Qt Audience Need A Slap

[The Knimbies who say No]

s'ok - i sometimes forget my sneering sarcasm doesn't always translate on the internet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggXmKPMaHMo

[Guest sillybear2]

I've applied several times and never got on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/1858613.stm

9. If there were a General Election tomorrow, which political party would you be most likely to vote for?

Conservative

Labour

Liberal Democrats

Green

Scottish National

Plaid Cymru

Ulster Unionist

Democratic Unionist

Sinn Fein

Social Democrat & Labour

Alliance

UKIP

Would not vote

Undecided

Other (please state)

Other (please state you racist c**t)

Fixed.

[dissident junk]

Out of interest, how do the Beeb know when dishing out tickets how red, blue or yellow people are? Do they know at all? Do they ask? Has anyone here applied for tickets and been asked?

Even if they do ask, anyone could lie.

If it's a QT in somewhere like Guildford they're presumably going to assume that blues and yellows will dominate, equally in e.g. Southwark they'll assume a load of red.

They ask.

I applied once and got on for a show in Stratford, London. I filled in a form and I think it asked you on that what you normally voted (at the time, I was still very on the left).

Then a woman called me from the show and asked me what kind of party I normally voted for, and what kind of question I would ask the panel. I remember because I wanted to ask about the impact of outsourcing jobs to the subcontinent (this was, maybe, 2003?) and it was obvious by the tone of her voice she had no idea what I was talking about, and didn't think much of my question.

[dissident junk]

Yeah, it's true. The QT audience is often rabidly 'anti'Tory'. I don't say left wing because if Will Self or Ian Hislop tear a strip from the Labour Party they lap it up nonetheless.

Just the usual anti-Thatcher(although they're not clear why exactly) tribal thickos. Half of them weren't even born then by the looks of it.

Everyone knows the BBC is totally biased towards the Conservative Party. It's just Tories that think otherwise.

The strange thing is that the BBC is neither Conservative nor Labour in the traditional sense, and QT makes this very plain. What the BBC convey is a metropolitan, left-liberal, establishment bias that has a certain "wealthy Victorian socially progressive" attitude to politics and current affairs, where there are "causes and campaigns for the poor" but where an eye is always kept on the source of its own wealth, privilege and voice -- they are, in my view, just a bunch of Fabian Mrs Jellabys.

You could see this "left-liberalism" in action in the QT programme a few years ago where they covered the mothballing of Redcar steel works. If the BBC were truly "red" or "old Labour", this should have been a fiery programme, but the way the BBC worked to mute the voice of people who could see what would happen to their area if the mothballing went ahead was atrocious.

I remember the programme because it was one of the final straws for me politically, and in terms of how I saw the establishment and media and political elite.

[BessOfHardwick]

The good news is that the BBC are planning a special HPC Question Time, brilliant eh? At last our voices will be properly heard. In order to get a place, just fill out the form below:

A. How much time do you spend searching the internet for avatars?

i) A few hours every month or so: I think it’s justified to spend some time cruising sites to find that avatar with a bit more individuality, that bit of cultural irony, that says: I loved the Mighty Boosh and read Waiting For Godot in 6th form.

ii) Mere seconds: I just log in to FHM mag and enter “bikini catfight 6” as and when I need a new pic

iii) I make my own: I carefully search the information matrix for high-res pictures I can cut down in Photoshop. I like to find images of Albert Pierrepoint’s “customers” before they were hanged, stills from Godard’s lost final film or unusual hentai featuring girls copulating with fish

B. When you posted that you just got the guns out of the roof space, turned your last belongings into portable gold and were heading for the Highlands in your Utility to await the post-apocalyptic future were you:

i) Waiting in Sainsbury’s car park for your OH to take the trolley back

ii) Picking through the remains of your Chinese, attempting to work out how to reverse that move you just made on Red Dead Redemption, trying to ignore your mother calling up the stairs

iii) On the train to Wolverhampton for that important “in-reach” consultancy seminar

C. When contemplating the rest of humanity’s faults, which of these do you consider the greatest sin:

i) Having children without understanding the first thing about fiscal policy or sovereign debt

ii) Never having had to do any proper work like you have to, since the age of five as you had to

iii) Working in the public sector and not only failing to respond appropriately to your concerned 999 calls about the hordes of feral underclass circling your house silently a la Walking Dead but referring you to a further public sector worker who has now gently taken your shoelaces and belt away

[sleepwello'nights]

As I've said on here before I am left of centre / social democratic etc but not New Labour.

This is at the heart of the housing and budgetary crisis and is all due to the fact that right-wingers cannot stand the state making money when it could be going to a rich person instead.

Couldn't the same argument be applied to Steel making, ship building, airlines, airports and so on. Well we know what happened to the profits they should have made for the state.

What about extending your assertion to retailing, particularly supermarkets. That fits the bill nicely, we all need to purchase food and other basic necessities.

