1. I caught this show with @StephenNolan last night, and it was just awful. To be clear, I think he was really good, but it was the show that was diabolical. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…
2. After introductions at 08:15 Alastair Campbell comes on arguing for a people’s vote. Political opinion. This is fine.
3. 11:15 Grant Shapps is introduced. Personally I think his Wikipedia page alone should be reason why he shouldn’t be on, but hey-ho. He talks some nonsense, but is also actually rooted in some political reality.
4. 14:56 Tim Martin is entered into the conversation arguing that we would be better off under no deal because we can remove tariffs on coffee. We can do by removing preference for some of the poorest countries and this will make them poorer. (This isn't mentioned)
5. We can save money on coffee by removing tariffs unilaterally, but we do buy 64% of our coffee from the EU which is going to have trade facilitation costs added which act like a tariff, so we’d need to change our brands. (Unsurprisingly, nobody challenges him on this either)
6. At 38:55 we have an expert who might actually be able to answer some serious questions, but rather than talking to them and asking people to call in to question them on a subject they put through callers angry at the deal.
7. 50:44 the expert is gone, because 12 minutes is apparently as long as the BBC can stand of expertise. Whatever the real reason, this is an opportunity lost.
8. We are followed by angry callers until 1:08:00 when Jacki Davis is introduced to provide some actual facts for the earth shatteringly large 6 minutes until 1:14:17
9. Then at 1:14:20 until 1:19:18 we have a Conservative councillor who is making very firm arguments about the deal. Like all our laws will be decided by the ECJ going forward.
10. Technically it just means the ECJ are only consulted when the arbitration panel decides to refer to the ECJ for a clarification on the ECJ…who are understandably the authority on European law. It just resolves questions.
11. She isn’t challenged on this. The expert they had on for 12 minutes should have been able to clarify this, but since experts aren’t necessarily part of this debate, the angry people listening at home are probably angrier now.
12. Stephen does, at least, challenge her on the argument that the leader of the Conservative party is not a Conservative and it’s not her party...
13. This is pretty bad, but it’s a phone in, and the Stephen and the BBC can’t monitor the quality of the callers, but then the show takes a turn for the worse when it comes to reviewing the papers.
14. It amounts to effectively a 50 minute segment largely just talking about Brexit with people calling in angry about the deal. 2:06-2:56
15. After listening for 20 minutes I assumed the BBC had held regional heats to find the most ignorant people on the European Union, trade, and international relations.
16. That they had taken the winners of those heats and launched a prime-time Saturday evening show where they competed on who said the most benighted thing, with a phone in to eliminate the people who made the least ignorant remark.
17. Then after the country had chose the two most ignorant people in the whole country on those subjects, they were then lobotomised, before being wheeled in to review the papers on the programme last night.
18. It is unfair to criticise a call in show for the knowledge of their callers, but equally the BBC should also be taking these calls as a measure of failure in their mission statement to educate and inform.
19. If they want to know why, then they should probably take a good look at the guests they invite and work out if they are there to give opinions, or informed opinions. Also, if hosts can't be expected to know the details, they should be making better use of their expert guests.
20. We are in the grip of an anti-intellectual movement in this country, and rather than tackling it, they are helping to amplify it through (I assume) bad editorial decisions.
21. I thought @StephenNolan did great, but this programme just showed how the BBC was failing, how they don’t respect expertise, and they are bringing unsuitable voices into the debate.
If we leave, we have to make it work, and we can't do that without knowledge.
/End
If we leave, we have to make it work, and we can't do that without knowledge.
/End
