Anyway, where was I? Oh yes: that bloody left wing BBC, that’s where I was. Obviously run by various Trots and lefties, how else could you account for last night’s Question Time panel? Just look at them, Commies every one:
Kelvin McKenzie,former editor of The Sun
Camilla Long of The Times
Patrick O’Flynn (UKIP),
Nick Boles (Conservative)
Cat Smith (Labour)
I was just kidding, of course, for this is quite possibly the most right wing panel I have ever seen on a supposedly non partisan public service broadcaster ever. Not that I watched it. I rarely watch Question Time these days because of the programme is heavily front loaded with right wing people. The four right wingers last night were not just any old right wingers; at least three of them are very right wing, I would put McKenzie and Long to the right of Ukip and Boles not far away. And who, pray, was speaking for me? Not Cat Smith, for sure, the God-fearing Corbynista. Put simply, the BBC allowed no one from the centre left, the centre and, arguably, not even the centre right to appear on a topical show about politics.
The very sight of McKenzie in any circumstances makes me feel nauseous. Anyone with the merest sense of decency and dignity will never forgive him for his lies over Hillsborough. I read that he came out with a MacMillan-esque “You’ve never had it so good” to those in what David Cameron would call ‘sink estates’. In fact, he said this: “Oh, working people,” he said. “They are not struggling right now. They are better off now than they have ever been. You’ve got no idea. They are not struggling. They are thriving. You’re in London. The global capital of the world. Ridiculous.” When I see people, on a daily basis, without enough food to live on, unable to get out, unable to heat their homes, sometimes without even hot water, I think I know who has no idea. It’s McKenzie, Murdoch’s Rottweiler on earth, unarguably the most odious man in journalism.
But back to the BBC. Whose idea was this panel? A member of Labour’s hard left, two right wing journalists and two right wing politicians. What about, I would ask, the workers?
What about next week, then? I imagine they will invite Paul Golding, Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins, Iain Duncan Smith and Diane Abbott, just to keep the balance.
The BBC is obviously cowering at the threats they re facing from a government that doesn’t agree with the very principle of public service broadcasting, a government which is also at the beck and call of Rupert Murdoch in whose commercial interests it would be to get shot of the BBC in the first place. They are frightened at being called left wing so pack the panel shows with right wingers. Dave will be pleased, the producer might be thinking.
I still trust the BBC news and most of its journalists, but there are elements within the corporation who seem to have crumbled in the face of government pressure.
Last night, the political composition of Question Time would not have looked out of place on Fox News, but it looked pretty grim for an impartial broadcaster. The BBC should hang its head in shame.
