not going to ascribe prescience to Coogan, Iannuci etc Al, but Partridge with his "fake leftwingism but what about me" has become the area the Labour Party are having to couch to. It is a shame.

davyK

I didn't even like the way odious people have been treated on QT. People like Nick Griffin were shouted down by a rent-a-crowd in a not dissimilar fashion to the way his rowdy rednecks would do to others. Pinning people like to the wall with the right questions is how to expose them. Making them a martyr to their acolytes isn't.

Yossarian

You say that, but Griffin’s electoral career nosedived after he appeared on QT.

equinox_code

I would like to see some sort of hybrid between Question Time and Jerry Springer, where Tories get battered by the people affected by their policies in front of a live studio audience

davyK

Yossarian wrote:

You say that, but Griffin’s electoral career nosedived after he appeared on QT.

Fair enough, but my issue still stands. Free speech is free speech whether we like it or not. And baying at people who (at the time) had a mandate is not the way to deal with it.

Playing to the gallery is akin to a populist agenda. Look where that has got us.

Yossarian

He never had a mandate, and shouting people down who are spouting hateful shit is entirely reasonable.

davyK

As far as I remember he did. They had a growing % of the vote and seats at the time?

Maybe I'm wrong in that.

My point is though I can't remember him not even getting a chance to answer any questions. There was a question about Holocaust denial that I wanted to hear his answer to and didn't get to hear it.

Yossarian

They won a couple of council seats, that’s it. Nobody had given Griffin himself any sort of mandate.

davyK

Just googled there - they got a couple of seats at the Euro elections. He won a seat himself in that. It must have been off the back of that his QT appearance was........

davyK

Anyhow , he was a cunt. But that didn't excuse how he was treated on QT.

Yossarian

Hard disagree. I think he got off lightly, they should have provided the audience with rotting fruit.

Diluted Dante

Well, he was an MEP at that point.

davyK

Yossarian wrote:

Hard disagree. I think he got off lightly, they should have provided the audience with rotting fruit.

Heh

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories