I am dumbstruck. Andrew Neil will be furious. The Daily Politics was ordered off the air at 12.32 in the middle of the Prime Minister's valedictory statement at the end of PMQs in order for the BBC to start its Wimbedon coverage - an astonishing decision which ought to have sever reverberations. So they missed Blair talking about his fear of the House of Commons and they missed Blair getting a standing ovation from BOTH sides of the House of Commons. Well done to David Cameron for encouraging Tory MPs to join Labour MPs in a standing ovation. He was right to do so.
Heads should roll over this decision at the BBC. By the way, it is now 12.37 and while Adam Boulton picks over the entrails of the last half an hour, BBC 2 viewers are watching two female tennis players called Czink and Ivanovic hit the ball from baseline to baseline. If it had been Federer v Nadal you could possibly understand the decision, but not for these two.
And meanwhile, Andrew Neil is self combusting.
106 comments:
Iain - stop question dodging and tell us who the 2nd defector is.
Unfortunately the BBC seem to have the same paucity of management and direction as the Conservative party.
I'm glad they cut away. I've got my Sky+ set to record Wimbledon at 12:35pm. Hope the recording is not contaminated by New Labour's partners in crime Blair & Brown.
God... that it moronic beyond belief!
What an extemely bizarre decision. I was able to turn over to News24, but many wouldn’t have been able to do the same. Cutting off the last words of our nation’s leader to show a bit of women’s tennis – defies belief.
Not sure how it fits in with the BBC-Liberal-Bias-Conspiracy-Theory. But I hope someone gets a good kicking for it.
Stupid indeed, though they have just shown it properly on BBC1. Not the same as seeing it live though.
And the play has been stopped by rain...
It doesn't surprise me that Cameron ordered a round of applause for the greatest traitor since Edward Heath and Lord Haw Haw. A 10 gun salute, with the loaded guns aimed at Blair's head would have been more appropriate.
Somehow, the gesture was so, oh, I don't know, Etonesque ... So sporting! I'm beginning to develop a real distaste for that establishment. Cameron, Prince William, all Cameron's personality-free acolytes in the Shadow Cabinet ... the place is going down the tubes.
Brown couldn't stop nervously fidgeting throughout the whole of PMQs and at one point even picked his nose again.
Now that he's got what he's always wanted he's cr@pping himself.
It will soon become embarrassingly and unpleasantly apparent that he's not up to the job.
WOW! Never with thatcher, never with ANYONE has there ever been a standing ovation like that on all sides of the House of Commons. It is the martk of the man that after Iraq and the like he still is the great man of British Politics and shall remain so for years to come. Amazing.
What's the problem? News junkies can watch on dedicated news channels, but BBC2 has a schedule. Other than us freaks, most wouldn't care - this was political theatre, but nothing of real substance was said.
As someone said above, if this had happened to Cameron you can just imagine the conspiracy theorists whining.
Oh goody.
It looks like its going to rain on the Blair/Brown parade.
That was absolutely shocking, luckily I managed to quickly switch to News24
Let Bliar have his standing ovation, the real battle is about to start now with the other Great Charlatan Brown well and truly in the firing line.
I'm sort of glad. Applause in the House sort of somes up the complete disregard for convention that hopefully ens today.
anonymous said: "It is the martk of the man that after Iraq and the like he still is the great man of British Politics "
Such is the POWER of spin.
I'm surprised to see IDS in the media Big Tent on Westminster Green. I thought he had more sense.
Look, the BBC is not only run by wet liberals, they are young wet liberals. They have no sense of process, no sense of history and no sense of occasion.
I hope Andrew Neil kicks up a fuss on my behalf. You are right to say that it was a travesty of editorial control.
And it is raining after only about 20 minutes of play...
At some stage TV-coverage of Parliament should be dropped and put on a dedicated digital channel....or something like EuroNews as a multiplex broadcast from one of the regional parliament chambers.
It would be good for children to be able to flip between different performances and to watch a bit of the Belgian assembly, the Scottish, the Czech, Rumanian and British chambers.
But there is less and less reason to clutter up mainstream channels with such amateur dramatics and juvenile debate
Verity seems to be complaining about what she sees as an overlarge and unrepresentative group united by a common history who wield
influence out of proportion with their numbers. In what way does that differ from anti-semitism which us usually outlawed on this blog?
Unbelievable!
The Beeb even managed to squeeze in a trailer for a forthcoming program, one of those space filler sequences and then a meandering preamble from Ms Barker.
