It might have been thought that Question Time, the BBC’s supposedly flagship political discussion format, could not sink any lower after a series of recent, shall we say, unfortunate incidents. But after the Tory plants, dodgy statistics, and even more dodgy panellists, whoever books pundits for the show decided to top all of that.
The result was that yesterday evening’s offering gave a platform to one Tom Harwood. Who he? Harwood is not just any right-wing hot air dispenser - he is the replacement teaboy at the Guido Fawkes blog. Yes, the BBC invited a peddler of borderline Fake News onto their flagship politics show. The reaction was entirely predictable.
And the feedback contains what the official BBC announcer would call “Strong language from the start”: “who is this tom harwood wanker please??” … “Let's face it, Tom Harwood wouldn't even be on #bbcqt if it wasn't a right-wing propaganda machine. Who does he think he is?” … "Every single member of the #QuestionTime panel looking at Tom Harwood like - WHAT?” And there was more. Rather a lot more.
“Question … what does Tom Harwood have that makes him qualified to stand on Question Time? He's not a serious journalist, he's just a snot-nosed brat on a Right-Whingers blogging site” … “The fact we have people like Tom Harwood on question time shows how low this country has sunk. Surely it starts getting better soon?” [Ron Hopeful there] … “You can definitely tell what Tom Harwood is going to look like at 80 years old when he’s standing in the street shouting at nothing”. And on it went.
“Think Tom Harwood may be the most irritating panelist in the history of Question Time” … “This Tom Harwood might be the biggest cunt that has ever been on question time and it’s a long list” … “I have to turn you off now before I smash my tv. Tom Harwood is a horrible obnoxious wanker”. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point.
Could it get worse? Best not ask: “Crikey this Tom Harwood guy is [an] odious far right little fuck wit” …”Please somebody delete Tom Harwood's details from the Question Time guest database” … “Tom Harwood on Question Time. How do you get to be so bitter so young?” … “Never heard of Tom Harwood before tonight, but he’s reaffirm why watching Question Time in the past 12mths is no longer on my agenda”. It was bad. Seriously bad.
Mark Taggart summed it all up: “Typically dreadful Question Time with Tom Harwood, an absolute nonentity, being this week's BBC choice as cheer-leader to the bigoted, cheering, jeering, drown out any opposition Brexit mob. For anyone with a brain the whole show has become utterly unwatchable”. The Beeb should have thought twice about that invite.
Why so? “He's risen through working for an extreme right wing blog which encourages racism in its forums and does things like misrepresents tweets to get people sacked and doxed. He then gets congratulated by BBC journalists and accepted into #bbcqt. The whole thing is sickening”. That’s why. It’s rewarding dishonesty and dirty tricks.
One day the BBC will learn not to get into bed with Fake News merchants like the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble. But by then, it might be too late.
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19 comments:
BBC "News and politic" and its "presenters" are a right wing laughing stock and have been for years.
No free thinker trusts a word coming from that propaganda centre.
Orwell's Ministry of Truth made manifest. Institutional corruption at its most obvious.
Utterly shameful.
I see anyone right of centre should be silenced and not heard heard anywhere. Free speech the liberal progressive way, you can only say what we approve of.
QT and it's audiences have been stuffed with left wing nut jobs for years, but when a right wing one gets on you are suddenly up in arms, that'll be that independent mind again!
Good you agree Harwood is a right wing nutjob. I can only concur.
Leftwing nutjobs like Farage and Tim Martin, eh anon?
"... you can only say what we approve of."
"QT and it's (sic) audiences have been stuffed with left wing nut jobs for years ..."
Nurse !!!
He's projecting again !!!
@ 11:46.
Your second sentence is what is known as a "dichotomy".
You will have to look it up yourself. I can't be arsed.
@anon 11.46.
TBH I'd sooner do without the charmlessly smeared 'nut-jobs' of either wing, although I do agree Staines latest fag (in the public school sense of the word) is an inglorious example. QT has been relentlessly pushing a right wing agenda for years, although it has become more blatant recently, hence the plants in the audience and the otherwise inexplicable megaphone gifted to the talentless farage.
