Biased BBC?

Nicholas

If the QT audience was actually composed of people from Middlesborough rather than bused-in Labour and Green activists with their pre-planned questions and comments, you can call me Wilders.

The only Middlesborough accent I heard during the whole programme was from an elderly man who was supporting the Coalition cuts. He was soon shut up by that dreadful excuse for a Chairman, Dimblebore the Chief Wizard.

Archibald

The government should be more concerned with the corporation's influence on those whose views matter, not people whose contribution to society is to pronounce 'smokey bacon crisps' in a mildly amusing way.

Take Paul Krugman. The Beeb has clearly got to him somehow – who knows how they did it – causing the Nobel Prize winning economist to conclude that in his view "Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?hp

David Ossitt

“The corporation is being accused of “bias” because last week’s show came from Middlesbrough,”

Rod, Question Time is always biased that is the whole point, the BBC use it as a tool, a weapon to attack conservative opinions, the selected audience each week invariably gives the impression that is predominately labour supporting, I would asses the mix as 60/40% in favour of labour.

Often but not always the balance of political opinion amongst the panellist’s favours the labour party, however the main problem with balance and bias is with the chairman.

David Dimbleby has perfected a nasty style; he continually interrupts panellists, he contradicts, speaks over, argues with and attempts to disrupt the thought process by adding is own questions.

If one takes notes whilst watching it is soon apparent that he gives those of the left a much easier ride and often lets them speak at greater length.

Lungfish

I thought the audience were surprisingly rational and balanced- One bloke summed it up when complaining that the place had only just recovered from the breaking up of the shipbuilding and steel industries etc only to be told that the public service nonjobs that had been created for them were to be axed twenty years later. Does seem a tad unfair. I shouldn't think the po faced and somewhat waspish Phillip Hammond has often mucked in on a northern shop floor.

Bill Rees

The BBC likes to present northerners as morons, and the audiences they invite for Question Time or Any Questions tend to confirm those stereotypes.
Those of us northerners who still live in the north should stop being so willing to present ourselves as totally powerless victims of these nasty Tories. But that would ruin the BBC's agenda.

Vulture

C'mon Rodders - you were a long time BBC insider - you KNOW how biased it is.

That Middlesbrough audience was full of Greens - just how many Greens do you suppose there are in Middlesbrough? One to pedal a wind machine, another to boil an egg on the energy produced. Of course the QT audiences are politically weighted to ensure leftie domination.

And for all your sneering at the Middle Class, didn't/don't you live in Wiltshire amidst the pub roasts and Labradors that you affect to despise?

Your membership of Labour, the party that pissed Britain down the toilet, is testimony to your ludicrous hypocrisy as much as it is to your amazing political acumen.

Stephen Almond

fair enough, lad.

WetherspoonThree

Middlesborough, Teeside, even Redcar have been a bit of a problem for some time. No wonder blokes up there jump into canoes and bugger off to Latin-America. It used to be called north Yorkshire until someone decided to change the name thinking we wouldn't notice that its still a bit of a dump. Apparently the skyline inspired the opening sequences for a film by Ridley Scott so it can't be that bad. Time for drastic action though..offer it to Spain in lieu of Gibralter.
Off course the BBC are bias...their noses have been stuffed in the public trough for years. The idea that they should now have to account for how their money is spent is bound to cause resentment and hostility amongst their employees who are enjoying vastly over-infalted salaries. The sooner the BBC moves to Manchester, (or is Preston or Blackburn? the better for us all.

JS Mill

The BBC is one giant welfare recipient. Accordingly it's asking a bit much to expect it to sit on the fence on the issue of government spending; turkeys aren't neutral about Xmas. It would not therefore see anything unbiased in presenting views either opposed to these cuts, and those in favour of trebling the size of gvt. That would be the entire spectrum of views in Bush House

DavidDP

I suspect he was shocked given the fact that every poll suggests a higher level of support for cuts than that opposing it. One would expect therefore that a balanced audience more reflective of these poll findings would not be that hostile.

Vulture

AS a long-term insider, Rod, you know how biased the BBC is. QT audiences are weighted to ensure left-wing domination - for example how many Greens do you suppose there are in Middlesbrough - yet on QT they were everywhere.

