Further evidence of BBC bias emerged during the Question Time special last night as just NINE far-right Tories asked a massive 29% of audience questions.
The British public tuned in to BBC1 last night to watch a special version of Question Time presented by David Dimbleby, during which Corbyn and May separately answered questions from 120 specially selected audience members.
The audience consisted of around 120 people, of which ‘just a third say they intend to vote Conservative next week. The same number say they’re going to vote Labour, and the rest either support other parties or have yet to make up their minds’, according to Dimbleby. If true, this is where the BBC’s democratic representation ends. It became increasingly clear throughout the programme that disproportionately few women and people of colour were invited to ask questions. The BBC continued to demonstrate its problem with both women, people of colour, and a new kind of politics last night, almost as if they were reluctant to platform those who are disproportionately affected by Tory cuts and racist policies.
With Dimbleby at the helm, many may have expected a moderator of such calibre to ensure the fair and democratic representation of audience members. Instead, the last 15 minutes of the debate was dominated by several angry white and self-professed Tory men bringing in obscure hypothetical questions and shouting abuse at the Labour leader. In fact, these nine Tories asked a massive 29% of the questions in last night’s Question Time between them, and they usually brought it back to the issue of defence, which was already discussed earlier in the Q&A session. Consequently, this took attention away from pressing issues that were more relevant to the other 111 audience members, such as the NHS, Tory austerity, the dementia tax, or Labour’s own progressive policy platform. Not only this, but Labour are actually already committed to the renewal of Trident in their party manifesto. The cameras show this aggressive minority repeatedly breaking the rules of the show’s format by pointing, shouting, and interrupting the Labour leader.
Social media has gone wild over the somewhat embarrassingly exposed faces of Tory Britain. The statistic that these nine audience members gave a staggering 29% of contributions was first revealed in a now viral article by Skwawkbox, and people are not impressed.
It's a cult!! Why were a white, male, elderly, right-wing 7.5% of audience allowed to ask 30% of questions https://t.co/lT4L20dfBz #BBCQT
— Grassroots Voices (@GrassrootsJC4PM) June 3, 2017
The representative audience cheered Corbyn’s responses to the aggressive, antagonising minority and laughed at their attempts to derail the conversation. One obviously baffled audience member said ‘I don’t understand why people in this room are so keen on killing millions of people with a nuclear bomb’, to which the rest of the audience cheered.
This debate shows an attitude that is pervasive in the mainstream media, in which the tiny minority of extremists who speak the loudest are given a disproportionately large platform. This is yet another tiring example of the loud older (usually right-wing) white male taking hold of platform and derailing conversation in their own narrow minded self-interest; a phenomenon which all left-wingers, women, and people of colour would have encountered and which the BBC should be doing its utmost to avoid. The BBC is embarrassing itself by undermining the very principles of democracy in its desperation to cling to the crumbling, cringey, red-faced Conservative vote. That being said, the audience members saw straight through this pathetic attempt, showing yet again how our broadcast media condescends and underestimates the British public.