[Austin Allegro]

Why does anyone bother watching QT? It just pushes the BBC/Guardianista worldview and the audience consists of people who are the political equivalent of the zombies in 'Dawn of the Dead', wandering around the shopping mall not knowing why they are there, only this lot just moan about 'Fatcher....Fatcher....' as the cause of all evil...

[pl1]

[Fairies Wear Boots]

I've had arguments with people. You point out that the labour government borrowed and spent for seven years, now we've hit recession we're borrowing 1 in 4 tax dollars ... what is the point of borrowing and spending when we now have to have a period of austerity ... the labour government acknowledged that public spending would have to be curtailed by 70 billion yah di yah di yah. And whatever you say they keep on arguing that it's still nnnnnnnnnnnasty tory cuts.

There were those who wished the labour government would win the last election. So they could clear up their own mess. With the tory government doing things like bottling taking to housing benefit, I'm starting to wish labour did win an extra term.

[@contradevian]

I've had arguments with people. You point out that the labour government borrowed and spent for seven years, now we've hit recession we're borrowing 1 in 4 tax dollars ... what is the point of borrowing and spending when we now have to have a period of austerity ... the labour government acknowledged that public spending would have to be curtailed by 70 billion yah di yah di yah. And whatever you say they keep on arguing that it's still nnnnnnnnnnnasty tory cuts.

There were those who wished the labour government would win the last election. So they could clear up their own mess. With the tory government doing things like bottling taking to housing benefit, I'm starting to wish labour did win an extra term.

I wouldn't worry about it. I think people know what a mess we are in, even if they mutter "evil Tory cuts." Witness the election results where the Tories did pretty good and could possibly win a small majority if an election was called.

I think people let the BBC propaganda wash over them. My hope is the BBC will go over the top and the sheeple will stop listening and watching completely, if they haven't already.

[South Lorne]

The strange thing is that the BBC is neither Conservative nor Labour in the traditional sense, and QT makes this very plain. What the BBC convey is a metropolitan, left-liberal, establishment bias that has a certain "wealthy Victorian socially progressive" attitude to politics and current affairs, where there are "causes and campaigns for the poor" but where an eye is always kept on the source of its own wealth, privilege and voice -- they are, in my view, just a bunch of Fabian Mrs Jellabys.

You could see this "left-liberalism" in action in the QT programme a few years ago where they covered the mothballing of Redcar steel works. If the BBC were truly "red" or "old Labour", this should have been a fiery programme, but the way the BBC worked to mute the voice of people who could see what would happen to their area if the mothballing went ahead was atrocious.

I remember the programme because it was one of the final straws for me politically, and in terms of how I saw the establishment and media and political elite.

...what you are trying to say the BBC is full of over educated trendy pseudo left wing 'intellectuals' whose main concern is that the licence fee keeps going up to ensure they can maintain their champagne socialist frolics...they don't understand as a country we must earn our way in the world and think wealth is created by taxing the public....forgetting how the public must earn their crust in the first place for the country to survive....the days of the BBC in it's present state are numbered....

[Pauly_Boy]

Oh god, this has to be the worst episode i've ever seen and I'm only 15 minutes in on iPlayer.

There is a massive labour bias in the audiance and the way dimbletwat has been attacking the coalition is shocking.

[SpewLabour]

Oh god, this has to be the worst episode i've ever seen and I'm only 15 minutes in on iPlayer.

There is a massive labour bias in the audiance and the way dimbletwat has been attacking the coalition is shocking.

I hadn't watched QT for about 6 months. I made the mistake of indulging in a beer or two and deciding to turn it on the other night. It was the episode just after Bin Laden had been killed. Within 5 minutes I was ranting and hurling beer cans at the TV and decided it was better for my blood pressure to turn it off again.

[Jimmer]

I was in the QT audience a few years back. The numbers are mainly drawn from local party membership lists although 25% or so are left for members of the public to apply for. I mischievously applied under the pseudonym 'Jamal Patel' to give me a better chance in the predominantly white anglo-saxon protestant city of Exeter, and was subsequently rang up by the production company who conducted a brief phone interview ('Who would you vote for at the next election?, 'What do you think of the Iraq War?' etc) and told me when and where to come along. The filming is completed roughly an hour and a half before the broadcast. Everyone submits two questions before filming and the producers decide the ones they will use. It all seemed a pretty open and honest affair, although it was a distinctly uncontroversial episode, featuring such intellectual heavyweights as Ben Bradshaw and Janet Street-Porter.

If you don't like, why don't you just switch off your tv set and go out and do something less boring instead?

[SarahBell]

I

If you don't like, why don't you just switch off your tv set and go out and do something less boring instead?

I did but the bias would still be there.

[@contradevian]

I did but the bias would still be there.

But ineffective if everyone switches off. Let the bias meet static!

