Dimbleby's Leaving Question Time.

[Ben@Forest]

I don't doubt for one minute that Dimbleby is extremely professional in chairing the programme within what the BBC want and that he has immense stamina to be still doing it at nearly 80 years of age. But the fact remains that the programme, presenter, majority of panelists and audience do next to nothing in promoting thought provoking debate and solutions to important issues.

Frankly for a programme that is called 'Question Time' the real issue is not answering the questions. Everyone who wants to gets to submit a question and mine was one to be chosen. I delivered the question when required and Dimbleby threw it to George Monbiot first. He didn't answer the question - after which none of the other panellists did either.

[pwa]

David Dimbleby typifies the pro Establishment figure the BBC always use for these programmes.

Question Time has long since become an irrelevance with its recurring group of panelists who are mainly a 'gravy train' of egocentric self publicists and never stray from the establishment line. Even the hand-picked audiences are tedious and boring. The programme either needs a total revamp and revised format with issues, panelists and audiences who discuss and debate proper radical solutions to the important issues or it should be scrapped.

Not sure how you do that, though. I'm sure the BEEB are trying to create an audience that reflects a "cross section" of opinion as it exists out there in the real world. Some of that will reflect your opinion, or mine, and some won't, because that is what is out there. Audiences are made up of mouthy people, because those are the people who put themselves forward. Ordinary people don't have the time or the inclination. You want "radical" and not "boring"? So not ordinary people? What's the point in that? Who will watch mouthy, radical activists, who tend to be egocentric anyway? Just another way of being divorced from reality.

The Dimbleby role is one for someone who can welcome all shades of opinion in a relaxed manner (which he does well), and I expect there are others who can do it.

Question Time is a useful format because it exposes strands of opinion to a booing and cheering audience and allows us to test ideas current at the moment. Nobody will like every opinion voiced, and that isn't the intention. But without it we have what? PMQs?

I think your view and comments exactly illustrate my points. ''Everything is ok' as long as the breadth of opinions, questions and answers conform to 'establishment norms'. I don't doubt for one minute that Dimbleby is extremely professional in chairing the programme within what the BBC want and that he has immense stamina to be still doing it at nearly 80 years of age. But the fact remains that the programme, presenter, majority of panelists and audience do next to nothing in promoting thought provoking debate and solutions to important issues.

I'm not sure the UK public want to be provoked by ideas any more radical than QT already exposes them to. If QT has a brief it must be to put forward the questions a lot of people are asking at home. And that does mean a fairly mainstream range of viewpoints, not stuff at the extremes. If anything I think QT audiences are, perhaps inevitably, unrepresentative in that to fancy putting yourself forward to be in the audience you are already a member of a minority who are engaged to an unusual degree. Likewise the panel. The views that are hard to access are those of ordinary folk who would sooner stay at home after a hard day at work.

[PDQ Mobile]

Not sure how you do that, though. I'm sure the BEEB are trying to create an audience that reflects a "cross section" of opinion as it exists out there in the real world. Some of that will reflect your opinion, or mine, and some won't, because that is what is out there. Audiences are made up of mouthy people, because those are the people who put themselves forward. Ordinary people don't have the time or the inclination. You want "radical" and not "boring"? So not ordinary people? What's the point in that? Who will watch mouthy, radical activists, who tend to be egocentric anyway? Just another way of being divorced from reality.

The Dimbleby role is one for someone who can welcome all shades of opinion in a relaxed manner (which he does well), and I expect there are others who can do it.

Question Time is a useful format because it exposes strands of opinion to a booing and cheering audience and allows us to test ideas current at the moment. Nobody will like every opinion voiced, and that isn't the intention. But without it we have what? PMQs?

"Mouthy types" seems a bit hard said.
There remain in this country people who are passionate about politics, the environment, social justice, and even cycling!
They go to such an event to participate and promote, in a small way, their cause?

The "ordinary people" you speak of are in some ways more dangerous to our society than the passionate and the radical!
For they will be led to, and follow anything, that gives them a quiet life. Money mostly, I guess, but in terms of a dynamic participating democracy a disaster. Soft putty in the hands of the powerful.

I would guess in any given programme less than 5% (maybe 10?) of the audience say anything anyway!

That the audience is hand picked is no surprise, how much more interesting if it was on a first come first served basis!!! No alcohol to be consumed actually during transmission though!
----/
As to "ideas current at the moment" for myself, that is the programme's biggest weakness.
Much of the content is of the "here today gone tomorrow", type, topical inconsequential stuff, straight out of the day's papers.
Really big complex stuff like "What percentage of the food on your plate is totally fossil fuel dependent" is never aired.

So yes, Dimbleby is sauve and relaxed, but he has become rather too "easy", I think, for such times where criminality is steadily rising and our society becomes ever more disturbed and unequal.

