QUESTION TIME LIVE


Just a reminder that we go live again here on Biased BBC tomorrow night and this time I will have another moderator to help me so let’s make this the biggest and best liveblog yet. Here’s the panel for tomorrow night!
David Dimbleby, Iain Gray, Michael Gove, Jo Swinson, Nicola Sturgeon and Hardeep Singh Kohli

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114 Responses to QUESTION TIME LIVE

  1. subrosa says:

    I’ll be avidly watching David. Will be interesting to see how Nicola Sturgeon deals with Ian Gray after they voted down the SNP budget today.

    Mind you, Nicola seldom gets a word in on this programme. I’m sure Dimbleby thinks she’s invisible.

    Let’s wait and see how many minutes each panelist is given.

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  2. Martin says:

    What is that bearded halfwit on for? He’s not funny and he has nothing of interest to say.

    I don’t even know why the Tories bother turning up to this crap.

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  3. Dick the Prick says:

    Martin – there’s proper dodginess about his dad being connected Labour (shock) and treating his tenants like dirt. Don’t know the details as was too busy trying to get up from the chair I fell off!! Nah, couldn’t give a monkeys but his family isn’t what it appears to be. Lefty in public etc

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  4. Millie Tant says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardeep_Singh_Kohli

    See under the heading “Controversy” for details re the tenants of the properties owned by this BBC favoured one.

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  5. Libertarian says:

    Obama makes a gaffe.
    Will the BBC be collecting it for a compilation?

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/28/2009-01-28_hey_bam_thats_not_the_door.html

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  6. expat in new york says:

    In other news Iain Dale spots why Vince Cable may be given more prominence by the BBC than his actual position entails:

    http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/01/bbc-gaffe-cable-is-libdem-leader.html

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  7. expat in new york says:

    Looking at the link from Libertarian it seems Obama has just made exactly the sort of mistake Bush used to get slaughtered over. But it’s not highlighted at the BBC. I guess it just doesn’t fit the “narrative”.

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  8. Cassandra says:

    I wonder if the panel will take a critical look at the flagship Obama $825,000,000,000 fiscal stimulus? Its sheer size is matched only by its sheer stupidity, the wrong targets at the wrong time and I wonder why the Republicans refused to back the plan?
    I wonder if the panel will in fact ignore the possibility that the plan could well break the USA for years to come?
    But then again in the warped mind of the BBC the Obamamessiah walks on water and performs miracles, how could he be wrong, how could the chosen one make the wrong choices? he is after all infallible!

    Questions questions questions but dont hold your brreath for the answers.

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  9. Roland Deschain says:

    Millie Tant

    Interesting link that. I notice Hardeep played the race card on that one.

    Wonder if the Tories have the gumption to have done the same research and be ready to raise it if Hardeep becomes holier than thou.

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  10. Dong says:

    A good sportsmanship starting position, conservative: 20%, what’s wrong with that?

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  11. frankos says:

    In June 2008, The Herald reported: “Properties owned and rented by comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli have been branded “grubby and dirty” and substandard as the celebrity was issued with warnings over his conduct as a landlord. Mr Kohli… was also denied three-year licences for two flats which are part of a raft he owns and leases through his father’s company in Glasgow’s west end.”

    3 tenants of homes owned by the Kohli family were hospitalised as a result of the poor condition of the properties. [13]

    The Kohli family hit back at the council’s actions, claiming that there was “racism” against them. Hardeep’s brother, Raj said that if their father “was a white man, member of the masonic lodge, member of the Rotary Club, played golf” then the family would not have been called to task over their sub-standard properties. But a spokesman for Glasgow city council rejected Kohli’s accusations of “racism”. “The Kohli family have been treated exactly the same as anyone else would have been treated. This is a very, very serious allegation and we trust that Mr Kohli will seek to take formal legal action if he really believes these claims rather than simply speaking about them to a newspaper

    excerpt from Wikipaedia — no chip on his shoulder then!!

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  12. martin says:

    Millie Tant: Ah! the good old ‘Racism’ claim. Always ready to be thrown around by bearded idiots isn’t it?

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  13. Grant says:

    Gray – Left
    Sturgeon – Left
    Swinson – Left
    Kohli – Left
    Gove – Right

    Including Dimblebore, that means the score is Left 5 Right 1

    Biased BBC anyone ?

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  14. frankos says:

    Looking on the bright side Gove is a pretty bright cookie. Should give them a run for their money –if he is allowed to speak

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  15. Grant says:

    I fear that the general level of debate will make me ashamed to be a Scot and I apologise in advance !