Perhaps they did it in belated revenge for Hutton.
cctv, have you heard of BBC Parliament, available on Freeview channel 82? Live coverage of Parliament when it's sitting, plus coverage of committees and the various national assemblies when Parliament isn't sitting, plus in recent times, excellent out-of-hours repeats of historical stuff, e.g. past election nights, the recent Falklands anniversary programmes etc.
One of John Majors PMQs was interrupted three minutes from the end by the BBC considering that an announcement that Chief Buthelezi was CONSIDERING withdrawing from the forthcoming SA election. This to a BBC radio producer was of sufficent import to interupt the PM in live transmission close to its end! To this day the sods cannot stop themeselves talking over the questions with their own piffle.
I'm just looking at my recording of this:
Iain you forget to mention that although BBC2 cut away to go to Wimbledon it first showed:
1 a trailer for "Rome"
2 a trailer for "Jekyl"
3 a BBC 2 "sunroof" ident
THEN it went to Wimbledon
So Blair was actually interrupted for idents and trailers.
I imagine that Andrew Neil is looking for the BBC2 Continuity department right now.
Sorry, it's on Channel 81 - as for the Daily Politics, it was disgraceful the way they cut off the last two or three minutes of today's PMQ's.
"BBC 2 viewers are watching two female tennis players called Czink and Ivanovic hit the ball from baseline to baseline"
Ivanovic was Roland Garros' finalist, not an unknown player. If you don't know her, it's because you don't know nothing about tennis
Applause in the Commons? Not at all Eton-esque. Just plain vulgar. Let us pray that this does not catch on. What next? Tennis-style grunting after the PM's answered a particularly tricky question?
Excelent. typical useless BBC. how much money do they get a year? monopoly public service provider.
by the way, who's the 2nd defector?
That liar,traitor and war-monger should have been frog-marched out. Let's hope Blair ends up in prison. What was Dave thinking about?
I agree, it was an absolute disgrace. Fortunately I too managed to switch over, but many other people wouldn't have been able to do so.
Saturation coverage was available on BBC Parliament and BBC News 24. Even though saddos like us might not realise it, sport is more popular with the masses than is politics.
BTW your Mr Duncan looked very miserable, after his dreadful Newsnight outing last night, during NI questions - like a man who had recently been at the wrong end of a major ticking off or possibly hung-over or maybe both. Then he was booted off the front-bench for PMQs and ended up sitting on the steps. A harbinger perchance?
they were doing live coverage on bbc1, and everythung has been moved forward about half an hour today.
things were bound to get mixed up.
Actually that is a very poor showing by the BBC. Love Him or Hate him, that was an Histoic moment and those without Digital TV could NOT watch Live.
I reckon by staying with the Live coverage from parliament would have meant the loss of about 45 seconds of Wimbledon taking into account the trailers.
They didn't even give Neil time to tell viewers who have digital that they should re-tune to News 24.
You can bet if Wimbledon is running late, the BBC will stay though.
Desperate Dan - Could you speak in English, please? What are you talking about? As it happens, although not Jewish, I'm a Zionist, although I still think kosher butchery should be outlawed.
The Great Seducer has them clapping again. The Labour Party was his vehicle for feeding his ego, pleasing his wife and making a difference to the lives of many. He has made no difference to the lives of the people whom he was elected to serve. He ran away from Britain and its problems because in his eagerness to be PM he let Brown call the shots on the domestic agenda. But he did what he was born to do - strut the international stage like a political Elton John begging for applause from all and sundry. Britain's worst ever Prime Minister. The only thing he mastered was TV speech making.
I would not stand to aplaud blair and it sickens me to think of Tory MPs doing so. I obviously live in a different country to them.
Broown's security staff look like something out of "The Matrix"
Playout of BBC channels is both a) automated and b) outsourced to another company. Ultimately it was the Beeb's fault for not anticipating that it might run over.
So the large group of horribly white people who look set to cheer Brown out of The Treasury are our politically neutral Civil Service?
Mr Blair it is.
Time for Yatesy to finger his Collar.
anonytwat: "they were doing live coverage on bbc1, and everythung has been moved forward about half an hour today. things were bound to get mixed up."
What a snivelling BBC apologist you are - the live coverage on BBC1 didn't start until two or three minutes later, and even then it was to Huw wossname in Downing Street.
It is disgraceful that the BBC's premier political programme was cut off in this way - even if it was being covered elsewhere.
After lunch yesterday the dolts at the BBC were showing the same live coverage of the same tennis match on both BBC1 and BBC2 for a good length of time...
This has all the hallmarks of a post-Hutton show Blair who's boss attitude at the BBC.
News 24 caused all-round fury oop North two days ago by reporting on the rain delays at Wimbledon while Sheffield was flooding!
