Who is this audience member from the BBC’s Question Time on March 9, 2023?
He explained the reasons behind the Conservative government’s Illegal Migration Bill in highly perceptive terms; anybody could see the truth behind his words:
Someone should sign him up for their political party and get him to contest a Parliamentary seat at the next election.
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Lee Anderson (right): yes, I know I used this one recently but it’s the only image of him I have. That may change rapidly, depending how long he remains in post as Tory deputy chair!
I know what you’re thinking: who’s Lucy Saunter?
She’s a “non-social media user tweeting exclusively to GET TORIES OUT” according to her Twitter bio – and she happened to be in the BBC Question Time audience.
She had submitted questions on “the growing Tory appetite to withdraw from the ECHR and the UKs downgrading on the Global Corruption Index” but these were not chosen for discussion.
Then she was allowed the opportunity to comment on the appointment of ’30p Lee’ Anderson as Tory deputy chairman – the MP who had (wrongly) claimed that it was possible to cook a healthy meal for 30p, and who called for the reinstatement of the death penalty for serious crimes, immediately after assuming his new role.
Her comment has attracted considerable praise. Here it is, with her own view on it:
I would have loved to talk about being single parent of 2, one of whom has chronic asthma & a heart condition who didn't turn her heating on until xmas eve and now has to turn it off again because my bill January was £440 while energy companies are reporting record profits #bbcqt
We need more decent, upstanding, right (but not right-wing) thinking people like this on our TV screens – and far fewer Lee Andersons.
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Jake Berry: his BBCQT appearance needs to be seen to be believed.
The BBC’s flagship Question Time programme featured an extraordinary display of backstabbing by a Tory MP against his Cabinet replacement.
Former Tory chairman Jake Berry, asked whether his successor Nadhim Zahawi should stay in post after revelations about his tax affairs, started out with a classic ‘resume statement’, praising his party colleague – but then veered off-topic sharply, saying a mechanism should be in place for Zahawi to step back from government while he was being investigated, and be reinstated if vindicated.
It’s not a bad idea but it has been around for some time – it’s called suspension. He would not lose his job as an MP, and could come back later.
Berry then manufactured an argument with Tracy (“Drain the swamp!”) Brabin over the role of independent ethics advisor Sir Laurie Magnus.
Probably the best comment from an audience member came from a GP who said there had been so many similar scandals in the Tory government that it seemed impossible to trust anybody in the party at all.
The debate ranged across all the information that has come out so far and I have tried to ensure that these are all included in the clip, so we can all refer back to it.
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Remember the crazy racist ranter on the BBC’s Question Time last week?
The one whose views were legitimised by the programme makers in a tweet that put forward her views with no counter-argument – contrary to the Corporation’s own rules?
If run properly, Question Time should inform people and (in theory) contribute to healthy, democratic debate.
At the minute it’s built like an entertainment programme. It’s about clipping up extreme views and getting viral hits.
She has now been identified, it seems, as “Sherri Peach, nee Bothwell, mostly connected with Britain First, married to former National Front Election Candidate, Roy Peach”.
She was also a National Front candidate herself, back in 1974 – twice.
It has been alleged that this woman, who is from London, was sought out by a staff member for Question Time programme maker Mentorn Media who invited her to appear on the show in Dorset. It seems she stayed in a local hotel – funded by a third party, as yet unknown – and was placed in the front row during the recording.
As Zelo Street points out, this incident puts the BBC in an extremely difficult position.
It shows the BBC putting out an extremist far-right and racist viewpoint as though it was a widely-held belief, giving it a legitimacy that it does not – and should never – have.
And it shows the BBC failing to follow its own guidelines on impartiality, at a time when it is under investigation for political partisanship by Ofcom.
Yet time and again we have seen the Corporation’s complaints department simply brushing off complaints about this kind of behaviour, as though it didn’t matter at all.
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The BBC’s treatment of this far-right racist is a perfect demonstration of everything that’s wrong with its current affairs programming.
The woman was hand-picked to join the audience of the BBC’s Question Time on February 20, and delivered a fact-free rant during the show.
It was followed by an awkward silence, before panellists delivered the fact injection that the general public needed after being exposed to such nonsense.
