Tag Archives: itv

Brexit shambles descends into debate farce

You really couldn’t make up the state of British politics at the moment. The monstrous shambles that is Brexit is bad enough. A governing party riven by toxic split. An opposition that should be 20 points ahead in the polls but is excelling itself only in being more useless than the Government.

In recent days there has been talk of a tv debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn but even that can’t be sorted out. At the time of writing, Theresa May’s going to be on the BBC while Corbyn is cosying up to ITV, saying he wants it all over for the I’m a Celebrity final. I mean, really, the biggest substantive difference between the two is over which channel hosts the debate.

Certainly, if it ends up on the BBC, the trajectory of the evening will be markedly downward from Doctor Who to Strictly to the My Brexit’s bigger than Your Brexit despairathon.

It looks as though David Attenborough’s Dynasties will be booted to a later date. In a quiet but lovely corner of the internet, the wonderful Richard Flowers imagined the debate with an Attenborough voiceover:

Here… in the bleak midwinter… we see the skeletal remains of a Prime Minister being picked over by the vultures from her own Party, whilest a lst sheep in a loose collection of flappy organic rags bleats incoherant mantras about a Jobs First Bexit… And all about them, the country dies…

Vince, Nicola Sturgeon and the People’s Vote campaign are all rightly narked that they are being left out. I mean, after all, why wouldn’t they want to show an alternative opinion that might bring in more viewers?

This evening, Sal Brinton and Nick Harvey have written to BBC Chairman Lord Hall to suggest that the debate as currently planned might breach Ofcom rules. I’m not sure about that, because there’s no actual election, but the party is seeing legal advice. Here’s the text of their letter. 

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Caroline Pidgeon judged winner of ITV/LBC mayoral debate

Mike Smithson had no doubt about the winner of last night’s ITV London/LBC mayoral debate.

And he wasn’t alone. Caroline’s strong performance attracted praise from unexpected quarters.

You can watch the whole thing here:

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Two unmissable events tonight

Lynne FeatherstoneMost Liberal Democrats will be out campaigning in the early evening, but be aware that there are two very interesting things happening on radio and televisions. Typically they are both happening at roughly the same time, but that’s not so much of a problem in these days of modern technology.

First of all, on LBC, there’s a Women Leaders’ Debate. Our representative is Lynne Featherstone and she’s up against Conservative Nicky Morgan, UKIP’s Diane James and Harriet Harman for Labour.  It all kicks off at 7pm and you can watch here then or later.

Then at 7:30 pm on ITV (8pm on STV), there’s an in-depth profile of Nick Clegg where he and Miriam talk to Tom Bradby about the last five years.

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Vince would have put Myleene Klass in her place on the Mansion Tax

It’s not every day that you wake up and find that you’ve been quoted in the Daily Fail. The story starts late last night when Ed Miliband got into an argument with Myleene Klass over the Mansion Tax. You can see here on ITV Player how he got his backside handed to him on a plate as Myleene took him to task over his policy. Well, actually, it’s our policy. He nicked it. Maybe if he’d had his own policies, he might have been better at defending them.

Myleene was absolutely and utterly in the wrong as far as I’m concerned. If people are privileged enough to be able to afford a £2 million property, then they should be able to afford a relatively modest tax on that significant wealth.  Forgive me for not having much in the way of sympathy for those rich folk who complain about having to find an extra couple of grand a year. The poor have already been squeezed more than they should have been, by successive governments, including the one of which Ed was a member. If we’re going to be a fairer society, then the rich have to pay their share. It’s a total no brainer. It should absolutely be a no-brainer for the leader of a party which claims to represent the workers of the country.

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Nick and Miriam join Lorraine to talk about inspiring women and school meals – and grate cheese

Nick Clegg got cheesy yesterday morning on ITV’s Lorraine show. He was helping their chef make ragu for going on bonfire baked potatoes and was entrusted with chopping onion, carrot and celery and grating cheese which he seemed to carry out with reasonable competence. My mind boggled a bit when he asked which bit of the grater he should use. It was for going on top of a baked potato. It didm’t really matter.

Anyway, he took the opportunity to talk about the successful introduction of his school meals policy. This was not a serious political interview. It was never going to be, but it is quite nice to see well-informed discussion of the issues in an informal way. I think Nick should be doing much more of these things. You can watch him here.

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Danny Alexander on porn, always wearing the same tie, Scottish independence and Lib Dem achievements in Government

photoDanny Alexander was in relaxed form on last night’s The Agenda programme on ITV. Host Tom Bradby had a bit of a gentle go at him for always wearing the same tie, showing numerous photographs to back up the claim. It was the very tie that Danny had on. He was able to completely disarm Bradby by saying that his 6 year old daughter chose it so he likes to wear it a lot.

By far the funniest moment was the look on his face, pictured above, when fellow panellist Germaine Greer …

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Liberal Democrat Councillor Karen Chilvers on ITV’s The Chase

karenchilversBrentwood Liberal Democrat Councillor Karen Chilvers appeared on ITV quiz show The Chase last night.

She took on The Barrister, Sean Wallace in a showdown that was much more tense than I had expected.  I had never watched the show before and I found it quite compelling.

The idea of the game is that each contestant answers as many questions as possible in a minute to earn £1000 per correct answer. At the end of the minute, they gamble that amount of money in a play off against The Chaser, any one …

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Entwistle quits BBC: what next?

Another week, another day’s news headlines dominated by the media talking about itself… though this time with some legitimacy, as it’s not every day the Director-General of the BBC resigns within two months of being appointed to the post.

George Entwistle and the BBC’s Catch-22 problem

The BBC Director-General is editor-in-chief of the organisation, ultimately responsible for all content. The DG must also lead an organisation with 23,000 employees, a £4.8bn budget and multiple TV, radio and online outlets. I think it’s fair to say those are two …

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Are ITV the unluckiest commissioner of opinion polls?

In the run-up to the 2005 general election, there was some excitement as a rolling poll commissioned by ITV from Populus showed the Conservatives slipping to a result even worse than 1997. However, there was a sharp (5 point) recovery in the final pre-election day poll from Populus, which was a normal non-rolling poll.

Picking over the polling after the election, the explanation looked to be one aberrant sample on one day but which, due to the workings of a rolling poll, ‘infected’ the poll results over a longer period of time. It was only with the final pre-election poll, based …

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Rules agreed for leaders’ TV debates – and Clegg to open the batting

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is to speak first in the first debate, hosted by ITV, while Gordon Brown and David Cameron will do so in the subsequent debates, on Sky and the BBC.

From the BBC:

Three major broadcasters – the BBC, ITV and Sky – have agreed on the rules for hosting party leaders’ debates in the run-up to the general election.

The three 90-minute sessions will begin by focusing on domestic policies, international affairs and the economy.

Posted in General Election and News | Also tagged , , , , and | 6 Comments
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