So please don't add dishonesty to your hypocricy on this issue. The hypocricy of a Wiltshire resident, who doubtless enjoys pub roasts and Labrador walks like the next Wiltshireman, but who finds it necessary to sneer at those he chooses to live amongst.

Your membership of Labour, the party that pissed Britain down the toilet, says much for your extraordinary political acumen.

eyesee

Why isn't Middlesborough like the South Downs, where BMW's and labradors support the Tories apparently? What conspiracy stops the people of the North setting up businesses and taking control of their own lives? Would it be the long history of left ideology that means they rely on Unions and the State? It was symbolised by the bloke who said they didn't want to go back to the old days of virtual slave labour. As if that is the only option available, should private employment be attempted in the North. The left destroyed the North more completely than the harsh reality of capitalism.

Toby Venerable Bede Forward

Nichols, you're Wilders. (whatever that is) OK?

Kennybhoy

Och this is getting ridiculous!

I say again.

Are you up for a job with some libtard rag again Maister Liddle? Or mebbe even Al-Beeb?

Tron

Rod you are so wrong on this. It's nothing to do with Northerners. They get the same audience mix every week where ever they are , Greens, lefties, public service whingers, Trade Unionists.
Plus Dimbleby interrupting any Tory about 20 times while allowing Labour Mugs like John Denham , Balls , Darling to list smears and half truths and dodgey statistics.
Why is the debt so big? Who was in charge of the economy for the last 13 years? Who regulated the banks ? Questions you never hear on the BBC. "Let's move on."
O.K Rod, I'll wait for your post on the next time the BBC find a Right Wing audience, anywhere in this country. In the meantime could you tell us the last time?

Ayresome Angel

Please spell Middlesbrough correctly you ignoramus soft southerners!

Nick Wilde

Why doesn't the BBC's regulator investigate how it selects audiences for its political programmes. The Newsnight/Francis Maude, Middlesbrough Question Time and Derby Any Questions were all stuffed full of vocal and aggressive Labour supporters. Hardly an opinion was voiced in these programmes that departed from the Labour line of wicked Tories, cutting to the bone, regressive etc. Oh yes, I forgot, the BBC regulates itself so nothing is ever done about its bias yet the Guardianistas still manage to present the left as the victim of right wing bias in the media when the monolithic and taxpayer-funded BBC continues to dominate the media.

scarlet poet

why are you such a regionalist? The government seems to care more about ethnic diversity inanities such as translating somerset county council documents into arabic,celebrating Black history month in cornwall and funding for diwali parades. scrap all that that nonsese and invest in the provinces, don't let them rot like thatcher.

Archibald

Mr Ossitt,
The image you paint of an increasingly bitter man watching Question Time with a stop watch and a note pad is the perfect illustration that the time saved by modern inventions like the dishwasher and microwave isn't always well spent. You are aware that you can get free porn online now..?

Johgn Nerin-Bogel

My wife and I have watched Question Time over many years I asked this past thursday if we watching the programme as asual. Her reply was "No I don't want to watch it again. All it will be is a biased audience again and it makes me sick" I have since seen the reports of the programme and it turns out she was right.When the BBC gets rid of the lefty producers we might get a programme we can watch and enjoy again.

Cassandrina

QT is left wing biased every week with the venue and rent a crowd already "fixed" under it Champagne Socialist chairman, Dumbleby.
This week we had a horrible Christine Blow? of NUTS (appropriate) be caught out on a lie about her demand letter to Head Teachers yet despite her loud shrill shrieks of denial was allowed by D to get away with it. Total travesty and I know if it was unbiased and balanced it would double its listenership on radio 4.
To overcome this bias being fully accepted Liebor activists are on the internet stating the bbc is right wing biased.
Britain is still broken, with these past minister criminals still not brought to justice.
As for the bbc Hunt just did not do enough to them and now unless controlled they will spread their vitriolic disinformation globally. Cuts Cuts and Cuts is all their agenda is at the moment.

Wrinkled Weasel

The BBC loves Northerners so much that they decided to move staff up to Manchester. So traumatic is this move, that a full time counsellor has been employed, in order to calm exiled staff and wean them off top quality charlie and miniature vegetables.