But then the BBC acted really atrociously. Look at the way the Corporation portrayed the moment on Twitter:
“We should completely close the borders … enough is enough”
This audience member says the number of people ’flooding in’ to the UK is costing public services too much. #bbcqtpic.twitter.com/T5EshhWqQu
I’m grateful to the Angry Yorkshireman of Another Angry Voice for his comment on this:
“The role of any responsible broadcaster should be to point out the lies, and the massive impracticality of just ‘closing the borders’, not to actively and uncritically amplify dangerously ignorant far-right diatribes like this.
“Uncritically amplifying this fact-averse nonsense adds to the toxic political environment in which bigots are encouraged to believe that their ignorance has as much value and importance as other people’s facts and evidence.”
Correct. It’s doubly-abhorrent in a week when Boris Johnson’s government was exposed as being stuffed with racists (including the prime minister himself).
I believe @bbcquestiontime will have known that the racist woman on Thursday night's #bbcqt Tommy Robinson supporter, she's been seen at far right events, this vile individual represents a narrative that is being enabled/normalised by @BBC do they like promoting hate? Yes.
That’s the heart of the matter – that the BBC is putting clips of extreme views onto the internet in order to get viral hits, as though that somehow validated its current affairs programming. It doesn’t.
Spare a thought also for the poor guy who had to sit next to the racist while she ranted. He looked uncomfortable at the time and he expanded on his demeanour on Twitter afterwards:
Truly overwhelmed by the kindness and support since my #bbcqt trauma live you lot! After 30 years of trying to articulate a coherent argument for the left I now find that a meme of my cringing face is infinitely more powerful than my words! Let's all do it – #facesagainstracismpic.twitter.com/2IUjYxDQLg
The reason for the racism can be summed up in this video which, ironically, was made for the general election campaign and if more people had paid attention, perhaps we would not be putting up with the increased bigotry and ignorance we’re experiencing now:
So there you have it. When politicians – or their mouthpieces, as on Question Time – blame immigrants, it’s because they’ve run out of excuses for the terrible decisions they’re making.
Lastly, isn’t it amazing how the mainstream news media have tried to normalise this?
People think Pam from Gavin & Stacey got really racist and went on Question Time last night https://t.co/41dppQF5Np
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If, like This Writer, you have switched off Question Time in disgust during the last few years of Conservative government and BBC/Establishment propagandism, then you missed a treat last night (June 13).
Answering a question on whether broken promises, gaffes and hanging from a zip-wire are the criteria for becoming the next UK prime minister – a clear reference to Boris Johnson’s commanding lead in the Conservative leadership election, she made the point that it doesn’t matter who gets in; every single Tory MP has the blood of more than 100,000 people on their hands:
“Whatever your politics, you can agree that punishing disabled and sick people for falling on hard times is absolutely morally wrong and they have blood on their hands”@chessmartinez on the government’s austerity policy. #bbcqtpic.twitter.com/3zQUDVLvOa
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 13, 2019
I found it heartbreaking to watch this because like Ms Martinez (and many others), I have been campaigning for an end to Conservative persecution of the sick, disabled, elderly and vulnerable since their policies first started wrecking – and ending – lives.
Yet still this – let’s call it what it is – slaughter goes on. See this article for some further information on people who have died recently.
Boris Johnson won’t stop it. Jeremy Hunt won’t. Nor will Michael Gove. Raab? Javid? Hancock? Stewart? Don’t make me laugh.
They don’t care about it. Or if they do, it is This Writer’s sincere belief that they enjoy it. Otherwise they would have put a stop to it.
Ms Martinez said these deaths were caused by austerity. The Tories will say it was a financial necessity and that argument is a paper tiger because there is no financial necessity that justifies causing the death of a single person, let alone more than 100,000 – and remember, these are just the deaths we have been allowed to count.
The only answer is a general election and a Labour government. Once that is achieved, then the Conservative Party’s MPs must be brought to account for this ongoing atrocity.
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This woman has been prime minister for nearly three years – not because she is any good at it – she isn’t – but because the people of the UK have been told, throughout that time, that there’s nobody better.
