Dimbleby's Leaving Question Time.

[hondated]

Re Thread watched and attended QT in the era of Robin Day and it was a definitely harder hitting programme but in fairness Social Media did not exist in those days.

Slighty off thread. DD lives near me in Eastbourne and apparently he went into his local bank and for whatever reason the young teller needed some form of identity from him which he did not have. The story goes that those queuing behind him looked at each other and whispered but its DD.
The best part of the story is he didn't say " do you know who I am" but instead walked out with a smile on his face.
If true sounds like a nice fella to me.

[661-Pete]

Regarding QT - not in my list of 'must-see's I'm afraid: in fact I don't think I've ever watched a programme through to the end. I suppose, like a lot of folks, I'm getting weary of politico's and other celebs spouting forth about what they think they know best about....

Not so with Any Questions? on the wireless (sic) when I was a kid. It was a fixture in our family, my parents were addicted to it so we had to have it on right through Sunday lunch. I suppose I got to like it back in those days (who else remembers the immaculate Freddie Grisewood?), even if some of the politics were a bit beyond me in my more tender years.

I remember when FG retired and David ("Juke Box Jury") Jacobs took over - he was in my view an utter disaster in the role, he couldn't carry the audience and lost most of the listeners' empathy. He should have stuck with his Top Twenty. That was probably the time I stopped listening to AQ?. And maybe why I never got started with watching QT.

[Cyril Haearn]

False memory syndrome? I remember aq on the radio being good too mind, especially the short surprise questions where they had to think quickly and sometimes succeded

qt seems long-winded and predictable to me, the same arguments one knows so well

Nothing to beat ISIHAC with OSTTTOA mind, and Radio Active of course

[Ben@Forest]

To believe that climate change has generally negative outcomes doesn't exclude the possibility of some positive ones. But in this climate (no pun intended), Monbiot might be worried that to acknowledge as much would invite a BP press release: "Top Environmentalist agrees that burning fossil fuel is good for Scottish olive growers".

Like it.

[661-Pete]

Nothing to beat ISIHAC with OSTTTOA mind, and Radio Active of course

Who else remembers "Week Ending"? Those delicious parodies on Idi Amin (not so 'delicious' now, perhaps, knowing his criminal record)? And of course the round-up: "And here is next week's news"...

Back on to more serious stuff. I've just cast an eye over this, and in particular these words:

Question Time now has the capacity to turn civilians into semi-celebrities overnight. There was the “I want my country back” woman of 2016, and the man who memorably asked the panel if they “watched the internet?” in a debate about refugees.

If these stories are true, and if the individuals mentioned actually existed, more-than-ample confirming evidence that QT should be consigned to history - full stop. Once single-minded bigots are accorded a platform to disseminate their racist and populist trash to an audience of possibly millions, Democracy is Indeed Dead.

Incidentally, I assume that the suggestion about Mary Berry is a joke. I've no doubt that lady is capable of baking the most Exceedingly Good Cakes(TM), but....

[pwa]

Nothing to beat ISIHAC with OSTTTOA mind, and Radio Active of course

Who else remembers "Week Ending"? Those delicious parodies on Idi Amin (not so 'delicious' now, perhaps, knowing his criminal record)? And of course the round-up: "And here is next week's news"...

Back on to more serious stuff. I've just cast an eye over this, and in particular these words:

Question Time now has the capacity to turn civilians into semi-celebrities overnight. There was the “I want my country back” woman of 2016, and the man who memorably asked the panel if they “watched the internet?” in a debate about refugees.

If these stories are true, and if the individuals mentioned actually existed, more-than-ample confirming evidence that QT should be consigned to history - full stop. Once single-minded bigots are accorded a platform to disseminate their racist and populist trash to an audience of possibly millions, Democracy is Indeed Dead.

Incidentally, I assume that the suggestion about Mary Berry is a joke. I've no doubt that lady is capable of baking the most Exceedingly Good Cakes(TM), but....

The whole point of a programme like Question Time is that a wide range of views and opinions are voiced and challenged, in all directions. You may hear stuff you think is rubbish but it is then passed around for others to dissect and you, yourself, as the viewer get to react in your own living room. If you can't handle ill-informed views you can't handle democracy. Do you think ill-informed people should be kept off debate programmes? That sounds very dubious to me. Let them say their piece, then pass it around for others to comment. And allow the viewers to filter as they see fit. That is how democracy operates, not by someone else doing the filtering for us.

[Ben@Forest]

If these stories are true, and if the individuals mentioned actually existed, more-than-ample confirming evidence that QT should be consigned to history - full stop. Once single-minded bigots are accorded a platform to disseminate their racist and populist trash to an audience of possibly millions, Democracy is Indeed Dead.

This is an odd take on democracy. What about single issue campaigns like the proposed closure of A&E services at Kidderminster Hospital in the mid-2000s? The locals voted for a single issue MP twice and QT was run from there, partly I'm sure because of the populist feeling about this single issue. It didn't stop the closure of the A&E though.

[thirdcrank]

I'd suggest that it's television which often cannot handle these things, which is why rather perversely, radio is often so much better.

