22/05/2014
I was invited to take part in a Radio 5 Live debate on the EU scheduled for Tuesday, up against Charles Grant of the CER. I had been extremely reluctant to do anything with the BBC, but the inquiry came via Booker, who had been extremely impressed with the researcher. When the same researcher contacted me, he promised a 25 minute slot, with assurances that it would be a grown-up debate.
After a long discussion of the issues, where the man had quite obviously done his homework, and agreed about the poor quality of the debate so far, I agreed to go to Leeds for an 11pm broadcast.
However, at the last minute, it appears (unknown to me at the time), Grant pulled out. The programme was thus postponed until yesterday night at 11pm (Wednesday). But this time, I was to be up against ex-Beeboid
Lucy Thomas from BNE, and - as I was to find - an obviously biased interviewer, Phil Williams. Then, only after the programme had started and I was already in the studio, was I told there had been "a lot a breaking news". The discussion time had been cut - to an unspecified length. In the event, it was considerably less than than ten minutes.
After an introductory clip, which included a long interview with an academic from Sheffield University, clearly europhile in tenor, Williams gave the first hit to the Beeboid. Far from being a serious discussion, she trotted out the same low-grade europhile FUD that we've been getting for years - including an attack on the Norway option, with me given no time to respond.
Thomas was then given the last word, with free passage to observe that too many people spent time listening to "people like Dr North".
Thus, for an hour and a half of my life taken to drive to and from Leeds and take part in the programme, all I got to do was trade a few points on two questions and slap down the fatuous Williams. His great contribution was to accuse me of "cherry picking", when I told him that we need to be operating on a global level and "little Europe" was dragging us down.
I suppose I should have known better. This is actually typical of the BBC, who pulled me in under false pretences - as they so often do. Had I known the conditions in advance, I would not have agreed to take part.
This is the LAST time I let the Beeb con me. They are time wasters, incapable of hosting a serious debate on any issue of consequence. If we are to rehearse these issues, it is going to have to be without the "assistance" of a wholly inadequate state broadcaster. We are actually better off without it. To be stitched on on-air is actually worse than not being there.
Meanwhile,
Complete Bastard points out that there is another thing we can do without. Between UKIP and the BBC, we are struggling to make headway.
Life was never meant to be this complicated, and this is only a start. If we ever do have a referendum, we are going to need a powerful web presence to counteract the sheer unprofessionalism of the Beeb, and the low-grade amateurism of UKIP.
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