The easiest way for a political party to keep itself high in the opinion polls is to set the agenda for public debate and then tell people what to think.
The easiest way to tell people what to think is by dominating the mass media.
And the easiest way to dominate the mass media is by ensuring it is full of your cronies.
The BBC’s news team is run by Tories, as has been explained many times before – here and elsewhere.
And so are many of the private companies that make programmes for the BBC – like Mentorn, the maker of Question Time
— Parliament View #WearAMask (@parliamentview) May 17, 2019
This happens week after week, and not just on QT. Not only is the panel stuffed with right-wingers – so is the audience.
Then they tell us all what to think, and dissenting voices are treated as foolish, or childish.
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Stranglehold: The signer was actually interpreting a comment in a previous Nigel Farage TV appearance, but it works equally well to describe feelings across the nation at this minority party representative’s residency on the BBC in the run-up to the EU elections. The BBC is meant to be impartial; where are the other minority party representatives?
Apparently the BBC thought it was all right for Nigel Farage to appear on Question Time because other politicians were there to balance out his views.
It is true that, besides Mr Farage, Amber Rudd appeared for the Conservatives, Jonathan Reynolds for Labour and, yes, Anna Soubry for Change UK.
So perhaps it is right for Ms Allen to have been denied the chance to appear on Have I Got News For You. That would have given her minority party two appearances on the major UK TV network in two days – an unfair advantage over Mr Farage’s minority party.
And in fairness, the BBC should now be giving airtime to the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, UKIP, the SNP, the DUP, Sinn Fein and – oh, yes – even the Liberal Democrats, before letting representatives of Labour, the Tories, Change UK or the Brexit Party have another crack of the whip.
Do you think that will happen?
No. Neither do I. So much for BBC impartiality.
And here’s a relevant point:
BBC cancel Have I got news for you because Heidi Allen who is not a candidate was due to be on but had Farage who is a candidate on Question Time. Can anyone stop this disgrace?
Mr Farage is set to appear on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday – his second appearance in four days.
With the BBC under investigation for failing to uphold its commitment to impartiality, isn’t it surprising that nobody considered this to be a mistake?
The BBC has pulled an episode of Have I Got News For You because of impartiality fears ahead of the European elections – just 24 hours after it hosted an episode of Question Time featuring the Brexit Party’s leader.
It decided to cancel the airing of the show, presented by Jo Brand and recorded the day before, because it realised it could break impartiality rules because Heidi Allen from Change UK was on the panel.
The show’s production team took to social media to apologise, as viewers turned on BBC One to find a repeat of Would I Lie To You instead.
In the statement it said: “Sorry everyone. The BBC have pulled tonight’s edition of #HIGNFY – no, we didn’t book Danny Baker. We booked Heidi Allen, a member of a party no-one knows the name of (not even the people in it), because the Euro elections, which nobody wants, may or may not be happening. Sorry.”
The Mentorn TV executive who chooses Question Time audience members may be reviewing the company’s policy after this truth bomb dropped on the April 4 edition of the programme (there is a connection with the Conservative Party, as I understand it):
She was referring to the attempt by Home Secretary Sajid Javid – and by prime minister Theresa May, let’s not forget – to palm off responsibility for knife crime among young people onto teachers like herself.
As I wrote last week, she wants teachers to have a “public health duty” to identify warning signs that a young person could be in danger, such as worrying behaviour at school, issues at home, or “presenting at A&E with a suspicious injury”. For real?
There is an existing duty requiring teachers and police to work together to safeguard children. As a former Home Secretary, Theresa May should know that.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the teachers’ union the NASUWT, delivered the reality check to Mrs May when he said: “All professionals involved with children and young people are well aware of their responsibilities for safeguarding their health and welfare.
“Violent crime involving young people, of course, needs to be taken seriously and appropriate strategies considered. However, this is a complex issue which will not be resolved by putting additional pressures and responsibilities on teachers and head teachers or indeed others.”
No it will not.
But the very rich are looking for their next tax cut, aren’t they, Mrs May? And what’s a bit of extra crime among the plebs anyway? That’s just culling the stock. Am I right, Mrs May?
What do you think?
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