Literally no one can believe the excuse the BBC is giving for its Brexit lie on Question Time

During the 31 October 2019 edition of BBC Question Time, host Fiona Bruce wrongly censured an audience member for reporting something entirely accurate. The audience member pointed to Vote Leave being accused of breaking electoral law, which it was. But Bruce intervened, claiming “I’m not entirely sure that you’re right about that”. Brexiters on the panel took over, and the moment lives in infamy. But the BBC‘s excuse for the debacle has left licence fee payers in disbelief.
An unhelpful intervention
Bruce’s intervention came as an impassioned and articulate member of the audience was delivering a blow right to the heart of the Johnson government:
We talk about whether we think a general election can solve Brexit – I think actually we’ve forgotten that Vote Leave is accused of breaking electoral law.
Her opening met with applause, she continued:
Dominic Cummings is… an adviser to Boris Johnson, is currently in such a position of power, yet he refused to stand before parliament and talk about breaking electoral law. He’s in contempt of parliament. I’m not sure whether we can ever have a free and democratic and fair election before those issues are sorted out. I’m not sure we can solve Brexit in this way.
At this point, Bruce intervened to claim that Leave.EU had been cleared, despite the audience member clearly talking about Vote Leave. Bruce stated:
No criminal charges were brought in the end.
Read on...
At this point, the pro-Brexit panellists – Isabel Oakeshott and Tory MP Paul Scully – jumped in to dismiss claims of wrongdoing by Leave campaigns as “propaganda”. And the audience member’s powerful message was chewed up and spat out. But outside the studio, things were quite different.
Oh my fucking god. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore! This audience member recalls Vote Leave breaking electoral law and Fiona Bruce literally lies saying ‘they were cleared of those accusations’. I feel fucking sick. @bbcquestiontime pic.twitter.com/vKeNpKEOue
— Shahmir Sanni (@shahmiruk) November 1, 2019
This young lady on #BBCQT CORRECTLY said: "Vote Leave is accused of breaking electoral law."
Fiona Bruce dismissed her assertion – is she not aware of this? She should be.
Then @IsabelOakeshott and Paul Scully piled in. If you know her – the young lady was right. pic.twitter.com/wO06DBMjyL— Lorna Cooper🏴🇯🇲🇬🇾 (@Coops_tv) October 31, 2019
One day later, the @metpoliceuk confirm they just passed file on Vote Leave to @cpsuk. Will Fiona Bruce, @IsabelOakeshott and @scullyp retract? Will @bbcquestiontime apologise to this audience member, attacked for no other reason than being BETTER INFORMED than any on the panel? https://t.co/WSm3g6d9NR
— Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) November 1, 2019
The Excuse
People began complaining to the BBC, and seeking answers. But no one quite expected a response as transparently ridiculous as this. The BBC claimed that the studio was noisy, and because the programme is filmed ‘as live’, it’s par for the course that a “genuine misunderstanding” like this can happen. No apology.
Statement on @bbcquestiontime and Vote Leave / Leave. EU pic.twitter.com/z3Krk9MTEH
— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) November 4, 2019
Wait. Question Time is broadcast ‘nearly’ as live, but not actually live. The programme is recorded several hours prior to broadcast, and I know this, having appeared as a panel member myself. The footage is then edited into the broadcast slot and aired later the same evening. And it films that way precisely to avoid moments like this.
A section of one of my answers on the show was edited out due to a legal tantrum thrown by fellow panellist Liam Fox MP.
But this is not insider information. Just about everyone who watches the show knows this. For the BBC to offer disgruntled viewers such a nonchalantly absurd excuse feels like a slap in the face.
Watch the panel discussion yourselves. My (now proven) revelations about Vote Leave were referred to as ‘propaganda’ and ‘conspiracy’ by a panel member. The BBC has not only defended the panel, they’re doubling down that there was no such discussion at all. Madness. https://t.co/FTEfPeWZbW
— Shahmir Sanni (@shahmiruk) November 4, 2019
This is such a disingenuous statement. Witnessing what the BBC has become has been as heartbreaking as it has been infuriating. https://t.co/KMvSnWi52r
— Billy Lunn (@billysubway) November 5, 2019
Make it stop
Timing made the apology-free excuse taste all the more bitter. It comes hot on the heels of the BBC‘s apology to Priti Patel over the far more trivial issue of her laughter (or lack of it) during an interview.
Good grief, what about all the times the BBC has ridiculed and talked over Jeremy Corbyn? Smirking Patel does not deserve outrage or an apology. BBC News – BBC apologises after Andrew Marr suggested Priti Patel was 'laughing'https://t.co/KOAoFZI9Wl
— #SocialistaSista🌷 (@SCore2018) October 23, 2019
The BBC is funded by the licence fee payers as a public service broadcaster. Viewers rely on it as a place to escape the more partisan media landscape beyond it. Or at least they did once. The institution appears to have abandoned its mandate entirely. On a regular week, that would be a problem. But in the early days of the most important general election in Britain’s modern history, it’s inexcusable.
Featured image via BBC iPlayer / Twitter – Max
We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!! This is sooooo damned frustrating!
