Miliband needs to check his facts

Jack R

And this edition of 'Question Time' was well up to the BBC's standards in terms of the politically left bias in all the usual areas:

1.)composition of the audience;

2.)composition of the speakers' panel:

3.)interventions of Dimbleby's chairing.

Toavid Blairmeron

I agree that Miliband was all over the place at Question Time.

Most fascinating was his apparent amnesia regarding his prediction in February last year that people will come to hate Gordon Brown and wish for Tony Blair to come back.

Surely he should have seen that one coming and have an answer prepared. Instead he pretended not to recognise the comments and suggested that it may have been his brother Ed Miliband who made them.

This reveals a great weakness in his character. A leader in Waiting? I don't think so!!

Perry

Conspiracy theorists, your explanations please.

Was he :

(a) Nobbled by others?
(b) Hobbled by himself?
(c) In a daze following a Damascene awakening about all the claptrap he and his buddies put out on air?
(d) In a daze following some other profound neurophysiological event?

Adam Lake

On the contrary- Milliband came across as cocky and unprepared. He barely disguised his smile at the Brown bashing and pushing the, "We'll want Blair back after 6 months of Brown" comment on to his brother showed him enjoying the game of 'Bash Brown.'

Milliband wants to be the leader of the labour party and when then Tories win at the next election he will have that wish.

Brown will not let go and even the party are not stupid enough to put to 'Bright young thing' to the electorate in an election that they are bound to loose.

Milliband knows that all he need do for the next two year sis come across as the opposite of Brown and he will achieve his goal- his out of character performance last night was an example of this and I am sure there will be many more to come.

Tiberius

It must be my uncontrollable feminine side's fault, but I actually felt sympathetic towards Miliband last night. However I did almost choke on the Blue Nun (thanks for the tip Big Boss!) when he said taxes were coming down.

Spare a thought for poor Peter Hitchens, though. While he was dead right in his rant that a vote for Labour was a vote for higher taxes, his style is swivel-eyed beyond hope.

James W

I disagree with Jack R.

The standard of Question Time last night was very high. Not much cheap political point scoring and good debates on some important issues.

I am Tory voter - and was happy to see Douglas Hurd back on TV giving some very grounded non-partisan views.

Vince Cable just illustrates how much the Lib Dems misjudged the poltical mood by not selecting him as leader at a time when the economy is going down and he speaks with a lot of intelligence.

Hitchen and Chakrabarti can both be highly irritating - but they do balance the panel and made great contributions on the 42 day debate (albeit with Hitchen not contributing much of note in the other debates)

Miliband did make a lot of mistakes - but Dimbleby usually allowed Chakribarti or one of the other panelists to correct him. But at least he didn't use the current New Labour attack that the Tories 15 years ago are the cause of all the current problems like Gordon does at PMQs and Hazel Blears did a few weeks back. He also did seem to want to state his case with conviction - when most cabinet ministers look like they are doing it under duress.

So I disagree with Jack R - for once if you really wanted to hear the arguments for and against 42 days or a discussion on vehicle Exercise Duty you could - I think the debate was of a very high calibre.

Dave B

Didn't he also get called by Ms Chakrabarti for lying about how long you can be held without charge in Italy?

mart

Tiberius: I see the point you're making about Mr Hitchens. But I think it's because he is forced by the parameters he is given on that program to make quick and pithy points.

I think he feels that if he doesn't speak quickly and spell it out in words of no more than one syllable he'll not be given the time by the chairman of the panel to make his point in a more subtle way.

Seriously, by my estimates on this and previous occasions he gets literally half the time (or even less) than that afforded to the government minister. Even when the minister - as is often true on Q.T. - is making no sense whatever.

(Why did Dimbleby not ask on what basis the minister claimed that taxes were reducing this year? If that were indeed true, you'd expect to have heard it from the PM or Chancellor by now as part of the 10p or car V.E.D. debates.)

Here's my solution: there should be a clock presented by each panellist (as in a game of chess) showing how long each one got to speak... by the end of the debate this would show up how proportionate the whole thing is.

More generally my feeling is that Mr D. gives the benefit of the doubt much more to leftist speakers than those from the right. Having a means of measuring it would make it all much more open. The BBC needs to reduce its leftist bias, and be able to demonstrate it is doing so.

Kevyn Bodman

Watching the cricket today I am reminded of the old saying, 'Form is temporary, class is permanent.'