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  16. frankos says:

    could be worse –Alex Salmon really brings on my asthma

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  17. martin says:

    Grant: Don’t worry. After giving us McFatty One Eye there is nothing that could shame a Scot more than that now.

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  18. Umbongo says:

    frankos

    I can’t agree that Michael Gove will “give them a run for their money”. As a regular on “Head to Head” on BBC News 24, Gove is usually paired with Polly Toynbee and never goes for the jugular. He’s unfailingly polite and quite useless even when Polly is at her usual barking best.

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  19. Grant says:

    Martin 10:13
    I think I have apologised to you before about Brown. I think I said I wouldn’t even wish him on the Taliban, let alone the English !

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  20. Tom says:

    Grant | 29.01.09 – 9:39 am

    Left….Left….Left….. Quite so.

    Just in case there’s the slightest smidgen of doubt about where Hardeep Singh Kohli stands on the political spectrum, here’s the man himself:

    I can’t think of anyone else I would rather have round for dinner than the former member for Henley. He would be wildly entertaining, funny and deeply knowledgeable about all manner of matters. (I have worked with his father, Stanley Johnson, the environmentalist, and he too is a thoroughly smashing, decent and upstanding bloke.)

    …..{BUT}….

    I couldn’t vote for Boris because I could never vote for a Tory • never, not having grown up witnessing the damage and destruction of Thatcherism.

    http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/comment/Hardeep-Singh-Kohli-Who39s-the.4049321.jp

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  21. frankos says:

    Toynbee is so pathetically transparently hypocritical that allowing her to rant is her own punishment.

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  22. Cameron says:

    Grant

    Brown was at least scottish.
    Blair was “technically scottish”

    Thats 2 of us lot been climbimg over the wall to pillage sassan for 12 years now.

    Enough is enough.

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  23. frankos says:

    subjects to discuss?
    possibly;

    Obama sucking up to Iran
    Greedy banks –as usual — re Vince Cable (the prophet of the BBC)wanting to nationalise all the major ones.
    Shell oil company profits in a recession –windfall tax??
    BBC not showing Hamas advert
    £20 billion car companies bail out –to sweeten union bosses?
    USA 525 billion dollar injection –those nasty Republicans not wanting to back it.

    any ideas?

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  24. Andrew says:

    Branding Nicola Sturgeon as “left” ignores the fact that the BBC in Scotland hates the SNP and cosies up to Labour as in London.
    For example, BBC Scotland reported that yesterday the SNP Government’s Budget bill “had been thrown out”. It hadn’t–the vote was tied 64-64 and it fell on the casting vote of the Presiding Officer as protocol demands.
    The only party supporting the SNP were the Conservatives!

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  25. Dick the Prick says:

    3 tenants hospitalized and it’s racist?? WTF? And what the hell has golf to do with it – Scotland’s got the best courses in the world.

    I’ve got flu so won’t be able to drink tonight….. could be tough.

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  26. mikewineliberal says:

    The left-right thing is a little odd. It’s this site’s contention that the BBC is pro-(Labour)government; and therefore pro-govt/anti-govt would be a better measure of the balance (or otherwise) of the panel. Taking out Dimbleby (silly to include him), one gets a different picture this and all other weeks. The audience too tends to be anti-Government.

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  27. mikewineliberal says:

    BTW

    I know there’s a site dedicated to taking the mick out of the BBC’s HYS, but the “tribute” page to the (truly great and now late) John Updike today is spectacularly curmudgeonly and mad in equal measure.

    Here’s one from a clearly very well read commenter:

    “The only thing I’ve heard of by him is The Witches of Eastwick (the film anyway) and I didn’t even know he’d written that ’til just now! And I read quite a lot. Mr Marvellous, OTHAFA, England”

    And a corker for the anti-American file (from Justin Webb I bet; I recognise the style):

    “Like all things American, he was overrated. Sorry, it’s the truth. I won’t be missing him anytime soon. Anyway, back to work. RockingTheJoint”

    And a concerned and cultured licence fee payer.

    “Never met the man. Never read any of his books…Was this story worth paying someone in the BBC to do a report on? Somehow I think not.
    The Kings New Clothes, Cuffley, United Kingdom”

    And finally a grudging paneygric:

    “Never heard of him untill his departure was announced. No I don’t read books. I have a vivid imagination of my own and do not require to read about some one eles! Anyways RIP Mr Updike! Iam Alwrite, MN, United States”

    Makes this site look sane I tell you. Why though do the BBC let this garbage onto their site?

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  28. Grant says:

    Tom 10:37
    What a surprise !!!