Are we perhaps not focusing on the right things? To me it is clear that the Laws of our Nation are not protecting us or our Democracy, and that our Legal system is as complicit in the mess we are in as the politicians, corporate interests, MSM, and external meddlers like the USA are.
I ask this question as maybe we should be putting our efforts into telling our Legal system that enough is enough! Maybe we should be protesting and demonstrating directly at our Legal institutions instead of politicians, and put pressure on them to prosecute those who abuse power, as quickly as they do the rest of us when/if we step out of line?
Isn’t it time that we admitted the fact that our Nation is no longer ours, that our society is fractured and broken to the point it can no longer work to protect us or benefit us? Isn’t it time to recognise that we cannot have a stable, prosperous Nation whilst we allow our key institutions to be infiltrated and overrun by self-serving, corrupt people who, like Fiona Bruce and The BBC, are too willing to lie and cheat, regardless of the damage that does to Law and Democracy, and the unity of our Nation?
We are constantly being subjected to lies, smoke and mirrors, and arrogantly-ignorant dictates, none of which are conducive with building long-lasting, stable, trusting relationships at any level. We fool ourselves daily that we are living in a Democracy, and we have failed to prevent the subversion of our key institutions because of it, even though we have been warned multiple times that a house divided against itself will not prevail.
Even if Jeremy Corbyn gets into #10, we already know that no matter how illegal doing so is, the USA and their UK cohorts will do everything they can to prevent him from being as effective as he, or we, want. It is high time to clearly point the finger at America, not Russia, as the ones who interfere in everyone else’s business.
It is time to rise up against the liars like Fiona Bruce, The BBC, corrupted Judges and Judiciary, corrupt politicians, business and corporate deceivers (including MSM), and demand that honesty, truth and democratic fairness be their daily bread, not the filth that currently masquerades as their ‘truth’.
A society, nation, civilization, or any organisation, is only such if it is on the whole, cohesive, and is beneficial to the vast majority of its peoples. Our nation is not united, not cohesive, and has been deliberately, with full traitorous intent, subjected to attacks designed to break it and us apart, to render us mute with frustration, and if necessary to drive us to war with each other. Proponents of this plan are internal and external to our Nation, and they care not if one or millions die (in the most agonising circumstances) in the process (indeed they get a kick out of it).
What can we do to put power into the right hands? We can ignore and thwart the desires of the ‘elites’ by refusing to co-operate or put our money anywhere that benefits them, we can push much harder than we have been to make The Law and its officers accountable to us, as they should be in a Democracy. We can certainly go further if needed, why should we obey The Law when they not only break it, but are also allowed to continue to do so?
We know where the Laws of our land let us down, we know what is not just unfair, but downright evil, it’s when there are unenforced laws against the rich and powerful, and the same laws enforced on the rest with prejudice. The law recognises that the severity of a crime, i.e. how many people were effected by the breaking or bending of a Law, is an important factor in the prosecution of crime, yet it seems is utterly blind to the grand-scale murder that many of the ‘elite’ engage in on a daily basis.
At the end of the day, it all seems very, very complicated, but it is really quite simple, and the elites know this is true (if they don’t they are wilfully ignorant), but if they keep pushing our buttons, we are all quite capable of ending their power permanently, the way nature’s laws allow us to. Maybe it is because we haven’t exercised our natural right to self-defence often enough that they have grown this risk-takingly stupid?
In order for a society or nation to work, or even claim any authority over its peoples, it must offer something acceptably beneficial in return. If Society is harder to navigate than the Jungle we left, or replaces natural dangers with human ones which are harder to deal with, then we have failed as a society, and have turned it into a very unstable bomb which threatens the existence of everything.
‘Society’ or ‘nationhood’ cannot be maintained if the social-contract is broken or biased towards one group or another. We work together and prosper together, even suffer together for the sake of the social contract, but we have no social contract if that contract allows others to break it with impunity. In other words, elites lead by example, so if it’s ok for them to lie, cheat, steal, and murder, then it is ok for us to replicate that behaviour, as the social contract can be deemed to have been broken, leaving only nature’s laws (the original ‘Law’) available.
If the elites of Earth think they can keep on breaking laws, then there are no laws save the Law of existence – eat, drink, shit, piss, sleep, reproduce, fight, and kill, or in other words … do as thou wilt! If this isn’t what the majority want, then it seems the majority are going to have to fight, and fight hard, to get what they want.
It should be like late trains.
Everyone gets a weeks TV licence rebate every time the BBC shows bias or propagates falsehoods. All perpetrators are docked a months pay.
The simple fact is that BBC ‘Journalists’ routinely make sloppy errors.
They are really only autocue readers, they don’t carefully research their topics, they commonly make mistakes with regard to the names of their ‘interviewees’ and even the organisations they represent.
Listen to the drivel on Radio 5 with Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden – riddled with factual errors and extremely poor questions and commonly is extremely sycophantic.
Ms. Burden’s favourite question is ‘ what’s the one thing that would make a difference’ – this is a piss poor question and is just lazy journalism.
I do feel that the BBC needs to shape up and stop believing that quantity is better then quality.