Lord Bragg slams TV political coverage

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Melvyn Bragg

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Lord Melvyn Bragg has launched a fierce criticism of political coverage on television, including BBC One's weekly panel discussion show Question Time.

Speaking yesterday at a Voice Of The Listener And Viewer conference in London, Bragg said that the way terrestrial networks have covered politics in recent times is an "absolute disgrace".

He pointed to the success of the televised prime ministerial debates on ITV and Sky as showing that viewers want to hear politicians speaking at length rather than just giving sound-bites, reports The Guardian.

"I just think some of those Question Time programmes, the interlocutor - whatever name they have always starts with a D - they talk too much, do too many follow-up questions," he said, presumably referring to Question Time host David Dimbleby.

"When you've got an assembled group who very rarely if ever get a chance to express their views to a large television public, scarcely any of them - and I now exaggerate and emphasise for effect - scarcely any of them get a look in. It's an interview show by any other name.

"I would like to hear more people speaking and not being brushed off and being told they're bigoted," he added, referring to the scandal yesterday when Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught on audio calling a woman a bigot.

The final 90-minute leaders' debate will go ahead tonight on BBC One, with Brown joining Nick Clegg and David Cameron to field questions in front of a studio audience.

Speaking about the debates, Bragg said: "What these debates are showing is the absolute disgrace of the way BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have treated politics over the last few years.

"On the whole these are three people at the top of their political parties talking more or less uninterrupted - we'll see what happens on Thursday - having a real say about policies at a certain length and a certain depth.

"When do we see that on television? Does it take an election once in a lifetime and negotiations that have taken 12 years to see that on television?"

Bragg pointed to the beneficial effect the debates have had on Liberal Democrat leader Clegg, whose strong performance in the programmes attracted more support for his party.

"One man [Clegg], who scarcely got heard in the House of Commons because it's a childish bear-pit, one man who was allowed to speak clearly without being heckled and booed, he spoke clearly and people said, 'Here is a very interesting man, he has got something to say, we would like to hear some more'," said Bragg.

"The educated British public are sick to death of being given sound-bites and hearing their politicians chivvied. I hope it doesn't degenerate yet again to an interlocutor fielding all the questions and asking all the questions instead of it being about the public having its say, instead of ending up being the usual BBC guy asking more questions than the entire British public put together."

Bragg also hinted that the South Bank Show, which was recently axed by ITV after over 30 years on air, could return to television screens in the future.

"All is not lost. I think ITV went through this time last when certain people running ITV couldn't see the bottom of the pit," he said.

"They looked into the computer and thought [advertising] was more or less going to vanish forever and all sorts of thing happened as a consequence. We got caught in a perfect storm. We'll see."