Was Miliband off form? Or is he not really much good?
Is he the one who knows he's been over-promoted, or is he one of those who doesn't know it?

Yelina

So when I hear "Allah Akbar!" just before I'm barbecued where will Chakrabarti and the rest who think like her be?

Talking self-aggrandising tripe on Question Time with an audience made up of lemons?

Gimme that zapper so I can hit the off button - pronto.

Nicholas

Twice now QT have trundled out old Tories rather than shadow cabinet members and I have noticed that when exploring government issues Daily Politics usually has wall-to-wall Leftist or Labour commentators, giving the government a propaganda opportunity.

I don't know whether the current low Tory profile on the BBC is institutional bias or deliberate Tory strategy? I felt that Lords Heseltine and Hurd, whilst reasonably sound and balanced in their articulated views, resonate with a political era passed and are not the best ambassadors for Cameron's party.

Dimble is just plain irritating. He wastes much good debate time with the weekly ritual of announcing next week's venue and how to communicate with the programme, all of which could be shown on a strap line.

Also this QT "People's Panelist", those aged 18-21 only need apply. Isn't that ageist? And in this age of a growing older population shouldn't the BBC be bucking the trend and giving some people over 50 the chance to participate on the panel?

TrevorH

taxes falling? This is just old style labour big lie politics. tell the lie get over the immediate problem and then move on.

Do not forget that to try to solve the 10p problem the govt borrowed to fund a £2.7 billion giveaway. So in that sense tax has fallen.

James W

Nicholas - you should re-read your post. You criticse the BBC for resurrecting Hurd and Heseltine and then criticise the BBC for not giving more people over 50 the chance to participate on the panel.

What do you want exactly? A panel of 4 young right-wingers mugging a socialist pensioner?

Oscar

Nicholas - fully agree with your comments. Why are we seeing so much of men from the Major rather than the Cameron era on QT? As for the Daily Politics, it used to be a reliable programme for cross party debate - nearly every programme included reps from all the main parties. But in the last few months it has become more like the Daily Labour Party - and the opposition has been 'disappeared'. This cannot be accidental. It is clearly editorial policy. Has the BBC been nobbled by Brown or is it censoring itself voluntarily? Either way the trend is very worrying.

Fraser Nelson

Nicholas & Oscar, my understanding is that the Tories are rather lax in pushing ministers forward for QT whereas Labour continues to take it very seriously (see DM's comments about speaking to millions of people). Tories fail to recognise its importance, to the chagrin of some in CCHQ who believe it is 10 times more important than PMQs. The Question Time team (an independent group called Merton) are by no means a bunch of lefties - they'd like as many hard-hitting Cameroon as they can get but they need to be put up.

Dave B, you mention Italy - Miliband said that the Meridith suspects are being held without charge. Shami said they have been charged. I was unable to find out who's right in this point, so I let that one pass.

David Lindsay

A Mail on Sunday profile of David Miliband last week informed us that he was one of three students reading PPE at Corpus Christi College, Oxford thanks to “an Inner London Education Authority scheme to get pupils from the capital’s comprehensives to Oxford. A worthy scheme, not doubt. But it’s hard to imagine that David Miliband was the kind of deprived inner city pupil the founders had in mind.”

Really? Someone should look into what part Ralph Miliband played in this scheme.

Fergus Pickering

The BBC does not have to be nobbled. A public service broadcasting channel is so naturally of the left that it doesn't see it. As far as they are concerned Guardian views are middle-of-the-road and Telegraph views are far right. They will always be like that. I think we should take away half their money and give it to other broadcasters.

Ethan Hurlington

I don't really care which era they are from, I thought Lord Hurd spoke very well last night, something some of the shadow cabinet could learn from. I would have thought the Party was pretty pleased with how last night's programme must have resonated to viewers, Miliband is Labour's great young hope, and yet he was outshone by Lord Hurd, looked out of his depth and could learn a lot from the former foreign secretary, namely, how to answer a straight question.

It was QT back it's best, Miliband struggled against everyone, Chakrabarti ripped him to bits. I can't take Hitchens seriously, I'm sure if given the chance he would argue that the world is not round.

THX1138

Just watched QT on BBC i did you all notice how Hurd, Dimbleby & even Miliband looked to Vince Cable to confirm any economic point they made. Without making too much of a political point can anyone imagine Boy George carrying that much clout.

