Most people – the normal folks who aren’t political junkies – probably don’t spend their time watching BBC Parliament. But perhaps they should – just once or twice.
Why? The view most of us get from Parliament are the set pieces like PMQs. Benches packed with braying members and the aim to get one over on the other side, to give your team something to cheer about. The Punch and Judy politics every new leader of every political party has to ritually reject for at least a few hours before falling back into line.
But most of the debates are quite different. Sure, people disagree – that’s the general idea. But, the strangest thing, MPs on all sides are polite, listen to each other and even sometimes try to answer the points.
If you’re not a BBC Parliament regular, give it a try sometime.
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11 Comments
I remember arguing with my Dad about me wanting to watch what was then “The Parliament[ary]? Channel” back in 92/93. You’re quite right – often the middle of the day debates can be funny and entertaining and engrossing, far more worthy than the PMQs media event.
BBC Democracy Live covers ALL chambers, from Westminster Hall to Brussels, another good way to nip in and out of debates and discussions which the mainstream media have completely abandoned.
I suspect a Venn diagram of people who visit LDV and people who’ve never watched a parliamentary debate would have a pretty small overlap.
And there’s also this absolute cracker from 1968:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t059h/The_Budget_1968/
From the days before parliamentary debates were televised, of course, which makes it all the more curious for someone like me who grew up watching them on the box.
I have found that the Select Committees can be very constructive. The Commons Chamber is often just grandstanding.
BBC Parliament sometimes shows old election night programmes. A few years ago they showed the whole 1964 election night special, hosted by Richard Dimbleby. It was fantastic – it included a primitive outside broadcast from the Orpington count and Jo Grimond was in the studio. It was also the same day that Kruschev was deposed and there was very interesting discussion about the implications.
One great moment was when the camera unexpectedly cut back to Dimbleby who was having a quick bite of food – he apologized and said that he was eating an Italian snack called pizza (which he pronounced pits-ah).
Parliament would get more attention if it was available on radio. There is plenty of space on DAB. Is there some rule that prevents this? MPs feeling that they may be misinterpreted if they cannot be seen, perhaps? I’ve visited more than one country where radio broadcasting of Parliament is routine, and when my relatives lived in the Caribbean, always tried to catch the ‘jitney’ bus (people carrier) with the political driver…
More’s the pity that one can’t watch BBC Parliament live outside the UK, because of some crazy-making rules about the BBC iPlayer, although some extracts and videos are available at “BBC Democracy Live”
http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/about_iplayer/termscon
[ An indirect parallel effect that has infuriated many expatriates, cosmopolitan foreigners and those hyper-patriotic or xenophobic resident Little Englanders whose ISP’s use non-British URL’s was that you now need a British address in order to see the same mix of domestic and overseas news on the BBC Front Page of as is seen by domestic viewers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3281795.stm ]
I think that http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Live.aspx is independent of the BBC, I could be wrong though.
Thanks, Adam, I’d forgotten about this site, which is indeed not the BBC’s but that of the Houses of Parliament themselves.
An independent, impartial set of U.S. cable channels that carries Congressional sessions, press conferences, party and advocacy-group meetings and even select sessions of the British and Canadian parliaments isC-Span and its spin-offs. It has a handy list of websites and webcasts from national legislatures around the world at the “World Legislatures” link on this page, which also has a number of other useful links.
Unfortunately, most live sessions of Congress now consist less of interactive debate and much more of a single member in a nearly-empty chamber using C-Span as a free conduit to address interest groups, contributors, the news media and constituents. Select clips from these scripted addresses, now overloaded with visual aids (signboards, photos, charts), are intended to be picked up and used by local news stations in the Representative’s district or Senator’s state. Other clips can be incorporated at election time into paid campaign commercials, which unlike C-Span, cost lots of money.
In the politically-timed rush to commit Congress to endorsing military action against Iraq just before the mid-term elections of November 2002, there was (one might be surprised to learn) about a week of Senate debate. Sen. John Warner (Republican of Virginia and Elizabeth Taylor’s husband) took the lead in advocating the resolution, while Sen. Robert C. Byrd (Democrat of West Virginia and dean [Father] of the Senate) led a vigorous opposition. But they talked numbingly past each other in long set pieces citing their favourite sources, and did not really interact or engage on the issues with the relatively-few other Senators in the chamber.
It made for some rather deadly viewing, which the historically-curious can probably still retrieve from C-Span’s archives. [Transcripts can be found in the October 2002 pages of The Congressional Record for the 107th Congress, second session, at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?&n=Record&c=107 ]
I have just been watching a bit on Westminster Hall on removal ,repatriation, et cetera of foriegn prisoners, It was nice to hear the conservatives quote from the lib-dem maifesto about it and say they should follow our advice and they needed to catch up with us.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/default.stm
can be used to watch the chambers at all times in all countries. I travel loads outside of the UK, but I use it instead of the iPlayer almost daily and it never fails.