The worst programme on telly. Ever
Just been watching that awful Andrew Neill programme that wakes you up when you've nodded off during Question Time. Dianne Abbot, Michael Portillo and Charles Kennedy were talking about the Brown/Darling "u-turn" over the 10% tax rate issue. They talked about it solely in terms of how it affected the musical chairs in SW1. At no point did it even occur to them to discuss how whatever "changes" were made to the policy (and I'm still none the wiser, despite having sat through a programme that purports to be about politics) affected the people involved.
If the Westminster village idiots (both the MPs and the journalists) want to know why people don't engage with politics and politicians much anymore they should watch this "show" and have a long, hard think about what they think they're playing at. It beggars belief.
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As an outsider looking in...
... can I say I normally enjoy The Week In Politics. Having said that, it does indeed normally only concentrate itself with the machinations of Westminster rather than the actual impact policies have on the people on the ground.
Sadly, I believe this is the way of all polical programmes in Western Europe (I won't even get started about the U.S.).
It can't be worse
than that programme currently on C4 where people cook dinner for three strangers. My jaw dropped that this could be on primetime UK TV.
Twenty years ago we used to laugh as Clive James showed us some of the rubbish on foreign TV. We should have guessed that we'd soon be just as bad.
completely disagree with you
I ddint see last nights show (lock in at the local) but i think its a great show. Gossipy and taking of the michael true, but it does give an interesting flavour of how politics & the political personality works.
Portillo & abbott are a great double act. Two cats who have got the cream squeezing onto one sofa and very pleased with themselves, but dropping some tanatalising titbits for the masses. I'd even vote for portillo now after watching him on this show. And you have gotta love Andrew Neil's hair and braces. You can just see him eating shepherds pie & drinking krug round at jeffrey archers place.
But that‘s my point, dolly
It seems that politics is nowadays a sort of cross between a soap opera and a parlour game played by a few hundred isolated people in Westminster. As Dianne Abbot pointed out last night, this "rebellion" about a measure that got the nod-through over a year ago, only happened because the Easter Pariamentary recess coincided with campaigning for local elections and the arrival of this month's payslips. MPs suddenly had to talk to people on doorsteps whose tax had just doubled. The 10% tax threshold "issue" wasn't being debated on The Diane & Michael show when it was first announced. And politics should't be showbusiness.
for "tanatalising titbits for the masses"
read crumbs from the table. I'm suprised the powers let it on as it shows westminster to be little smug club were the Mps of every stripe cosy up to each other, were gossip holds sway how about a politics show without politians.
and as for the comedy skits kill me now.