BBC issues usual Question Time non-response

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.

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

14 Comments

  • David Blake 18th Feb '10 - 1:46pm

    I got exactly the same response.

  • 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.

  • Lorna Spenceley 18th Feb '10 - 3:40pm

    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.

  • Mike Falchikov 18th Feb '10 - 4:15pm

    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?

  • David Allen 18th Feb '10 - 5:13pm

    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 also recieved the same idenikit response which also failed to address many of the points I made in my initial complaint 🙁

One Trackback

  • By Playing fair with Question Time #bbcqt – Freedom Central on Tue 23rd February 2010 at 10:46 pm.

    […] number of Lib Dems have complained, with gathering pace, about this lack of representation. The response from Gavin Allen was “The Liberal Democrats like all parties get representation based on their […]

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Craig Levene
    Chris , 380 billion relates to the Wests aid. There is nothing wrong in asking how you get to a position that would be acceptable to Ukraine. It's position is ...
  • Ambighter
    Only a small point, but it is defence not defense in British English, or has Donald Trump banned that too and I just didn’t hear about it?...
  • Chris Moore
    And how dare those awful Ukrainians invade Kursk, part of Mother Russia? How much is that costing the British taxpayer? Disgraceful behaviour....
  • Chris Moore
    Btw: UK government figure of 12.8bn for total UK aid to Ukraine since the start of the war. What a shame Putin's surprise attack didn't take Kyiv on the fir...
  • ChrisMoore
    I entirely agree with Craig Levene: what a waste of money and life defending a country against an aggressor. How unrealistic and silly to want one's country ...