[PDQ Mobile]

Frankly for a programme that is called 'Question Time' the real issue is not answering the questions. Everyone who wants to gets to submit a question and mine was one to be chosen. I delivered the question when required and Dimbleby threw it to George Monbiot first. He didn't answer the question - after which none of the other panellists did either.

Much truth in that.

And at significant risk of thread drift,(I am the OP after all!) a resumé of said unanswerable question perhaps?
I do so like environmental conundrums!

[Ben@Forest]

And at significant risk of thread drift, a resumé of said unanswerable question perhaps?
I do so like environmental conundrums!

It was about a topical issue at the time - a report had just come out saying that with climate change we could grow more C4 crops (better photosynthesis efficiency - look up C3 C4 crops if you want to know more) and that that was a good thing. I can't remember my actual question but was playing devil's advocate and wondering if human-induced climate change was beneficial (not my belief by the way - but a contentious issue!)

[thirdcrank]

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.

[pwa]

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.

[PDQ Mobile]

It was about a topical issue at the time - a report had just come out saying that with climate change we could grow more C4 crops (better photosynthesis efficiency - look up C3 C4 crops if you want to know more) and that that was a good thing. I can't remember my actual question but was playing devil's advocate and wondering if human-induced climate change was beneficial (not my belief by the way - but a contentious issue!)

A conundrum indeed!
Surprised old George didn't offer an opinion!

[Ben@Forest]

It was about a topical issue at the time - a report had just come out saying that with climate change we could grow more C4 crops (better photosynthesis efficiency - look up C3 C4 crops if you want to know more) and that that was a good thing. I can't remember my actual question but was playing devil's advocate and wondering if human-induced climate change was beneficial (not my belief by the way - but a contentious issue!)

A conundrum indeed!
Surprised old George didn't offer an opinion!

He did of course say climate change was a 'bad thing' and gave examples why - but proffered no opinions as to the actual report or its conclusions i.e. that we could grow a greater volume of crops, which might mean greater sustainability, less food miles from imports and so on. I'd have thought he would have had a better handle on that. After him the series of politicians were pretty poor - although it would be harsh to expect them to have an in-depth knowledge of plant biology!

[thirdcrank]

... 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.

I must have been only eight or nine years old when my dear old dad pointed out what they do and I'm not suggesting the rest of society is too stupid to have noticed, but they continue to do it and in doing so get their message out. The trend is to more of the same, as demonstrated by the numbers of students on media studies courses. The message is often couched in weazel words, so the majority hear what they want to hear.

They do say that telly audiences are shrinking and moving to social media, and party politicians have their snecks in there too.

[bovlomov]

He did of course say climate change was a 'bad thing' and gave examples why - but proffered no opinions as to the actual report or its conclusions i.e. that we could grow a greater volume of crops, which might mean greater sustainability, less food miles from imports and so on. I'd have thought he would have had a better handle on that. After him the series of politicians were pretty poor - although it would be harsh to expect them to have an in-depth knowledge of plant biology!

Perhaps the problem here is an attitude that see any concession to the opposite case as weakening one's own. Political discussion, and many other discussions, tend towards the adversarial and polarised (often leading to bad conclusions).

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".

[pwa]

... 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.

I must have been only eight or nine years old when my dear old dad pointed out what they do and I'm not suggesting the rest of society is too stupid to have noticed, but they continue to do it and in doing so get their message out. The trend is to more of the same, as demonstrated by the numbers of students on media studies courses. The message is often couched in weazel words, so the majority hear what they want to hear.

They do say that telly audiences are shrinking and moving to social media, and party politicians have their snecks in there too.

Nothing new about the sidestep. Arthur Scargill was a master of it, always answering the question he thought the interviewer should have asked rather than the one they did ask. And it just convinces audiences that you have something to hide.

[Mick F]

They do say that telly audiences are shrinking and moving to social media ............

Thread drift, but maybe not.
I was chatting to someone the other day and mentioned, "We don't have a telly!" to receive the reply, "d'ya know, there's more and more people saying that these days."

Heard on the news earlier this morning, that the England/Tunisia football match was watched by more people than the royal wedding. Biggest telly audience this year so far. I wonder how that figure compares to the Morecambe and Wise Christmas shows.

[al_yrpal]

Robin Day was good, he could skewer anyone and show up hypocrites. My choice would be Paxman, Andrew Neil is too Tory. Dimbledoom has lost the plot these days. Dream scenario would be Paxman and Dianne Abbot. I fear they may choose a suboptimum person on the basis of political correctness.

A rotating Chairman like on HIGNFY would also be excellent.

Al

[Cyril Haearn]

The new chairperson (moderator?) should be female