Cast your mind back two weeks, and you may recall the BBC making a hash of selecting its panel for the weekly political discussion show Question Time.
In the week when the big political issues were the Iraq war, electoral reform and MPs’ expenses – on all of which the Lib Dems have a distinctive contribution to make – the BBC chose to stuff the panel with an official Labour representative (Lord Falconer), and two former Labour MPs (Clare Short and George Galloway); and, for balance, an official Tory representative (Theresa May), and professional right-wing agitpropette (Melanie Phillips).
Many Lib Dems were understandably annoyed by this, and some of us sent complaints to the BBC. I’ve just received the BBC’s response to my email, and it’s the usual copy ‘n’ paste non-response:
Thanks for your e-mail regarding the 4 February edition of ‘Question Time’.
We appreciate that you were unhappy that there was no representative from the Liberal Democrats on the panel.
We forwarded concerns on this issue to ‘Question Time’ Executive Editor Gavin Allen who explained in response that:
“The Liberal Democrats like all parties get representation based on their level of electoral support, which means they are on most – but not all – ‘Question Time’ panels across each series. We believe it adds to the breadth of debate to have perspectives from politicians and non-politicians alike, so places are always limited even within a five-person panel.”
He concluded by advising that:
“We constantly monitor the balance of the panel and in light of their national electoral strength, the level of representation for the Liberal Democrats on the programme remains very strong.”We’d also like to assure you that we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.
The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
The issue that I (and others) raised was not that the BBC deliberately excludes Lib Dems from the Question Time panel week-by-week – but that on two occasions now when it was certain the Iraq war would be a major topic of debate the BBC inexplicably decided not to include a representative from the only major party to have voted against the war.
It’s even more bizarre to see the BBC defend its panel selection choice on the grounds that “we believe it adds to the breadth of debate” when four of the five panellists supported the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The BBC cocked-up: it would be nice if they could admit it rather than issue bog-standard responses which fail to address the complaints made.
14 Comments
I got exactly the same response.
Hear hear Stephen.
Another point than some of us also grumble about is that the same characters keep popping up again and again, for example Lord Falconer, Theresa May and Peter Hain. These three in particular don’t often seem to say anything new.
On the other hand, looking at the recent (incomplete) list of Question Time panellists on Wikipedia (is there a more complete list anywhere?) Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, David Laws & Sarah Teather are among those who appear several times a year. (Others include Ben Bradshaw, Alan Johnson and Nigel Farage)
I’m not sure I’m that keen on there being any regulars.
It’s hardly fair to label Clare Short pro-war on the basis of her staying in the Cabinet in March 2003. You have a decent case and something like this spoils it.
I also got the same response, despite my actual complaint haighlight some of the points made from the previous response I had made, and demanding specific answers as to why those promises had not been meet.
Parasite
Stephen wrote “four of the five panellists supported the invasion of Iraq in March 2003”. Clare Short voted for the war. That she subsequently changed her mind for interesting reasons means it was good to have her on Question Time. Many people say, like she does, that they supported the war at the time but now believe they were deceived.
One thing the Beeb should do is justify the “representation based on level of electoral support” comment; obviously they factor in Euro elections (to justify the Griffins and Lucases of this world), but on a quick calculation based on parliamentary elections, by popular vote there should be one and three-quarters Labour or sympathisers per show, one and a half Tory or sympathisers per show and just over one Lib Dem or sympathiser per show; by seats it’s two and three quarters Labour, one and a half Tory and half a Lib Dem.
The BBC refuses to reveal the methodology (if any) that it uses to achieve “representation based on level of electoral support”. (I tried to obtain this through Freedom of Information legislation recently, and was refused). As long as this remains a secret, any response of this nature that the BBC gives is intrinsically worthless.
The worst part of it is that Ming Campbell was, according to the BBC’s own preview, scheduled to appear on the
programme and appears to have been “pulled” at short notice, in a similar fashion to Jo Swinson, only 6 weeks or
so previously. I complained about Jo’s absence and received a fatuous reply. I have yet to receive any acknowledgment to my complaint over MIng’s omission. In each of those two programmes, the creepy Melanie Phillips was on the platform – is there a connection?
The worst BBC QT failing, in my view, is the number of very right-wing think-tankers they field. Just because there is lots of money around to fund media campaigners such as Melanie Phillips and the like, doesn’t mean that the BBC should take the easy way out by wheeling in obliging right-wing rentaspeakers every time. They don’t represent anyone but themselves!
The worst performance recently came from a guy from the creepy “Centre for Social Cohesion”, who turned purple as he ranted about the neocon “revolution” soon coming to Britain. Made Nick Griffin look like a moderate. Where do they find these guys?
I got an identical response and, infuriated that they didn’t reply to my points – then had the cheek to ‘apologise for the delay’, as if it had really taken them nearly a fortnight to copy the same old identikit mail – I e-mailed a further complaint straight back.
Not impressed that it bounced, because the only way they deign to take our complaints is if we go through the five pages of hoops on their site…
Yup, Alex – you need to go back to the site and submit another form I’m afraid. Remember to quote the reference number from the reply.
Thanks, Mark – I did, and I did, several hours before posting above. Not that it’ll do any good!
Nigel Farage was supposed to be on QT this week: a relevant week with the Greek financial crisis and the corus factory closing.
But no: best not to have anyone who might discuss things outside the Westminster bubble.
I also recieved the same idenikit response which also failed to address many of the points I made in my initial complaint 🙁
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