Question time

[baroldmc]

Was anyone else appalled by the behaviour of quite a large number of Finchley people in last Thursday's audience, as they barracked and tried to turn Dimbleby's weekly party into a shouting shop ? Whatever it was they were demonstrating about, it certainly wasn't freedom of speech. Choose your guests more carefully from now on, Mr Dimbleby. And don't be letting them put members of your panel on trial in full view of the cameras.

[Loz]

I thought that the question was quite fair - George Galloway should be asked to explain some of his behaviour and comments.

But, yes. Dimbleby lost complete control of the audience, and really made a rather poor effort to regain control. A good few of them should have been unceremoniously turfed out. If you ask a question, the person being asked should have every opportunity to respond.

Having said that, the QT audience is quite obviously stuffed to the rafters of party apparatchiks and lobbyists every week, sent in with pre-prepared, pre-approved questions. I think very few are true average members of the public.

[baroldmc]

I was in the audience of QT a very long time ago. A group of us were trawled by the BBC grapevine. because we were involved in an issue locally that happened to be nationally topical at the time. There was no rent-a-crowd going on.

Of course outspoken public figures must explain their comments when called upon, especially when the comments might be counter-intuitive, such as in this case. But I felt that it was not George Galloway that most needed to give an account of himself, but Jonathan Friedland. Until that point in the programme, he had presented himself as liberal and progressive, a defender of people put upon by others. When the subject was Palestine, he refers to the horrifying events of 2014 as "a fresh outbreak of violence ", when in fact, 2000 innocent people were killed in almost full view of the whole world.

let's call upon him to explain why he is NOT making any comments, and let him explain to us why the Palestinians are denied the right to their own independent , sovereign state.

[Otta]

And there was me thinking that this thread would be about Question Time.

[baroldmc]

Dear Otto,

It IS about QT and about its contents. The debate, as started, is about what happened on a particular edition.The programme itself is a window into regional and national opinion. With opinion comes bias. The entire Palestinian question is stacked high with bias and prejudice. The programme , inadvertently, exposed this. George Galloway was called upon to justify previous remarks. The tone implied he was prejudiced but the sting was in the tail and showed that the prejudice lay with his detractors, including Jonathan Friedland, a liberal Guardian columnist.

If that isn't a good enough subject for debate, then what is ?

[El Pibe]

What exactly is the question again?

[El Pibe]

Was it that the BBC shouldn't put controversial guests on QT?

You seem to be mistaking it for a seriously political debate show, rather than an entertainment show.

A gentrified Jeremy Kyle, if you will.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Typical North Londoners. You wouldn't get that kind of thing on the right side of the river.

[Loz]

baroldmc Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The entire Palestinian question is stacked high with bias and prejudice.

... on both sides of the debate, it should be noted.

[Otta]

baroldmc I think you'd be better of just starting a thread about the Palestine question, because that is clearly the thing you actually want to talk about.

At the time of the George Galloway debacle I did say on my FB page that I thought it was very poor form from the BBC, and whilst I am no fan of Galloway, I felt he was set up, and SOME of the Jewish people they had planted in the crowd really just made themselves look stupid.

[baroldmc]

Well it,s Groundhog Day. You just can,t keep Question Time out of the news these days.

If you watched last night, you will have winessed ex-party leader Charles Kennedy perform

under the influence of the amber dew.

It would have been a kindness if Dimbleby's team had gently sent Mr Kennedy home rather than risk the program

and the dignity of one of its guests.

You have to wonder whether Mr Dimbleby and QT's producers actually communicate. 3 weeks ago a Finchley rent-a-crowd were invited in and proceeded to barrack opinions they didn't like. Now, a guest, clearly not in a state to contribute to public debate is allowed to go on and make a fool of himself.

It wouldn't have been so painful if the other guests were, at very least, entertaining, but alas, the Green, the Labour and the Tory reps were 3 unstoppable parrots, enough to drive the rest of us to the bottle. On balance, Mr Kennedy had more to say than any of the three, even though he said nothing.

It was left to Ian Hislop to provide the program with a little coherence.

It was surely the worst edition ever. Maybe it's time to call time on Question Time

[Louisa]

I saw last nights show and I was personally very sad to see the state Charles Kennedy was in. It seemed unfair on him as well as the audience at home, and as you say communication break downs between the producers and host are abundant on this show.

Louisa.