Fergus Pickering

It doesn't matter whether the programme comes from Middlesborough and THE NORTH or Milton Keynes. The Beeb is always biased because it is staffed by media luvvies who answered ads in The Guardian. They don't THINK they are biased because they never meet people who don't agree with them. The brothers Dimblebum are a right pair of Beeb luvvies More power to the Digger's elbow.

Lungfish

It kind of goes without saying that there is always a mind boggling left wing bias in the audience- whether this is manufactured by the beeb or theres just a natural propensity for lefties to vocalise their grievances on telly I'v never worked out.

Michael Roberts

David, Nick, Cassandrina and others:

Couldn't agree more. If anything AQ was even worse than QT. The way Fraser was allowed to be mugged by that Blower woman was disgraceful. The mindset of these idiots was so illustrated when he had hardly got the word 'headmaster' out of his mouth when she screamed 'headmistress! - some of them are women!' and the football crowd roar of approval from the hand-packed audience even drowned her out. It was so ghastly it was hilarious.

Unless Fraser lost his rag later on (I missed the last bit), One would like to think that the reasonable and dignified way in which he, and Phillip Hammond on QT, conducted themselves - when they were allowed to get a full sentence out - might have some resonance with the public.

Probably not.

Last point - why, oh why does that awful preachy motormouth Caroline Lucas get so much airtime? We're not all five-year-olds. Am I alone, as you might say, as just wanting to smack her in the gob?

David Ossitt

.
PS.

I am not sure if everyone noticed but QT was due to come from London this week but was at the very last minute moved to Middlesbrough, one suspects as an attempt to attack all of this weeks government changes from a deprived area, David Dimbleby did give the game away when he let it slip that it was an ‘invited audience’ makes you wonder what was the criteria that was to decide who would be invited.

Nicholas

Apparently Toby the creepy stalker is the only person left in the country who doesn't know who Wilders is.

Nicholas

Michael Roberts, no you are not alone. She personifies gobby, controlling leftist women who know what's best for us and never tire of preaching it. No wonder the country is rapidly become a giant kindergarten - Sir Patrick Moore was right.

I don't know what's worse though, the women or the balls-less "men" that can't stand up to them and just go along with all their crap.

John Holland

Michael Roberts- "Am I alone in wanting to smack her in the gob?"

Nice.

DeeJay

Please allow me to introduce a game that my wife and I play whilst watching QT. The goal is to see who can get their text message published and, of course, overcoming the BBC heavy left-wing bias against any views which might be termed middle of the road or , heaven forbid, right-wing. It has given us enormous pleasure of the years but you need to get into the mindset of those who select the texts and this is the real challenge. Good luck.

LibertarianLou

Rod, I often really dislike you but this is right on the money. There were people in that audience who were far from Labour supporters or pro-state. People who'd set up businesses, and were wondering why the government's cuts were making them MORE dependent on the public sector, for example. People wondering so much was being sent abroad in foreign aid? Why jobs are all being outsourced yet businesses are doing the same thing here trying to flourish...?

Hardly the voice of the hard left.

Pimp my Whippet

I love pies, me.

Ferrets 'r' Us

This straw-poll of comments confirms it then: we who are not allowed to be heard know what is going on despite the leftist blitzkreig we are assailed by on all fronts.

Keep the faith - never mind all this 'lifting children out of poverty' bollocks. It's all mi eye an Peggy Martin; get some black puddin an peas down em.

rod liddle

Nicholas - well yes, about that you're right. They come from Hutton Rudby, Yarm and Great Ayton. You're right about the accents. Dead right.

rod liddle

Scarlet - agree with you 100 per cent.

Tarka the Rotter

Caroline Lucas...anyone else think she bears an uncanny resemblance to Servelan on Blake's 7 or (more up to date ) Anna (the alien) in 'V'. Be afraid, be very afraid...'cos David Icke might just be right!