The Beeb have paid their money for Glasto and Wimbledon and they're determined to get their money's worth - even if it in both cases it means broadcasting footage of a rainy field...
the Beeb have a great track record in this. A judgement call but surely live Political event is more important than Round 2 of Wimbledon (not even a Brit or World Name.) A semi final may be different but they could have waited.
Many years ago (when they had Test coverage) cut away from a Eng player getting Triple'00 (1st in years) for Eng to show part of a horse race and they wonder why lost the contract later.
This from a big Political and sports fan!
YOu and me both, Johnny Norfolk.
Savonarola says: "The only thing he mastered was TV speech making."
Yes, if you mean it in a Monty Python sense. I wish I'd had the forethought to record that speech at Diana's funeral. It was a hoot. I wish I could watch it again to savour the bits I missed from laughing.
I do hope those civil servants who are cheering Brown are on there lunch break ,and are not wasting taxpayers money and time.
WHy shouldn't they? Blair can as best be seen as mediocre and now he has gone after an incredibly long farewell tour. He's gone and that's good.
It was a disgrace, couldnt they have shown an episode of the simpsons instead?
Tennis is boring and the Idea that the The conservative party could give a standing ovation to the creature who has wrecked our education system , flooded the country with immigrants and is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocen people is mind numbing.
A pox on both their houses , none of them are fit to govern.
No Labour Government, hooray, ten minute party!
Verity as usual I agree ,from day one I saw through this nasty piece of work how anybody culd have been taken in by all that halting voiced damp eyed staring into space cobblers is beyond me.
Step forward Mr Yates
What a travesty to applaud such a horribly vile scumbag from office. he is a war criminal, a valueless two-bob loser who has destroyed parliamentary democracy and left Britain one of the most hated countries in the world.
That is his legacy, an utterly despicable human being,
mid-East peace envoy......ha ha ha ha ha ha........ words fail me.
and as for that fat, scouse, chip on shoulder mingers comment "we wont miss you"...... i couldnt agree more.
Beats GMTV interrupting to shown Paris Hilton leaving jail.
HMF
So the BBC cut coverage before Bliar's nauseating, hypocritical standing ovation......BIG F@CKIN DEAL.....get over it!
Get a life.
Of course Cameron wanted the Tories to give a standing ovation: he is a great admirer of Blair and is now, after his hero has left the stage, the "Heir to Blair". He said so himself in 2005 according to an article in Telegraph (DC denies this) and Osborne confirmed it not long ago.
I see Cherie couldn't keep her big mouth shut once again. I'm no fan of TB, but her discourtesy towards the press on such an occasion was astonishing.
It seems like a perfect end to the PM's premiership. The power of celebrity is that it is instant and always efemeral. Once it leaves the spotlight it dies instantly. I do not know who the tennis players are but one or both may become Wimbledon champs in a few years time. They are young and they may be more famous tomorrow than they are today - a retiring PM is always a yesterday man. That is why Tony Blair has been so desperate to leave a legacy, so as not to be forgotten by next week.
In olden days, these floods would have been viewed as a portent. So perhaps the Broon had better watch out for the latter-day Ides of March?
This all reminds me of the occasion which caused the most complaints to be registered with the BBC.
This was caused by the BBC interrupting the Antiques Roadshow at a point at which an expert was about to place a value on a highly decorated floral Victorian chamber pot merely to announce that Nelson Mandela had been released from prison.
They probably justify it as its the only sport they seem to get hold of these days.
Very very very poor decision!
who really cares about the BBC, or the Hamas Broadcasting Corporation as Melanie puts it?
HBC
Even News 24 cut away to the even more important Hugh Edwards before Blair had left the chamber.
Absolutely diabolical news judgement by the BBC.
Maybe the BBC is as bored with Blair as I am!
It's almost Diana style coverage we seem to be getting.
Who cares about an interruption in the middle of the day?
Only saddoes will have been watching then! (Sorry, but true.)
Watch out for the full weepie style coverage at 6, at 10, etc.
Just seeing Gordon speaking a while ago outside Number 10 - he looks like a robot flicking his head right and left as though reading an autocue..
"I will continue to listen and learn.."
Yeah, yeah, yeah..
wrinkled weasel [1.12 PM] said: "Look, the BBC is not only run by wet liberals, they are young wet liberals. They have no sense of process, no sense of history and no sense of occasion."
I agree. But then left wing organisations are often run by youngsters, and often predominantly by young women.
I think it might help if, for the next ten years, the BBC recruited no one under the age of 45, no women, and no one who admits to reading the Guardian.
Of course, Iain, you could try complaining to the BBC, but don't expect anything other than the usual patronising brush off.
