Following last week's live blogging of the local election results I'm hoping to repeat the fun this Thursday with a live blog of the BBC's Question Time.
The edition was originally due to come from Belfast but has been relocated late in the day to London, apparently "because of the changing political situation at Westminster." Don't they trust the people of Belfast to talk about whether or not Tony Blair should go? Or whether or not these events make them more likely to vote Labour? (Okay that's a hypothetical question at the moment.) Or is the real reason that a panel in Belfast would have to be dominated by local politicians, making it hard for the show to make headlines with comments and exchanges from Labour and Conservative panelists? Personally I think they should have kept the show in Belfast and taken over a panel deemed "necessary" for the events. (I remember the edition in the week when Paddy Ashdown announced he was retiring as Lib Dem leader and the panel was modified to replace Max Clifford with a Lib Dem. Ironically one of the other panelists was David Trimble, who was the first to have to answer the question "Does it matter who leads the UK's third largest party?"!)
Whatever the case I will aim to regularly update my post with thoughts and comments as the show progresses. So watch this space on Thursday evening!
3 comments:
Great post Tim.
We had a similar situation here in Canada recently with the Liberal party. The internal warfare between the two factions was so fierce and divisive that it weakened and ultimately sent them to the opposition benches with no immediate hope of repair.
Oi! I know what you're like when your watching Question Time, and I'm having to get up bloody early the next morning to go to America-any chance you can postpone it for a week?
Ah a shouter then! ;-)
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