I agree Miliband was crap I saw a recent Newsnight Interview with him he was rubbish on that too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7390068.stm

Labour are clutching at straws if they think that Miliband is going to save them.

dearieme

That border is fractal, so it doesn't have a unique length. Rubberband can't be much of an intellectual if he doesn't know that.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Fraser

"my understanding is that the Tories are rather lax in pushing ministers forward for QT"

Just remind us, how many Ministers are there on the Conservative benches? Then again, how many Conservatives are there on the Government benches?

Fraser Nelson

Okay, Chuck, I'm getting ahead of myself. All shadows, for now.

Nicholas

James W - maybe you should re-read my post. On the one hand I was commenting on Hurd and Heseltine's political relevance re the modern Tory party - not their age. On the other hand the BBC's desire to have only young "People's Panelists" from a very narrow age group on the programme.

The comment about 4 young right wingers, etc., totally irrelevant. That is not what I wrote, thought or want.

Hurd and Heseltine are not "People's Panelists". Ergo nothing wrong with my post.

Nicholas

Ethan H - yes, Lord Hurd spoke well but he is not an ambassador for the Cameroons, which as Fraser points out are unrepresented on QT and DP.

My concern is that the modern Conservative party is not getting enough visibility on the BBC. Michael Gove appears more often on Newsnight Review wittering on about trendy films and plays than he does tackling Labour lies and deceit. We know that the "People's Panelist" is going to be a young national socialist.

I want a fight, not some old fashioned gentleman's game played out by Tory grandees, which the national socialists will run rings round.

The outcome of all this is that the modern Tories continue to have points scored against them for having no policies, no substance, and the old boys find it difficult not to be rather smug about that. Portillo on This Week is a classic example, doing the Tories no favours with his bitterness about what might have been and his obvious jealousy. Let's have someone who can truly stand up for the Tories and articulate their position.

PS To save David Lindsay responding, yes, we know that Cameron and the Tories are not really conservatives, are no different to New Labour, and are EU stooges, etc, etc.

Oscar

Fraser @ 3.17 - CCHQ really should be a lot more media savvy than your post suggests. Why on earth don't they wise up? It gets frustrating for us Cameroon supporters. But it doesn't explain the editorial sea change on the DP. I still believe there are some dirty Labour tricks at play there.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Fraser.

Shadows indeed. But the serious point is this, surely. Ministers should make themselves accountable by whatever means that come to hand. We have seen increasing reluctance to enter into any form of genuine dialogue with the electorate, let alone in Parliament. If Ministers choose to hector, lecture and nanny it's hardly suprising that the public acts as it does. So Question Time has become a blood sport, in much the same way as PMQ's has. Frankly it's better that way.

David Lindsay

"Michael Gove appears more often on Newsnight Review wittering on about trendy films and plays"

All he's good for. Like the Blairites before them, the Cameroons are not interested in politics, but in trendy films and plays. That's why they are Cameroons. If they were interested in politics, then they wouldn't be.

Nicholas

No, not all he's good for. But a diversion and a distraction from the real job in hand which is to remove the most destructive and repugnant government in British history. A challenge made more arduous by the BBC as the stealth, not-so-stealth and more often blatent PR arm of the Labour Party.

Frank Pulley

Can't say I was disappointed in Douglas Hurd, because I have never really rated him anyway. He has always been a wishy-washy old woman and should stick to writing books. But his feigned attack of Alzheimer's during one of his answers was simultaneously disingenuous and pathetic.

Nobody would claim that Peter Hitchens is a cuddly character and I infer that much of his vitriol is based on sibling rivalry, but despite Tweedle Dumbleby's attempts to derail him at every turn, he did issue the most telling imprecations during the session, his main one being the assertion that the public are to blame for this government's excesses and incompetence inasmuch that the electorate (a) voted for it three times on the trot, or (b) failed to vote in insufficient numbers to oust it. Reap as ye sow!

Miliband is as raw as he is rumbustuous and smug. But, as I keep saying, just look at the pedigree, he is an upstart neo-Marxist utopian and he is very much the product of his father Ralph's loins and ideology. BTW, I noted that he changed his hairstyle for the QT programme, shaping a little quiff on the front. He obviously reads this blog and I now apologise unreservedly for previously accusing him of wearing an Irish jig, it's obviously all his own. But the change in his Barnet didn't make him any better looking I'm afraid.

JimBob

Can't get his facts straight?

Sounds like he really is the heir apparent