BBC licence fee

[Gabriel]

But no previous party in power has been as threatening towards it as this one.
You are setting up a false equivalence argument to justify the extreme actions of this government.

I’m doing no such thing. I’m not justifying anything it’s doing; I think the licence fee should be kept, increased even.

However, we have a situation in the UK now where all sides of the political debate cry ‘unfair’ when their leaders get what they interpret as hard questions/imbalanced treatment. That has led to a situation where we have a prime minister who was empty chaired and avoided any rigorous scrutiny, and broadcasters feel compelled to give politicians an easy ride. We are all responsible for that and should want all our masters’ feet held to the fire.

 

[xgorton]

I haven't paid the BBC nonce funding licence for 3 years now, and counting...

10 year's and the coonts can fuck off.

 

[BlueMoonRisin’]

Are they still funding nonces or is this retrospective offence you have?

I don't know but i know they were, and there's plenty of nonces on their list of shame. I don't watch live BBC anyway in my house and i declared to them I don't watch BBC live broadcasts, so I'm exempt from paying towards the British Broadcast Corruption fund.

 

[BobKowalski]

Taking everything into account, I like the BBC.

It’s a shame we will end up destroying it, but destroying things is pretty much our answer to everything these days.

 

[Idesofmarch69]

10 year's and the coonts can fuck off.

But you listen to 5Live. So it's okay but someone else can pay for it.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Are they still funding nonces or is this retrospective offence you have?

To be fair, how would you know? We didn't know the last time it happened. And I say "we" like I was paying the licence fee back then.

 

[xgorton]

But you listen to 5Live. So it's okay but someone else can pay for it.

5Live, wouldn't even know what wavelength it's on.

 

[Idesofmarch69]

5Live, wouldn't even know what wavelength it's on.

5Live, wouldn't even know what wavelength it's on.

I would refer the honourable gentleman to one of his earlier posts.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

She arguably did the same with Oliver Dowden. He played the straight bat to everything but she kept bowling the same delivery. She appears timid and looks like someone trying not to offend so as to be given the position full time.

It’s a bit of an indictment of the state of political interviewing in the UK that neither Morgan nor Neil are employable by the BBC. I’m perfectly capable of dividing their personal politics from their interviewing technique, yet both would be capable of giving Davey, Johnson, Starmer, Sturgeon et al.a tougher ride than Marr or Raworth. When the electorate allow their politicians to evade a proper grilling (and that includes shunning Radio 4), they end up with a culture of insipid and repetitive questioning, and that’s unhealthy for the country’s democracy.

Andrew Neil's reputation is a bit of a myth, without the teams of researchers he is a tame puppy in comparison. One of the reasons he struggled at GB news.

There are plenty of adversarial interviewers at the BBC on less prominent shows, Sackur on Hardtalk is just one example.

Trouble is the ministers won't turn up to the interview if you regularly use that style of questioning on prominent slots.

 

[Gabriel]

Andrew Neil's reputation is a bit of a myth, without the teams of researchers he is a tame puppy in comparison. One of the reasons he struggled at GB news.

There are plenty of adversarial interviewers at the BBC on less prominent shows, Sackur on Hardtalk is just one example.

Trouble is the ministers won't turn up to the interview if you regularly use that style of questioning on prominent slots.

Never seen GB News so couldn’t comment, but I’ve seen him take enough politicians apart from all parties to judge his astuteness. He’s a careful listener and knows how and when to turn the screw. I agree about Sackur but the problem is we now have a range of benign interviewers because we’ve allowed our politicians to cherrypick where they’ll appear. The media outlets then accept serving up blancmange so as to fill the schedule. Poor fare.