Are these comments both from the same 'Anonymous' ? If so , IT must be a troll , if not so maybe the comments mechanism could mechanise automatic numbering 'Anon1' , 'Anon2' etc .
@11:46 an enabler of racism must always be silenced. There should be free speech for such inflammatory, offensive attitudes. Do you demand hate preachers should be allowed to be heard on account of 'free speech'?
QT has been left wing for years? Yeah, right. That why Nigel Farage or one of his lackies seems to be on it every bloody week is it? Incidentally, it's funny how the BBC continually defend their guests and audiences yet the minute a Muslim called out Boris Johnson during the leader debate they promised to look into their booking policy. Hmmm.
@1 if you reckon Auntie is right wing you must be so far left as to have fallen off the edge of the Free world!
Orwell was showing us the dangers of left wing totalitarianism has expounded daily on this blog, no free thinking here!
BBC QT: A bear-baiting style of late evening entertainment for fans of the Jeremy Kyle Show who haven't slipped into an alcohol-induced coma.
I would agree Mark, yet Sadiq Khan in his time as a director of Liberty and a human rights lawyer tried to get the UK to lift its ban on the American Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has described Jews as ‘blood-suckers’ and called Hitler ‘a very great man’. What does that make him?
@ 16:38.
Plainly you know nothing about Orwell or his most famous work 1984. Or the BBC for that matter.
You really must try harder. But I won't hold my breath.
Anon @16:44, prime whataboutery there. I don't know the case, but if it is true then it makes him an idiot. But you know what, the left doesn't have the monopoly on idiocy you clearly think it has. I reiterate, free speech should not excuse hate speech, yet your original comment about how unfair or wrong it is to silence the right who deal in such discourse still stands up to being challenged on that point.
Anon at 16:56 I agree. I find it highly amusing how the right seem to want to appropriate Orwell for their own aims. Laughable really.
@ 16:44
"Sadiq Khan has admitted representing “unsavoury individuals” as a human rights lawyer after facing questions over alleged links to extremists.
Labour’s mayoral hopeful claimed the views of some of the individuals he had represented during his legal career had made him feel “deeply uncomfortable”.
Among those he has defended were Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, when he tried unsuccessfully to visit the UK.
He also campaigned to prevent the extradition to the US of Babar Ahmed who later pleaded guilty to terrorist offences.
Mr Khan told the Jewish News: “I have never hidden the fact that I was a human rights lawyer. Unfortunately, that means that I had to speak on behalf of some unsavoury individuals. Some of their views made me feel deeply uncomfortable, but it was my job.”
But he added: “Even the worst people deserve a legal defence.” " - Evening Standard 18 February 2016.
Sorry pal you should try BIG FULL STOP!
How is that for a constructive comment which furthers the argument?
Orwell was warning about totalitarian governments that arose AFTER WWII, i.e. USSR, those soviet socialist republics so beloved of the left at the time. Today it is those who claim to be on the left that seem to be using 1984 has a text book on how to limit free speech and expression and "newspeak" is everywhere. Don't just tell me l'm wrong show me, if you can't then you can no platform me, failing that cover your face and assault me with battery acid for wrongthink! Because like Lenin, then Stalin said "the ends justify the means"
@ 21:06.
Sadly, yours is not constructive at all. Largely incoherent again.
You really do need to check on Orwell's observations following attempts to hijack 1984 by, for instance, McCarthyite neofascists on both sides of the Atlantic. You are late by more than 50 years.
The only thing you got right is that Newspeak is everywhere. Unfortunately for your "argument" it is everywhere in increasingly authoritarian capitalist states. Tell me again......Who are we at war with - EastAsia or EurAsia? And who is the new "Goldstein" to replace Gaddafi, Hussein, Bin Laden and Assad?
1/10. Must try harder.
Tsk tsk.
Woo! A volcanic ashflake from Mt. Stroppli has impaired vision and only dangers on the left can be seen.
Just wait till they invite Darren Grimes on to QT then...
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