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  29. Grant says:

    mikewine 12:51

    It is not “silly” to include Dimblebore. He is the Chairman and should be impartial, but he allows his left-wing bias to affect his Chairmanship.
    Examples include allowing lefties to rabbit on without interruption, whilst interrupting anyone from the right.
    Not all the time , of course, but , if you watch QT week after week, it is obvious.
    So Dimblebore is part of the problem of left-wing bias on QT and the BBC.

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  30. Grant says:

    Cameron 10:51
    Oh, how we have got our revenge for Culloden !

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  31. Grant says:

    frankos 11:09
    IMF statement that UK will suffer the worst of any advanced nation during the recession. That should be the first question !

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  32. Millie Tant says:

    mikewineliberal | 29.01.09 – 1:08 pm:

    …curmudgeonly and mad in equal measure.

    MILLIE: Hah! Like Updike, then.
    ——————————–

    And a corker for the anti-American file (from Justin Webb I bet; I recognise the style):

    “Like all things American, he was overrated. Sorry, it’s the truth. I won’t be missing him anytime soon. Anyway, back to work. RockingTheJoint”

    MILLIE: What are you on? That’s nothing like the Webb Monster.
    ——————————-

    And finally a grudging paneygric:

    “Never heard of him untill his departure was announced. No I don’t read books. I have a vivid imagination of my own and do not require to read about some one eles! Anyways RIP Mr Updike! Iam Alwrite, MN, United States”

    MILLIE: That is funny! (unlike the wine drinker who must have left his sense of humour out for recycling.) Reminds me of Flann O’ Brien saying that if he wanted to read a book, he had to write it first.

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  33. lawrence says:

    So the UNWRA school compound was not targetted. nor was it bombed. And UNWRA staff were told to keep shtum about it. And the awful Ging has the temerity to blame Israel for the confusion.

    You must post on this.

    The beeb headlined on Israel targetting a school for days. In truth Israel it did exactly what it said it did. It returned fire to a position outside the school:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090129.wgazaschool29/BNStory/International/home

    Like jenin tho – the myth is around the world and noone cares about the truth any more.

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  34. Tom says:

    mikewineliberal | 29.01.09 – 12:51 pm

    The left-right thing is a little odd. It’s this site’s contention that the BBC is pro-(Labour) government; and therefore pro-govt/anti-govt would be a better measure

    That’s probably how the BBC look at it.

    But the problem isn’t so much a left/right or pro-gov/anti-gov one.

    It lies in the bias displayed by always making certain choices according to a rationale that’s hard to define, but easy to spot.

    Faced with a choice between leaving a baby with a drug-addicted mother living in squalor and putting it out to adoption to a respectable middle class family, the BBC will plump for keeping the kid with the mother.

    Faced with leaving a kid with its grandparents and putting it out to two gay men to adopt, the BBC will go with the gays.

    Between the US and Chavez, the BBC will side with Chavez. Between the US and North Korea, the BBC will side with the US (but make excuses for N. Korea). Between the US and Iran, the BBC will vacillate.

    Between the Palestinians and Israel, the BBC will side with the underdog. Between Russia and Georgia, the BBC will side with the ruddy great bear.

    It prefers atheism to theism, but Islam to Christianity.

    Given the choice, it plumps for the public sector over the private; youth over age; ‘diverse’ over white; new over old; youth over experience; hedonism over responsibility; the future over the past; football over rugby; criminals over the police.

    They probably think this is ‘progressive’. It is anything but.

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  35. Grant says:

    Is there likely to be a question about Updike on QT tonight ?
    Come to think of it, probably yes, as it would distract from all the serious news.
    And he was big in Fort William !

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  36. Anonymous says:

    Tom | 29.01.09 – 2:23 pm

    you forgot:

    Republican over loyalist; comprehensive over grammar; Toynbee over Phillips; Guardian over Telegraph; town over country; train over car; … & white wine over red.

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  37. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Thats 2 of us lot been climbimg over the wall to pillage sassan for 12 years now.

    I fear you have forgotten all the Scottish ministers, both those elected (however illegally) and those parachuted into the Lords without even the figleaf of an election (however illegal).

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  38. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    Between the Palestinians and Israel, the BBC will side with the underdog

    Hardly. In a sea of genocidal Arabs, the Jews are the underdogs.
    But antisemitism trumps supporting the underdog.

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  39. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    And a corker for the anti-American file (from Justin Webb I bet; I recognise the style):

    “Like all things American, he was overrated”

    Yes, that’s Webb’s mindless racism at work all right.

