There was A Really Big Set: no recycling the intimate atmosphere of The Andy Marr Show for Ms K. So big was the set that the presenter had to get up from her desk and walk over to a separate Serious Interview Area. The desk extended to accommodate three guests, who would make appropriate pronouncements throughout the programme, a bit like the ITV Peston show.
And it was in the selection of guests where the closed world of Beeb politics shows came unstuck: just to be that little more edgy, get down with The Yoof, maybe garner a little favourable feedback, earn some cachet, there in the middle seat was comedian Joe Lycett. Anyone paying attention would already have known that he was not going to take this appearance too seriously.
“Really excited to be on this new version of Would I Lie To You” he told, on, yes, an open Twitter feed. And so it came to pass: Liz Truss was interviewed - for some value of “interviewed” - and she was predictably wooden, failing to give straight answers, contradicting herself, and boring the crap out of viewers. There was 20 minutes of this tedium. And then it happened.
Ms Kuenssberg ended the suffering; as she thanked Ms Truss, a loud whooping and clapping broke out. Lycett might not have known, but his mic was still live, which made the intervention stand out yet more. The host tried to retain her composure. Lycett then declared that he was actually very right wing and Ms Truss had been very clear in what she said (she hadn’t).
Labour MP Emily Thornberry, sitting to Lycett’s left, clearly sensed that this was a BBC Politics campaign destined to develop not necessarily to their advantage, but kept a straight face. And Lycett was not finished: after Ms Kuenssberg interviewed Rishi Sunak, he told her Sunak wasn’t going to win, so she might as well have interviewed Peter André.
Joe Lycett
Rob Burley, former editor of the Marr Show, also tried to show support: “don’t put comedians on Question Time or any other serious political show. It’s not the time for that nonsense anymore”. But, as Peter Jukes of Byline Media reminded him, “You put a range of completely fatuous right wing figures on the BBC, with a false sense of balance, and they weren’t even funny”.
They made the career of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, and gave airtime to the alphabet soup of hard right Astroturf lobby groups. Mic Wright, meanwhile, chipped in with “Even before Joe Lycett appeared on screen, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg was laughable. It has the aesthetic The Day Today skewered 28 years ago - the words ‘the squeeze is on’ followed by footage literally being squeezed and ‘one big question’ greeted by a big red [question mark]”. There was more.
Sam Bright noted “‘Serious times call for serious figures on TV’ say the media people who’ve been platforming Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan for decades”. And Matt Thomas was especially severe: “I bet Laura Kuenssberg is absolutely livid and had an appalling Sunday afternoon. She's been building up to having her own show for years and Joe Lycett has drained every last gram of credibility out of it in the first episode. Fantastic, deserved comeuppance”. He also reckoned Lycett wouldn’t be invited back.
Which might just be true. But politics shows have been taking themselves terribly seriously, while not being, er, serious, for some time, as Ash Sarkar of Novara Media pointed out. “Comedians shouldn't be allowed on politics shows, which are meant for the serious interrogation of politicians by heavyweight intellects - like ‘would Labour nationalise sausages?’ and ‘isn't this free broadband policy just the kind of thing Stalin would do?’”
Joe Lycett held up a mirror to the insular world of the media class. They did not like what they saw. And whose fault was that? Have a think about it.
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10 comments:
I see the thought police at the Mail are trying to cancel him and deny his freedom of speech. Poor snowflakes seem a bit offended by the whole thing.
It was indeed glorious. Part Wizard of Oz ("Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain") and part Hans Christian Andersen.
Sadly, as Neil Gaiman once pointed out, although the fool may say that the emperor is naked, the fool remains a fool, and the emperor remains an emperor.
Still, fair play to Thornberry for holding herself together. She was clearly on the verge of bursting out laughing.
Don't know why anybody bothered to watch it. I certainly didn't.
It was all too predictable. Who with a grasp of decency wants to watch or listen to the latest far right tory "news" shite flushing out of Kuentssberg's crooked lying mouth.
You think it can't get worse? Just wait a few months. All of corporate media - all of it far right monopoly owned - gets more desperate and hysterical with each passing day.
And if you want to know how bad it will get....cast your eye over the current Yank version, because that's their model.
There isn't a single trustworthy and honourable corporate "news" outlet in this country. Nor is there even a prospect of one.
Kuentssberg? Just another tiny tory propaganda clerk, a Yank-trained untalented mediocrity, bought-and-paid-for. Her type infect and poison British public life.
Interesting to see diehard critics of the "Westminster elite media bubble" have rallied in support of Poor Laura and against Nasty Joe.
Maybe they're not being 100% honest in their objections to the media bubble.
I couldn't possible comment, I'm very rightwing.
Must say that I admire the tenacity of That Anon at 12.02 to shoehorn his standard rant into a post saying that he didn't watch it.
This one wasn't the right figure to be on the show. I'm not sure anyone willing to declare themselves "very right wing" could ever be balanced out by a left wing figure such as Keir Starmer.
16:18.
Kindly list which of Starmer's leadership policies are "left wing". In your own time.....
I for one remain unconvinced that:
• Mr Lycett was being truthful in declaring himself “very right wing”, and
• Sir Keeves is “left wing” by any reasonable definition of the term
16:10.
That your best shot? A sort of "attack" by a rabid moth covered in past-its-best cream.
Must try harder. I'll wait.......
When the most perceptive and most penetrating comment and analysis of a society and its politics is provided not by politicans or the official, licenced pundit class, but by comedians, that society is in terminal decline. You look at the US, where they have had far more effective and forceful descriptions of how things actually are from the likes of Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and - the daddy of them all - the late George Carlin rather than the cosy, self-regarding and incestuous tosh produced by the 'official' channels, on air and in print.
And because the 'establishment' here has - in various ways both direct and indirect - a far greater control over the media than their US counterparts, you get the howls of appliquéd outrage on those very rare occasions when someone is able to break in to Castle Self-Delusion and drop a huge smelly one right in the middle of the courtiers.
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