Verity/Hitch
The standing ovation was nauseous.
I couldn't give a monkey's about Blair being cut off by the Beeb.
MPs just don't get what many of us think collectively of them.
It was only a couple of more minutes, the BBC could have hung on.
I noted that IDS mentioned it on sky.
I actually tuned into the BBC rather than Sky - only to get it cut off. Won't make that mistake again!
Well, it semi-pains me to say it as I used to be a royalist, but the Queen has given us another vivid demonstration of how pointless she is.
She appointed an individual with absolutely no mandate by any stretch of the imagination as our prime minister. No one except people in his Scottish constituency voted for him. So it looks as though the Queen agrees that the outgoing prime minister should appoint the incoming prime minister.
I was nurturing a secret hope, unexpressed as I didn't want to jinx it, that the Queen would refuse to confirm Brown because he has no mandate from the British electorate. I was hoping she would call a general election and that she would appoint the military to run the country for the duration of the run-up - maybe three or four months.
This is the last straw for me. How supine can that awful family be? The Queen has never stood up for a bloody thing during her reign.
verity said...
It doesn't surprise me that Cameron ordered a round of applause for the greatest traitor since Edward Heath and Lord Haw Haw.
I never,ever thought I would agree with anything Verity said,ever.But Cameron didn't have the guts to sit on his hands and order his squalid bunch to show their disapproval of this nasty fellow.They are all the same you know,nothing changes,why bother to vote anymore ?
The Hitch said...
We can manage without you,get back down your sewer.
The Prime Minister of the country gives a short valedictory speech to Parliament and the Nation in his final minutes in power, after 10 years in government, and the BBC cuts away to a tennis match. What! Whoever made that decision should be sacked (and I speak as somebody who finds Blair nauseating).
Time to leave the country then Verity - oh hang, you already did, quite some time ago! Are they covering Gordon's coronation live in Latin America too? :-)
anon 3:50
make me (+:
Speedy - Mexico's in North America, old boy. And no, they don't seem bovvered.
As spoted on Nick Robinsons blog, Brown wastes no time to start spinning
As Nick fawns over McStalin His message was an intriguing one: change. That was the signal he wanted to send. And a degree of humility as well, quoting his school motto at the end - that he would "Try my utmost."
He knew that his words would be dwelt on, repeated again and again, and that he'd be tested against them. When people see the ups and downs that any prime minister and any government has, they'll say, did he live up to what he promised. Which is why his choice of words was so intriguing. "I will try my utmost" - it's hard to be found failing or wanting against that.
The 1st comment spots that Brown's old school moto is in fact 'working together to improve'
Brown's not even walked through the door to No 10 and he's lying!
Anonymous 4:10 - What a hoot!
The Hitch said..
Nobody likes you or your sickening posts.Go and leave us all alone,you spoil this excellent blog.
Seems that Quentin Davis was spot on about “Camera On” vacuous spinning.
You stated “”Well done to David Cameron for encouraging Tory MPs to join Labour MPs in a standing ovation. He was right to do so””. Remember the Christmas special The Thick of It? When the Blair figure resigns, the Tory spin doctor is shown running round Central Office shouting "This is the line, right. For the next 24 hours you praise him, right? You praise him like he's your dead brother." Could David Cameron have been watching?
Of course, it would have been too much to hope that now that Blair, Prescott, Reid and Goldsmith were going that verity would p!$$ off as well, but you cannot have everything..
Verity, you and I know it's in North America, but I recall our North American friends are always keen to make a distinction between what they refer to as North America and Latin America (thus including Mexico) rather than South America. I was trying to be somewhat considerate with this ambiguity, lest those that you are on the run from are also readers of Iain Dale's Diahorrea... :-)
BBC are absolutely right.
Politics is FAR less important than tennis.
Politicians need to get a grasp of the realities of life: they are NOT important. They SERVE us.
Nice try anon at June 27, 2007 4:10 PM but a later, more considered perhaps, comment on NR's reads:
"The motto is "Usque conabor" which means "I shall endeavour (or 'try') all the way (or 'through and through' or 'my utmost')"
It is a much stricter and better translation, than "working together to improve", which ignores the tense (and meaning) of the verb.
Still, it's good to see some ill-informed sniping, and to know that not everything has changed yet..."
Hear hear - never let the facts (especially if they're in Latin) get in the way of a bit of snide insinuation eh?
anon 4:18
Nobody likes you or your sickening posts.Go and leave us all alone,you spoil this excellent blog.
Who knows who or what you are ? unlike you I have an ID , unlike you I have met some of the people who come here or "the other place", and oddly enough some of them and others whom I havent met know my real name and email me or speak to me on the telephone, some of them even link to by blog when commercial considerations dont apply.