Archibald

To play devil's advocate, can I point out a couple of things:
1) You're all commenting on a right wing blog site and commenting on an article about BBC bias, so it's unsurprising that you agree. Rather than take this as further proof of your initial views, I would suggest you consider that you're quite a strongly skewed self-selecting group.
2) The cuts are a huge political event, and while I have no idea how much planning goes in to the destination selection, surely it would have been very odd if the BBC selected somewhere that wasn't that affected, over one that was. I'm sure criticism would have been even more harsh from your paranoid left wing equivalents if that were the case.
3) Given the location, it's fairly safe to suggest a representative audience from that location would be less favourable towards the cuts than other areas.
4) When Labour were on their painfully embarrassing last legs (a period of quite some time), the anti-Labour feeling in the audiences was almost too difficult to watch, so much so that they seemed to invariably wheel out that bronzed turnip Peter Hain as they knew everyone hated him anyway - it's pretty standard that the party in power is the one that has the harder questions to answer.
5) Lucas was undoubtedly invited as someone who actually had an opposing view - with Balls sidelined, she was the only one who could make the Keynesian argument that Labour have apparently distanced themselves from - so the BBC, you could argue, were doing there job getting a variety of opinion on there.
6) Hammond was, sadly, not very good. What would have been wiser, I would suggest, is for the Tories to have put up a stronger candidate. Clarke, or even Cameron himself given the timing of the programme. While there would have been some tough moments for him, I think he'd have coped very well with his usual style and it would have been a PR coup on the same day of the announcements. At the very least, they could have put Clegg up there, given he claims to be on the offensive.

Tiberius

That particular edition of QT provided a wonderful example of how the New Labour creed with all its affiliated pressure groups has lobotomized large sections of the population.

The irony of that oft repeated question, "but how will the private sector create all those new jobs?" was reason to laugh out loud.

It seems Blair has indeed succeeded in erasing history pre 2 May 1997 from much of the collective mind.

David Ossitt

Cassandrina
October 23rd, 2010 5:53pm

“QT is left wing biased every week with the venue and rent a crowd already "fixed" under it Champagne Socialist chairman, Dumbleby.

This week we had a horrible Christine Blow? of NUTS (appropriate) be caught out on a lie about her demand letter to Head Teachers yet despite her loud shrill shrieks of denial was allowed by D to get away with it. Total travesty and I know if it was unbiased and balanced it would double its listenership on radio 4.”

Cassandrina.

That was Any Questions, but otherwise you are correct.

Chris lipthorpe

We're very proud of or iron and steel making heritage in middlesbro. The railways, the ships and bridges around the world that (for good or bad) built the British empire, contributing to the Britain we see today. We're also proud of our grandparents labour movement to overcome those dreadfull working conditions. However that was then this is now. With todays health and safety regulations, employment law, human rights and all the other governmnt restrictions, heavy industry is never going to come back here, not unless there was total collapse of the economy and famine, not unlike Ireland in the 1840's. We can see that people here in Middlesbro have become so dependent on state jobs that they just can't comprehend where else the jobs can come come. Now each one of us really can make or provide a service that is of value to others around us if we have to. The problem is having to comply with all the regulations, red tape and government requirements, which sometimes can be a nightmare. so much so that its easier for us just to sit and winge about there not being any jobs provided for us!

Sion

In view of the debates raging on Rod's other blogs, of what are these 'northerners' supposed to be the 'northern' inhabitants of?

Lungfish

Agreed Chris

Lupus Lungfish

Bollacks Toby

Clear Memories

Liddle, you really are a prat. The Biased Bollox Corp. lead the world in twisting and distorting any message emanating from a basically white, male, anglo-saxon standpoint.

Every programme is made from a left-wing socialist standpoint and its been going on for years - I remember throwing things at the TV when Casualty was on when Thatcher was in power(and the same rubbish is still be broadcast 30 years later!)

Every commentator is a champagne socialist (deep down) Every location for Question Time is chosen from the socialist standpoint, every panel loaded with leftards - they even let Ricky Tomlinson on, a thug jailed for violence on the picket line who takes his own brown ale to the 'Green Rooms' to prove his working class credentials.

But sadly for them, the internet allows people who look to see the truth, it allows the development of sites like Biased BBC and Guy Fawkes (amongst others) who highlight the lies and distortion that are the day-to-day diet of the sheeple.

They even got rid of you, no doubt because you weren't left ie enough (or wouldn't you buy your fair share of the champers)

Toby Erasmus of Rotterdam Forward

Oh, Geert Wilders! Yes, you're certainly that, Nicholas. You think you're worth stalking? Review, mate. Review.

Eddie

It seems to me that there would be plenty of cash to support and invest in all the regions (the north, Wales, the midlands, the southwest), if only we could stop chucking away foreign aid money to those growing economies in India and China! Perhaps we could also get serious about limiting immigration and removing illegal immigrants too? Perhaps also sort out the EU to stop it wasting our cash on subsidising French farmers?

