Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sitting in silence

There are times you run across stories and wonder if they've been made up, or if it's just the editorial slant, bit like the BBC never bigging the Tories up. However, whichever way I look at this I have to wonder if the political leaders have lost their marbles or their balls.

News of the World.

GORDON Brown's live TV showdown with David Cameron could go ahead with the studio audience sitting in SILENCE.

The two leaders are demanding a BAN on questions from the floor for fear of being ambushed by rival party members.
And fed-up telly chiefs may be forced to agree to the dumb idea - after weeks of wrangling over which voters will be let in to watch the historic General Elect-sh-h-h-ion face-off.
It would mean the audience being denied the chance to quiz the men who are running for power. Or even applaud when they make a good point.
The PM wants the audience packed with almost twice as many Labour supporters as Tories, to reflect his Commons majority.
But furious Mr Cameron is insisting there should be more of his followers as he is well ahead in the polls.
Broadcasters fear the wrangling could derail Britain's first TV leaders' debate.
Now setting aside the NotW tendency for aggravated molehill aggrandising, this story does not reflect well on either of the two leaders, they come across as a pair of prima donnas , I mean afraid that a plant in the audience might throw an awkward question? Wanting more of your supporters in the audience because it reflects the commons? No applause for making a good point?
The whole point of this "debate" was to allow the leaders to have their say and face questions from their employers (that would be you and I in theory) instead what we have is a set of calculated fear driven motivations to avoid looking bad whilst making your opponent look bad/unrepresentative. They seem to forget that this is a PUBLIC debate, not a Parliamentary point scoring exercise like Prime Ministers questions. The public want to be involved, that was the whole point, we can ask awkward questions, we don't tolerate waffle, we can come out with get to the point and stop avoiding the issue. We can even call them a liar to their face and force them to defend themselves unprotected by parliamentary protocol.

I honestly don't know why they agreed to this, bearing in mind that they don't like giving a straight answer to any question, it's not like they ever wanted to face us just in case we show them up for the petty scheming liars they most assuredly are.

11 annotations:

Anonymous said...

This goes to show how stage-managed British politics is. Evidently, debate has less to do with the proceedings than PR.

How sickening, but how typical.

Good spot, Quiet Man.

JuliaM said...

"...I have to wonder if the political leaders have lost their marbles or their balls."

Aren't you sort of asuming that they possessed such things in the first place?

GoodnightVienna said...

Incredible! I don't often get around to reading the NotW so I'm sorry I missed this one - I'm linking instead.

Furor Teutonicus said...

It is live. HOW are they going to stop the applause?

Rows of batton wielding idiots, built like bears, but with "L" and "R" on their respective shoes, and wearing snazzy brown shirts?

Send the entire audience to "the naughty step"?

JohnRS said...

It will end up with an audience of crash test dummies each wearing a party rosette (number of each colour rosette to be decided after further discussions beteween the parties).

Canned applause will be provided at the end of every answer (length and loudness of applause to be decided after further discussions beteween the parties).

Meanwhile the public will have "gone down the pub".

English Pensioner said...

As I've said elsewhere, we should have an audience of members of other parties, say Lib Dems, UKIP and perhaps even BNP.
That would make it interesting; otherwise there are unlikely to be any questions about the EU or emigration. Oh and we need some climate-change sceptics in the audience, I'll volunteer!

James Higham said...

The two leaders are demanding a BAN on questions from the floor for fear of being ambushed by rival party members.

The key sign of why not to vote for these.

Sue said...

If I were in the audience, I don't think I could help but say something. Why have an audience at all?

Anonymous said...

Awesome. It shows what kind of real men our leaders are...

They fear nothing.... except being ambushed by the people who pay their wages.

Lord help us when they come to negociate with foreign leaders, but then of course they are only dealing with Britian in that situation. Here they are dealing with their salaries, perks and position. Much more important.

I hope it does derail them.... we need netiehr of them as out leader

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX Awesome. It shows what kind of real men our leaders are...XX

"Our leaders"?

Speak for yourself.

Furor Teutonicus said...

No on "leads" me...they HAVE tried. :-))