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  40. Grant says:

    Tom 2:23
    Oh, so spot on, right down to the lefts’ self-delusional myth that they are “progressive”, whereas, in reality the thinking is so retrograde.
    I don’t think the left/ liberals have had a new idea since Marx !

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  41. mikewineliberal says:

    Tom | 29.01.09 – 2:23 pm

    I’m not so sure the evidence bears that out.

    “Between the US and Chavez, the BBC will side with Chavez”

    “In other words, in Latin America as elsewhere in the world, is anti-Americanism a smoke screen, a very convenient smoke screen, whose noxious fumes hide the reality of local failure?” (Webb, ‘Anti-Americanism in Venezuela,’ BBC news online, April 20, 2007

    “It prefers atheism to theism”
    http://www.dorothyrowe.com.au/index.php?u=5._Guardian_Article.htm

    “Ruddy great bear”? Looks balanced to me.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2008/georgia_russia_conflict/default.stm

    “New over old”

    http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/773703/Half-Christmas-television-will-repeats/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

    “The BBC will plump for keeping the kid with the mother”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7760806.stm

    I agree with you on rugby though.

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  42. Nearly Oxfordian says:

    The left-right thing is a little odd. It’s this site’s contention that the BBC is pro-(Labour)government; and therefore pro-govt/anti-govt would be a better measure of the balance (or otherwise) of the panel. Taking out Dimbleby (silly to include him)

    You have never watched the programme, have you? (Silly question; the absurd and ignorant WML never bothers with facts, he just spouts his nonsense regardless). Dimbleby’s bias is the very worst aspect of this disgraceful programme. He is rude to Tories as a matter of policy, he cuts them short as a matter of policy, he gives Labour liars and lunatics an easy ride, and so on.

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  43. frankos says:

    If you saw the Dimbleby programme on the history of the British house you would realise he is an old William Morris style socialist, harking back to a fictional pre industrial Utopia.
    His experience of the reality of hard work and commerce is probably as limited as most of these champagne socialists.

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  44. martin says:

    NO: Spot on. The way Dimblebore got angry with the guy with the microphone when some woman in the audience didn’t tow the lefty line that most of the audience usually does was a cracker.

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  45. Tom says:

    frankos | 29.01.09 – 3:07 pm

    Actually Dimbleby did inherit – and then run – a chain of local newspapers.

    I seem to remember that he had quite a lot of argy bargy with the unions, who thought him anything but socialist.

    I believe he sold the company for £12 million to Newsquest.

    That – together with his general demeanour, the fact he was in the Bullingdon at Oxford, makes me doubt he is a red-hot socialist, or indeed a Labour man at all.

    I’d put him in the Michael Heseltine/Ken Clarke camp.

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  46. frankos says:

    Will there be a question about Ken “pies” Clarke and how he will rip up the Tory party with his pro Euro fanaticism ??
    Forgetting he was our most successful chancellor in modern times (oh sorry I forgot “Boom and Bust” Brown)

    He did a good job on Mandys replacement at Question time, making the little excuse for a socialist look like –well, what he is

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  47. frankos says:

    Tom;
    obviously his guilt has got the better of him, as he comes over as per my description (see post)
    Anyway in my experience (of building up a business) there is a big difference between inheriting and building up a business.

    However I bow to your superior knowledge of the irritating little tit

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  48. Grant says:

    I remember Dimblebore on QT some months ago when little David Miliband was sitting so close to him on the left ( yes really ), that I thought he was sitting on the Bore’s lap.
    There was an editorial screw-up where the camera was on one of the audience , but in the background you could see Bore and Mili with their heads together.
    Then,in an amazing moment of Beeb technical incompetence, you could actually hear Bore , sotto voce to Mili, something like “Yes, that is OK “. I didn’t quite catch the detail, but they both obviously thought they were “off camera”.
    Dirty business.

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  49. Jim T. says:

    Indeed Dimblebore did own a chain of newspapers, but I think inherited them rather than built them from scratch. One of the reasons they were sold was, as far as I recall, the business wasn’t run very well, so a useful way of trousering a packet. Thus all the remarks about his lefty leanings, i.e. working for the Beeb, are probably correct. Both he and Dimblebore junior are products of the BBC. QED.

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  50. Grant says:

    Jim T. 4:06
    I lived in Richmond , Surrey ( in a bedsit, I hasten to say ) when the Dimblebys, including Bore, sold off the “Richmond Times”, I think it was.
    They got some top lawyers to screw the workers big time.
    Socialists believe in re-distribution of wealth, so long as it is not their own !

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