Perhaps we could also end the absurdity of massive spending on 'diversity' in all its diverse and vibrant forms...

Has anyone worked out how much all those Urdu translators and Diwali parades and Black history months cost this country? I am no accountant, happily...but I just wonder if anyone's even done an audit?

David Booth

David Ossitt-
You are spot on with your comments. That woman Christine Blow wriggled, squirmed and rambled on to prevent details of her letter being read out and Dimbo just colluded with her.
If "Our BBC" wants to broadcast QT from locations around the country to maintain geographical balance then the block booking of tickets by vocal minorities should be discouraged. This could easily be achieved by limiting tickets to 2 per application and posting them only to addresses with relevant post codes around the designated area from where QT is to be broadcast from.

Toby Smauel Johnson Forward

Bollacks? What's that?

Nicholas

@ Weird Toby

Worth stalking? Apparently so. You're doing a pretty good job of always commenting only on my comments with a different (and silly) pseudonym every time you do, and apparently thinking you know me, you weirdo.

Geert Wilders? Missing the point I think.

Here's an idea, try commenting on the blog post instead of fixating on me.

Sion

Eddie, why is that so often that apologists for the maintenance of Britishness in Wales, citing socialism, are able also so inconsistently to harbour virulent right-wing prejudices?

Gaz

The two constants on QT are the anti-American bias and the strange make up of the audience.
I can only assume they are playing to their core audience?
I watch it every week, but for entertainment rather than insight.
I feel David Dimbleby is to blame. He has drifted off into a state of Graham Norton narcissism.
The BBC now has more in common with the average student union activist than the average British citizen.

Paddy

I'm sick of hearing Polly Toynbee saying she doesn't need the cold weather payments.

If she doesn't need them why doesn't she give them to someone who does.

She sits there with that 'pained' expression on her face as though she understands what people are going through.

Such a hypocrite!

And the frightening thing is she looks and sounds quite normal.

Osred

I remember last year on a QT from Reading seeing my then local Labour councillor in the front row and thinking, WTF is HE doing there? He represents a Walthamstow, East London ward and its a hell of an awkward drive to get there and back.

Ali C

Wrinkled weasel's comment made me laugh so much I almost inhaled a mini-courgette.

The bbc is unwatchable if you have any sense of bias. All my lefty mates from North London comment on it and they believe all that crap. Hammond was not totally strong, but he was hammered unfairly by an 'invited' audience. invited, one thinks, but some lefty research troll. I'll get my coat.

Pimp my Whippet

Just go to the QT site and click to apply for a studio audience seat.

Among the questions - there are few but there's this: "What is your view on the War in Afghanistan?"

If you're seriously wanting a ticket, your answer had better include phrases such as: 'US industrial military complex/third world subjugation/warmonger Bush/it's all about the oil'

What do you mean no oil in Afghanistan? OK,lapis lazuli then. Look do you want a sodding ticket or not?

Old Slaughter

The post 9-11 edition of QT was one of the more shameful things I have ever seen. Truly disgusting.

The BBC is not above such things and of course the choice of venuewas deliberate. But that does not indicate political bias as much as ratings seeking.

maddy1

How can God's own Broadcasting company be biased, please befair?

Toby Adler Forward

Nicholas, I think your Messiah complex is getting out of hand. Check your arithmetic and check my comment above your last, you nonce.

John P Reid

Its the government who's in at the time takes the blame for Public anger at the state,Labour took more blame for the expences scandal as a whole but excluding the 3 currently facing court, Most of the immoral claims were by Tories for having their ponds cleaned etc,some ways I find it odd that people criticse BBC bias when it was they who played Gordon Brown calling Mrs Duffy a bigot,Although the BBC is clearly bias towards Palestine,Republicanism in Northern Ireland,Clearly making points about the chilean miners bieng in Pits while reporting Mrs Thastcher in Hospital or anti the police,I imagine if Che Guevara or Genghis Khan were both on Question Time, there would be those saying 'left wing bias' as the audience Heckled Khan And cheered Guevara.

DougS

Ayresome Angel
October 23rd, 2010 4:42pm

"Please spell Middlesbrough correctly you ignoramus soft southerners!"