I doubt QT pulls in anywhere near the audience of its Robin Day heyday.

[South Lorne]

I was in the QT audience a few years back. The numbers are mainly drawn from local party membership lists although 25% or so are left for members of the public to apply for. I mischievously applied under the pseudonym 'Jamal Patel' to give me a better chance in the predominantly white anglo-saxon protestant city of Exeter, and was subsequently rang up by the production company who conducted a brief phone interview ('Who would you vote for at the next election?, 'What do you think of the Iraq War?' etc) and told me when and where to come along. The filming is completed roughly an hour and a half before the broadcast. Everyone submits two questions before filming and the producers decide the ones they will use. It all seemed a pretty open and honest affair, although it was a distinctly uncontroversial episode, featuring such intellectual heavyweights as Ben Bradshaw and Janet Street-Porter.

If you don't like, why don't you just switch off your tv set and go out and do something less boring instead?

...wonder how many of the others are chancers like you.....?....

[Timil]

I was in the QT audience a few years back. The numbers are mainly drawn from local party membership lists although 25% or so are left for members of the public to apply for. I mischievously applied under the pseudonym 'Jamal Patel' to give me a better chance in the predominantly white anglo-saxon protestant city of Exeter, and was subsequently rang up by the production company who conducted a brief phone interview ('Who would you vote for at the next election?, 'What do you think of the Iraq War?' etc) and told me when and where to come along. The filming is completed roughly an hour and a half before the broadcast. Everyone submits two questions before filming and the producers decide the ones they will use. It all seemed a pretty open and honest affair, although it was a distinctly uncontroversial episode, featuring such intellectual heavyweights as Ben Bradshaw and Janet Street-Porter.

If you don't like, why don't you just switch off your tv set and go out and do something less boring instead?

Agreed with above, once I'd negotiated the brief phone interview question, I was invited to e-mail a question in and bring a topical question on the days events along to the recording session.

Quite a slick operation on the day.

I got to ask the 1st question on the show, and make a contribution to the subsquent debate which surprised me as I kicked the one eye son of the the manse in the Goanads quite hard I thought.

That said there is an undoubted bias.

[Austin Allegro]

...what you are trying to say the BBC is full of over educated trendy pseudo left wing 'intellectuals' whose main concern is that the licence fee keeps going up to ensure they can maintain their champagne socialist frolics...they don't understand as a country we must earn our way in the world and think wealth is created by taxing the public....forgetting how the public must earn their crust in the first place for the country to survive....the days of the BBC in it's present state are numbered....

Spot on - except for the bit in bold. Most lefties I speak to do not even connect national spending with taxes - they seem to think the government just has some bottomless pot of money and that Tories only withhold it out of spite. It's the political equivalent of a five year old who doesn't understand why Mum won't shell out for icecream every time the van comes round.

[ccc]

FOI request done. Made it very clear what I was asking for and how I would like the stats. So no excuses for any delays. And I am 99% sure it will be on some database/excel spreadsheet somewhere. So will be interesting to see what comes of it.

What will we do if we discover they have an regular over exposure to BNP and Tory supporters..

[@contradevian]

Giving QT a miss. Watching Cycling on Freeview C24. Tour Of California!

[enrieb]

The problem with TV shows like QT is that they are not a forum for politics, it's really just theatre. It perpetuates mainstream political dogma, and the illusion of political debate takes place between a very narrow spectrum and within the constraints of concision which limit discussion to conventional thoughts.

You can see more and more political programs going the way of US media political shows, with the pretence of debate between two sides of the same coin. John Stewart explains why US shows like Crossfire fail at holding politicians to account.

[ccc]

FOI request done. Made it very clear what I was asking for and how I would like the stats. So no excuses for any delays. And I am 99% sure it will be on some database/excel spreadsheet somewhere. So will be interesting to see what comes of it.

What will we do if we discover they have an regular over exposure to BNP and Tory supporters..

Shock horror.

"The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you and will not be doing so on this occasion. Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters is only covered by the Act if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. The BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities"

Although what they have admitted - by this very refusal - is that the political make up of the QT audience is for 'Creative activities'.

[South Lorne]

Shock horror.

"The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you and will not be doing so on this occasion. Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters is only covered by the Act if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. The BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities"

Although what they have admitted - by this very refusal - is that the political make up of the QT audience is for 'Creative activities'.

.....we own the BBC ..and this serving rubbish should be smashed...whoever uttered such jargon should be sacked now....

[Blod]

Shock horror.

"The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you and will not be doing so on this occasion. Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters is only covered by the Act if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. The BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities"

Although what they have admitted - by this very refusal - is that the political make up of the QT audience is for 'Creative activities'.

The BBC should list QT as such on the Iplayer, instead of "news, factual, politics"

We should ask for their definition of what constitutes "news, factual, politics", it might be interesting.