[661-Pete]

Do you think ill-informed people should be kept off debate programmes? That sounds very dubious to me. Let them say their piece,

I disagree. QT appears to be a platforming programme, with the big difference that those who insinuate themselves into the audience can attain a potential audience of millions. That is the danger. I have far less of a problem with people spouting forth their views on Speakers' Corner or in the pub, however distasteful - because there they can influence at most a few dozen voters.

Would it be 'democratic' if I were to elbow my way into the QT audience, barging aside any bouncers who try to bar my entry*, and then yelling out my political opinions on air? So that I can get this same big audience - and possibly influence this same number of people?

I begin to wonder how in actual fact the Br*****t vote was really lost...

*As if I could!

[Ben@Forest]

I'd suggest that it's television which often cannot handle these things, which is why rather perversely, radio is often so much better.

I don't know if I'd agree. I've been to both QT (TV) and AQ (radio) and at AQ I did feel more that the audience is being preached at - and sometimes at QT the audience member is a local radiologist/ air force officer/ ecologist who really knows what he/she is talking about on that subject. Also of course on the day after AQ you get Any Answers and there are plenty of times when the person on the end of the phone line splutters into meaningless, ill-thought drivel.

[Tangled Metal]

Freedom of speech but only if nobody can hear you!

Democracy but only if you agree with my beliefs!

Screw that! Let the idiots spout their bile on QT. I am confident that I have enough wits about me to filter their comments out at those of racist idiots. If any viewer chooses to listen and agree with them then they're likely to be racist too.

If you want to censor anyone out then censor the political students who come on to spout their immature POVs when really they're just another kid rebelling against their parents. You do know the sort I mean, they're just repeating some political ideology they've just read about for a lecture course there sitting without thinking it through or they just shoe horn it in when it really doesn't quite work.

[reohn2]

The first thing party politicians learn is how to dismiss the question posed and go on to make the point you want to make. If their wordstream is interrupted to try to get them back to the question, then it's something on the lines of "If you'll just let me finish..........." If somebody like Paxo repeats the question umpteen times, they may score a point, but the fact that they did so becomes, well, the point. And that type of tactic is only possible in an interview, rather than "before a studio audience" many of who are only concentrating on the possibility of making their own contribution.

They don't get away with it though. It stands out like a sore thumb when someone sidesteps a question, and the viewers draw their own conclusions.

They do get away withvit though,when a poltrickian is found to be ignorant of the facts or is telling outright porkies they just smile or try to laugh it off.They Admit nothing least of all their ignorance!
It's as TC says they trot out the party blurb and carry on.
Can another tell what the questions were on last week's QT brexit aside?
Thought not, and that's what the politicians are counting on.

To answer the OP,Dimbleby like the show is an irrelevance.

[661-Pete]

Freedom of speech but only if nobody can hear you!

There used to be an old joke circulating (with care!) around the Eastern Bloc at the height of the Cold War:
"In the Soviet Union we have freedom of speech; In Britain you have freedom after speech..."

Screw that! Let the idiots spout their bile on QT. I am confident that I have enough wits about me to filter their comments out at those of racist idiots. If any viewer chooses to listen and agree with them then they're likely to be racist too.

I used to believe that too ... up until 23 June 2016, and again up until 8 November that same year. Then I became not so sure.

[thirdcrank]

If you look at it without party politics but at wider issues of concern, the obsession with a form of balance can reach absurdity.

[pwa]

Do you think ill-informed people should be kept off debate programmes? That sounds very dubious to me. Let them say their piece,

I disagree. QT appears to be a platforming programme, with the big difference that those who insinuate themselves into the audience can attain a potential audience of millions. That is the danger. I have far less of a problem with people spouting forth their views on Speakers' Corner or in the pub, however distasteful - because there they can influence at most a few dozen voters.

Would it be 'democratic' if I were to elbow my way into the QT audience, barging aside any bouncers who try to bar my entry*, and then yelling out my political opinions on air? So that I can get this same big audience - and possibly influence this same number of people?

I begin to wonder how in actual fact the Br*****t vote was really lost...

*As if I could!

Is that what this is about? Replaying the Brexit debate?

As you are a Remainer, ponder this. I believe that it was only the Brexit vote that finally made a lot of very complacent people realise just how disenchanted the UK was with the EU as it operates now. If they had listened a bit more carefully to the level of unhappiness expressed on QT they might have worked a bit harder to correct things and swing the vote the other way. And I include prominent people in Europe, such as Frau Merkel, in that. Complacency and contempt for the concerns of ordinary people. You can blame the Brexit voters and Leave campaigners if you like, but to me that just makes you a conspirator in that complacent refusal to address issues within the EU. QT's failure on that issue was a failure to awaken the complacent to the fact there was a problem and that refusing to tweak the EU was going to lead to the UK leaving.

QT is a place to hear what people are saying. Of course you will get the extremist nutters on all sides, but you can filter that out yourself. I know bigotry when I hear it and I just don't listen to folk who voice it. But then you should listen to, if not agreeing with, moderate voices on different sides of debates. If you would rather just listen to like minded voices find a suitable forum where you can hear the same views echoing endlessly as if there is no alternative. That could be both reassuring and delusional at the same time.