And Teesside!

The biased QT audience is almost a given. More than half of the public are sceptical about (man-made) 'Global Warming' but you'd be lucky to find two people in the audience with that view - and they certainly wouldn't be allowed to ask an awkward question.

I noticed that Caroline Lucas was on the programme - AGAIN - and she managed to squeeze 'climate change' worries into her usual list complaints.

Private Schultz

@ Archibald - point 2

Yes, fair enough for one week, but the next two programmes, announced at the end, will be in Glasgow and Sheffield...!

I'm afraid I'm one of those that has given up on QT - just caught the end when tuning in for This Week, the antidote to Beeb panel shows.

David Bouvier

A friend of mine working on a pre-election QT production (a few elections back) with a supposedly balanced audience was doing the pre-programme warm-up with them. He started to suggest that they look at voting intention by show of hands - only for the produce to jump in and stop him. I wonder what they were worried about.

Archibald

Perhaps Rod would be good enough to request someone from the BBC answer your concerns here.

In the meantime, rather than getting consumed by paranoia, the best bet would be to bring out the big guns next round. I'm guessing Clegg will be doing Sheffield, he can impress everyone by being old enough to smoke.

David Ossitt

Toby please do not call Nicholas a nonce, such language is rude, offensive and is in no way warranted.

Nicholas

David Bouvier - interesting. I can recall Dimblebore anxiously stopping this from happening too and quickly moving on when it was suggested in a pre-election programme.

Timac

As someone with Northern Heritage, I am deeply offended by your suggestion that our pies are interminable. When we run out of pies, there's always pork scratchings. I have made a complaint to The Pie Standards agency and the have informed the pork scratchings council that you have defamed their industry by not mentioning their important role in keeping northerners like my family fat and pasty.

And since you obviously don't know any northerners or have ever visited the north you are clearly a biased London liberal. you didn't even know that moaning is a dialect of our language. You even mis-spelt your title. It's spelt Beeebeeeseeey. Racist

Hepworth

Is the BBC biased?
Don't be silly.
The BBC are totally impartial.
As my first witness I call Mr Nicolas Griffin.

skydog

Look Rod, if us oop nawf are out of work how TF are we to feed the whippets and ferrets? We already ate the kids last winter when it was bad. :ob

DG

While you're in the mood to be a waspish git by taking a swing at t'whippet chasing Northeners, Rodders, perhaps you could also lob a well-aimed bowl of muesli at the Greens' Caroline Lucas?

The fragrant Ms Lucas has been on so many times she must be second only to Dimmers.

All that and she represents, oh, um, ONE seat at Westminster, who polled fewer votes than Ukip.

Green bias, anyone?

dougS

Timac
October 25th, 2010 3:34pm

and:

skydog
October 25th, 2010 6:36pm

Great stuff!

Baron

for any courageous traveller from the south to the distant land of Timac’s lardy scratching delicacies the Highway Agency helpfully provides road signs saying ‘The North’, in my book a mysterious place full of drowning polar bears, an incomprehensibly primitive sounds, and an acute shortage of cooked meals. Not a place for any human being to live in surely.

and another thing: if only we had Mao in charge he would know what should be done with the BBC fruitcakes – exterminate or re-educate through labour.

DougS

@Timac

No doubt you'll be as surprised as me to hear that both the Pie Standards Agency and the Pork Scratchings Council are due to be axed by the coalition!

There are plenty of Quangos that we can do without, such as the BBC, but to axe the PSA and the PSC is a step too far.

I'm devastated!

Airey Belvoir

Anyone doubting the political leanings of Chairman Dimbleby should look at the clip of him being 'controlled' by Harriet Harman,who, with just a warning hand placed on his arm, got him to cut off Ian Duncan-Smith who was making some points unwelcome to her.

Ronnie

It's time the whole thing was handed over to Murdoch. Then we can finally get some adult, balanced programming

Stuart Seacole Smith

@ Doug S: thank heavens you've brought the plight of the PSA and PSC to light. I had hitherto been a fairly indiscriminate bonfire of the quangos man, but things can go too far. I say keep those two, but scrap all the others! Unless there're any quangos with something to do with marmite or marmalade, in which case they should be kept too. But that's it!

John Holland

Ronnie- I assume (hope) that's a joke.

