Question Time

[Horus]

Did anyone see last nights Question Time on the BBC? the audience was naturally hostile as it was coming from Plymouth which had just switched to Labour from Tory during the recent election. It was the usual format with one side slagging off the other with the audience being mainly pro Labour, but there was one guy in the audience who constantly shouted and interrupted. He was a classic example of how the new style labour supporters will shout down and try to bully any form of opposition to their own views and even after all the panel of various persuasions agreed that Labour had actually lost the General Election and not won it as their supporters like to claim, he still continued interrupting and heckling to a point that no one on the panel could speak or be heard. To me he was a typical example of a left wing rent a mob type who have swallowed Corbyns rhetoric hook line and sinker and no one else can disagree with them. Thankfully to the grateful applause of the audience and fast approaching security he left after Dimbleby told him in no uncertain terms to leave.

[Hafiz]

The left has never been short of authoritarian, bully boy types and PC types, frequently found on the hard left, get themselves in all types of contradictions - proclaiming free speech whilst calling for certain views to be suppressed/denounced/made illegal. on the basis that it might 'offend'.

On the other hand the far right doesn't have an impeccable track record on free speech.

Free speech/diversity of opinion can be a close run thing and there have been times in the recent past when speech could have easily been suppressed/manipulated. For example at the time the BBC was getting its legislation after WW2, Beveridge, otherwise known as a hero, recommended that the BBC be the only TV broadcaster and that private broadcasters be prohibited. Can't recall whether that would also have applied to radio. In France, until the early 70's, the government had a monopoly on TV and at the time of the '68 riots de Gaulle's survival is often put down to the state manipulating its TV stations.

Through most of the 20th century the political parties in the UK had a strong hold on many newspapers and Beaverbrook/Tiny Rowland/Lord Black/Robert Maxwell and others were naked partisans and two (maybe three) of them crooks. Murdoch, of course, is an unashamed political manipulator - and now set to get control of Sky even after decades of 'misbehavior'. These magnates proclaim the virtues of free speech whilst shamelessly manipulating the news to their advantage or the advantage of their friends.