BBC Luvvies For Labour

The BBC is going big on “Doctor Who star David Tennant ‘backs Gordon Brown’“. Tennant, a Scot recently replaced by a younger man, is quoted:

“Clearly, the Labour Party is not without some issues right now and I do get frustrated. They need to sort some stuff out, but they are still a better bet than the Tories.”

Meanwhile, election year sees the start of a new topical comedy show on Radio Five Live presented by Chris Addison, the only person who comes anywhere near to matching Tennant’s recent levels of BBC ubiquity. So, will Addison’s new programme offer a fresh perspective on current affairs, or will it be the same tiresome worldview from the BBC’s left-wing comedy establishment? Addison’s opinions on the Conservative Party could give a clue:

“It’s very difficult, if you were brought up as a child during Thatcher’s period, to ever contemplate being a Tory. There is no way I can physically bring myself to vote Tory. That will stay with me till I die.”

On Twitter a couple of days ago he was asked what he thought about the current government and responded:

“Better than the alternative.”

A little later he tweeted:

“My political leanings are decidedly liberal.”

Which, coincidentally, is the first box you have to tick if you want to present a Sunday morning programme on Radio Five Live.

Update 5.05pm. Perhaps we’ll be treated to some of Addison’s views on Europe. From an interview with him on the BBC’s comedy website:

I am fiercely pro-European. I would very much have liked to see this country join the Euro a few years back. Not least because it would greatly annoy the kind of people that I don’t generally like.

I’m fiercely pro-European as well (OK, maybe not “fiercely”), but I don’t buy into the anti-democratic EU project.

HAZEL BLEARS STAND UP

HAZEL BLEARS STAND-UP.

Who says the Today programme is dumbed down? We have chirpy “Communities Secretary” Hazel Blears and political author Michael Dobbs having a chat as to whether British comedy is anti-politics and whether we may need a British “West Wing”! British comedy, as seen on the BBC, is not anti-politics, it is institutionally anti-conservative. BBC programmes overflow with unfunny comedians with hard left sympathies so the idea that we may need a Brit West Wing to restore balance is surreal since the “West Wing” itself is more big leftist yawn.

“A honky bitch from Alaska”

When you hear a sub-Mockney accent attacking a politician from the left on Radio Four, you’ll usually find it’s a comedy show featuring several privately educated left-wing comedians who met at university. For some reason, privately educated left-wingers appearing on the Today programme are allowed to keep their middle-class accents.

I think this is Marcus Brigstocke on Radio Four’s “Charm Offensive”. They got half the name right.

Brigstocke :

This phrase, ‘you can put lipstick on a pig’ has been used by Obama before, and by McCain talking about Hillary Clinton – it’s been wilfully misinterpreted – and they deliberately do this, you know, Fox news and lots of the right-wing press in America deliberately misinterpret stuff that the Democrats have said – I mean he also said in that speech “You can nominate Sarah Palin but she’ll still be a honky bitch from Alaska” (laughter) – and they just grab that … (laughter)

Iannucci :


“It’s just another phrase for hockey mom”

SO GRAHAM NORTON.

BBC comedy these days is a rare beast insofar as the humour is frequently heavily laced with political overtones and these are only ever in one direction – LEFT. I caught a few moments of the Graham Norton show on BBC2 last night to hear UK impressionist Jon Culshaw describe President Bush as “even more chimp like” to guffaws of laughter all round. Wonder would the intrepid Culshaw care to describe Obama as a chimp as well? I enjoy good impressions but to describe someone as “a chimp”? Susan Sarandon – that doyen of the political left in the US – was on the show expressing her devotion for Obama. Now I know that shows like this are all about light (very light) entertainment and that Norton specialises in camp vulgarity but there is a political vein that runs through even these programmes and it is conforms to that expressed in more mainstream political programmes. The beat is always left, though the BBC denies it.