And WHO are you to declare yourself to be "US" ?
You are not "US", you are a priggish nothing. No doubt you can guess how much your disapproval bothers me. In fact I delight in your disaproval.
The Hitch.
Hey Shitch, anon@4.18 isn't the only one that's tired of your tedious attention-seeking comments here and on Guido's blog.
Your misappropriation and casual traducement in passing of a well known individual's public name (much to the anguish of that person) told us all we need to know about what a low-minded attention seeking twat you are.
Hopefully when your testicles finally descend you'll a) realise that you have balls; b) mature and act like a grown up, rather than sniggering like a little schoolboy hiding at the back of the class.
I always thought Blair WAS pretty unknown as a tennis player.
Mind you he did get amazing Service from Lord Levy, and as for the backhander shots there is no equal.
The Wimbledon singles winners will each recieve £700,000 for two weeks work. Blair was on £187,000 a year. Quite right that the BBC cut Blair off in favour of tennis.
Why didn't Gordon Brown give us his old school motto in the original latin? Wouldn't have gone down well with the brothers but the mandarins would have loved it.
Absolutley rubbish news management by some cack-handed BBC moron. The point about watching a broadcast like this is to see it live, and these dingbats switch to Wimbledon instead! Andrew Neil would be pulling his hair out if he hadn't paid so much to have it installed.
Speedy, no. Americans are clear that Mexico is in North America. True, as they speak Spanish, they are linguistically, although not geographically, part of Latin America as well.
Anyhoo ... they're N Americans.
Dunkin Donuts said...
Hey Shitch, anon@4.18 isn't the only one that's tired of your tedious attention-seeking comments here and on Guido's blog.
Agreed, this cretin posts obscenities and thinks he is being humourous.The sooner he gets the message that his asinine posts are not welcome the better.The fellow is loathsome, and more need to tell him so.
But the BBC being the BBC no one will either a) apologise without a fight or b) be sacked.
And they wonder why we watch Sky?
The Hitch said...
anon 4:18 You are not "US" No doubt you can guess how much your disapproval bothers me.
The length of your reply would suggest otherwise,you piteous wretch.
It's fairly obvious that BBC stands for Ball by Ball Coverage too, get the picture?
Just when I thought it was safe to come back to this blog, that disagreeable woman "Verity" returns.She just goes on,and on,and on..............your doin' me head in Verity with your never ending tedious garbage.
Anonymous 7:39 - Then don't read it, moron.
Just a thought, but did the BBC switch away from Blair's grand exit in order to curry favour with Brown?
unbelievable i agree..
verity said...
Anonymous 7:39 - Then don't read it, moron.
June 27, 2007 7:45 PM
Don't you realise you are taking over the blog you silly woman.
Latin America - the part of the American continents south of the United States in which Spanish, Portuguese, or French is officially spoken.
verity said...
"Anonymous 7:39 - Then don't read it, moron."
Many of your ravings ago you said you no longer read the anonymous posts. Hypocrite.
You back here because you ran out of Mexicans to insult? Try Colombia.
Yes it was a mistake but an amusing mistake nonetheless. I'd rather watch tennis (even rain stop play) than listen to anything Blair has to say.
Chris Goodman: Correct. Certainly. And geographically, on the N American continent.
Not the point of this thread, and
I want to get back to hating Tony Blair. My guess is that the reason he became a surprise envoy to the ME (I mean, had this been suggested before? Did it all blow up yesterday? What?) is to avoid prosecution. That is the reason for the hasty resignation of his seat in Sedgefield.
Resign prime ministership. Resign as MP. Out, out, out. My guess, they've already gone.
Some people may remember that I always said they would do a moonlight flit (I suspect it's in Cherie's genes), but I hadn't imagined this particular landscape.
But I will bet you they're out of Britain by now. The rest of their lives will be at the whim of Saudi princes. I hadn't thought of that! But I like it!
So obviously nobody in the BBC sat down before the programme and said ok what do we do it PMQ's over runs a bit?..Or maybe they did and said we go to the tennis even if it does..
Gobsmacked....
Anonymous, or may we call you "Mike?" 11:22 - Drunk enough yet?
Did the garbage truck come round your estate today, or was it not your day for deliveries?
It is just one sign of health hysteria
The simply people are encouraged to watch healthy life style and not to mess with politic.
Just a thought, but did the BBC switch away from Blair's grand exit in order to curry favour with Brown?
Of course - they were bowing to their new master
Did anyone see the outragousely biased way they interviewed George Osbourne on that excuse for a programme Breakfast, this morning?
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