Lee Jakeman

You're missing the point, Rod. The bias was in the fact that the BBC deliberately chose Middlesbrough in the hope that Philip Hammond WOULD get a hostile reception.

Lungfish

Stuart and Doug, do you remember the good old days before the National Pie Board and Presbyterian Mutual Society for the Advancement of Pasties were amalgamated to form the PSA?. Pork Scratching technology was in its infancy back then.

Y bonheddwr Huw Jones

Not just happy at slagging off the people of Wales, now you have a go at northern people what a bastard you are!!!

Lungfish

Huw, he is a northerner you complete goon.

Diomalco

The BBC's bias towards the left politicallly doesn't appear to be very efficient at opinion forming since the Conservatives are now the government albeit with the LibDems.

Stuart Seacole Smith

Huw! ...Sock! Now!

Lungfish: ah yes, those were the days when just any happy go lucky chappie could start a publicly funded quangoid foodstuff body in their garage. Salad days - but don't even get me started on what happened with the Salad Advancement Council and the Homebased Rodent Foods Authority... it was all so unjust!

Y Bonheddwr Huw Jones

lungfish Cer i,r grafu!! wne di! cymro wyf i! o,r dde

Lungfish

Huw- have your balls just dropped or something?

Timac

Do not be fooled!!

I have met Huw before and he is an agent provocatuer from the WRAPL (Welsh Rarebit Anti-Pie League) which in turn is a splinter group of HAHA (Half and Half Alliance). He is here to undermine imprtant Northern issues of Pie Standards. Go back to your own thread or I shall report you to the NWMSUS (North-Wales Merseyside Unification Society)

Sion

Timac, Hahahaha, of all the comments I've read on this site, yours is the one that has made me laugh the most!(genuinely so)

DougS

@Lungfish
October 27th, 2010 11:01am

I remember it so well. Of course pie and pastie consumption was at its zenith and many MP's were sponsored by the main manufacturers. I think John Prescott was one!

Halcyon days indeed.

Dan

Erm, what 'cuts'? I do wish the media would wake up on this one.

DougS

Nobody's mentioned the great northern pork scratching (PS) scandal from the eighties. Probably too tender a subject!

In the early days, when PS were new to the table, the International Pork-scratchings Conservation Council (IPCC) used a graph to show that PS consumption was on the rapidly-rising part of an exponential graph.

This was initially hailed as conclusive proof that PS was 'a goer'.

However, it was later exposed as a fraud by two Canadian analysts and became known as the Great Pork ScratchingsGate Scandal.

Books were written about it - the most famous being 'The Pork Scratchings Expo. Graph Illusion' by The Rt Reverend Bishop Hill - a best-seller in Middlesbrough.

Lungfish

It doesn't make good copy Dan.

Lungfish

Timac- Whatever you do don't mention the British Bap Corporation. Is it a bap or a cob?-When in north Wales, order a bacon bap. When in Derby its a bacon cob.
I did throw up quite badly after those cockles at pwhelli Butlins in 1976- it was the bloody waltzers. I can't quite understand this hatred for us English from the welsh minority that have poked their heads above the parapet. I regard North Wales as a refuge from the madness and go there all the time. Yacky dar

lungfish

Rod, its not the Welsh that are the problem, its the sad minority welsh master race viking throw back deviants that are the problem- not that they amount to much. Although they have mastered pebble dashing.

Alexandrovich

Y Bonheddwr Huw Jones: I'm sure it's my loss, not being able to speak Welsh. I speak Russian, English, French and Italian only, so tried Babelfish Translator.
It has quite an array of languages - Polish, Korean etc apart from the more common ones but, unfortunately, not Welsh.
Perhaps you can point me in the direction of an online translator, unless your comments are only aimed at other Welsh speakers.

E Hart

Don't bother with this idiocy.

Hammond might get a fairer hearing in Runnymede & Weybridge but before long he and the coalition will be asked to return to their constituencies and prepare to form HM's opposition.

When 45% of Middlesbrough's working population is employed by the state and that state intends to cut a third of the workforce, what do you expect? Add to that retailers, service, construction and maintenance companies, which benefit directly from the public sector and before this pans out Boro is going to look like a scene from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

How out of touch can you be? Maybe Philip Hammond is just too unworldly to be let loose on the British people.

rod liddle

Um...........this was a dig at Hammond, not people from Middlesbrough. I think most people got that. Obviously, the Welsh nutters didn't.

Andy Gill

QT these days is almost unwatchable. The failure to reflect the spectrum of political views, and the stacked audience are distasteful, and Dimbleby has become an annoyance with his constant smarmy interruptions.

Let's give someone else a go as Chairman.

Trevors Den

Middlesbrough is another example of socialist failure. As a snapshot of Britain it is hardly representative - it is small in area but heavily urbanised.

As a native of Wigan I can tell you all that nobody knows more about pies, their virtues vices and secret habits, than me.

Y bonheddwr Huw Jones

I thought Liddle was a cheap and supermarket with no class or style lol

rod liddle

Can you write "lol" in your own language next time, you thick Welsh idiot? "Lwl"?

Archibald

That's not fair Rod, the poor chap isn't even able to write in his first language, English.

Archibald

Welsh wits,
Can I offer some constructive criticism on your Liddle/Lidl joke.

This only works (if it works at all) as a verbal joke. When written down, the two are so clearly different that it literally makes no sense at all. People reading it will wonder how you could possibly make this mix up, and at best be a bit confused, thinking, "I don't get it, the two are so obviously different, how are they getting mixed up?"

Here's an example of how a written joke might work:
"Can you help me out, my friend and I are enjoying a biscuit, but are having an argument about how to pronounce the brand of biscuit called NICE. I say it's nice, but he is adamant that it's nice."
"I'm afraid your friend is right, it is nice."
In this case, the reader doesn't know how nice is being pronounced in any of the cases it is used, and so it works. It's not a classic, but it works.

Further to this fundamental flaw, very few readers on the Spectator site will have heard of Lidl as a store, adding to the confusion. The store's location policy is based on finding the most deprived areas of the country where the feckless and hopeless locals can stock up on cheap booze, pot noodles and label-less tins from the bargain bucket. That is to say, Wales.

I hope this helps.

Sion

Sorry to have to correct you Rod, but 'Lol' is a well established Welsh word, in use long before texting, meaning buffoonery, foolishness. Check it out.

rod liddle

Yes but he didn't mean that, did he Sion?

Sion

I'm sorry JDWC, but the whole lesson of the 30's is that you cannot afford to disregard discourses which are at first seemingly inoculate, from their potential to create great social harm if left to fester and become established acceptable views. This is especially true when pertaining to issues to do with race, racial physical appearance , sexual habits, language and identity, which are the things Rod has sought too characature on this blog.

Marcher Baron

"The corporation is being accused of “bias” because last week’s show came from Middlesbrough" Funny, I thought it was being accused of bias because its invited audience wasn't balanced as usual.

Sion

Sorry Rod, last post on wrong blog.

With regard to 'lol'- for speakers of our despised tongue, it is obviously read as an English abbreviation at the end of a text, but cannot also but be understood as meaning a 'nonsense', or as a prompt to laughter- so in that sense its lettering or use cannot be derided as much as your clever comment might at first suggest. Understand?

Lungfish

Ballocks Toby

Sion

Damn the small windows you give us to write on this thing!

Comment should have read '...the whole lesson of the 30's is that you cannot afford to disregard or disassociate discourses which are at first seemingly innocuous, from their potential to create great social harm if left to fester and become established acceptable views...

Y Bonheddwr Huw Jones

Mae,r saeson fel Rod Liddle yn ffycin dwp iawn iawn!!

Y Bonheddwr Huw Jones

Archibald cau dy ben! wne di os gwelwch yn dda?
Mae,r saeson fel ti yn dwp iawn iawn, does dim brens da saeson fel ti oes e?

WetherspoonThree

I have read in today's Daily Telegraph, that John Simpson, the veteran BBC reporter, regards the recent licence fee settlement as amounting to 'water-boarding' torture by the Government. This is strange analogy to make.
Where does this feeling of entitlement come from? I find it curious that a reporter should be so divorced from reality that they are seemingly oblivious to the national mood. Of course there are aspects of the BBC which are excellent and for which we should all be proud. But there are also many examples of waste, over-inflated salaries and other perks which frankly I find offensive and quite unjustifiable. John, and your colleagues, please smell the coffee before its too late..