(a) Are you intending to vote Conservative or UKIP at the next election? (If your answer is “Yes”, according to official BBC editorial policy guidelines, you are banned in perpetuity from being a member of the Question Time audience, and, furthermore, you may find yourself being taken into custody by Her Majesty’s constabulary prior to being sent to one of the government’s new LibThink facilities for a ReBoot Political Re-education training course.)
(b) Are you too stupid to fart and chew gum at the same time? (If your answer is “No”, again according to official BBC editorial policy guidelines, you are banned from participating in any BBC current affairs programme.)
(c) Do you find it difficult to read without moving your lips and frowning in concentration? (same conditions as above)
(d) Have you read a book without pictures during the past twelve months? (same conditions as above)
(e) Do you find it impossible locate your arse without employing both hands and the latest Satnav technology? (same conditions as above)
If you answered “No” to questions (a) and (d) “Yes” to questions (b), (c) and (e), please continue. Depending on just how thick you are, the questionnaire will take between two minutes and three days to complete. (As a helpful hint, correct answers appear in brackets after each question.)
(1) Do you believe in the existence of a magic money tree from which the government can pluck bank-notes whenever it feels like spending more on one of its pet victim groups or has to bung the EU some more Danegeld? (Correct answer: Yes)
(2) Do you think there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world – i.e. if somebody is rich it means that, as a direct result, someone else must be poor? (Yes)
(3) Do you believe that, despite all appearances to the contrary, Ed Miliband is fit to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom? (His heart's in the right place, even if nothing else is)
(4) Do you believe that it’s immoral for companies and wealthy individuals to fund the Tory Party, but absolutely fine for a bunch of union barons to fund the Labour Party and choose its leader? (I'm cool with that)
(5) Do you think the NHS – no matter how expensive and incompetent it is and no matter how many patients it tortures and kills - is Britain’s greatest achievement ever and makes up for all the evils perpetrated by the British Empire? (You bet – NB at this point, If you are too overcome by emotion at the very mention of the NHS to continue, you may wish to pause for an act of private devotion before completing the rest of the questionnaire)
(6) Do you sincerely accept the undeniable fact that anyone who thinks we've let in too many unskilled immigrants and would like to see tighter border controls is a vicious racist who is worse than Hitler and is probably a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan? (Too right - racist scum!)
(7) Do you think Lenny Henry has the right to dictate BBC hiring policy? (Well, obviously)
(8) Do you rate man-made climate change as the greatest threat facing the world and believe that a possible rise of one or two degrees centigrade in surface temperatures by the end of this century would prove inconceivably catastrophic and that no amount of other people’s money would be too much to squander on preventing this rapidly unfolding disaster? (Yes – as long as I can keep my two cars and fly off on holiday three times a year)
(9) Do you think it’s better to drown out conservative panellists with hysterical boos and shrieks rather than listen to what they have to say, because, as they are Satan’s spawn, their words might poison your mind. (Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...)
(10) Have you watched or listened to a current affairs “comedy” panel show such as Mock the Week or The News Quiz within the past 12 months without someone holding a gun to your head? (Never miss one - they always make me cry with laughter, especially when they attack Mrs Thatcher, who was responsible for the Holocaust and 9/11 and the whole of the North dying of hunger)
(11) Does your voice rise interrogatively at the end of simple declarative sentences? (Like, yeah?)
(12) Do you believe black underachievement is solely the result of white racism rather than bad parenting, rubbish schools and the detrimental influence of black yoof kultcha? (Too right, bruv – we is like all to blame, innit)
(13) Do you believe that the greatest threat to Britain’s internal security is from the far right? (Huh? What else could it be?)
(14) Do you believe that Islamic terrorists would stop bombing, beheading, raping and crucifying people who don’t agree with them - mainly other Muslims - if only the Jews apologised for being Jewish and all packed up and left Israel? (Well, dur!)
(15) Do you think the only thing wrong with the BBC is that it’s too right-wing? (You read my mind)
(16) Do you sincerely believe that cheap, efficient nuclear power stations are wicked, that expensive, inefficient wind farms are morally good, and that frackers are raping Gaia? (Cross my heart and hope to freeze to death)
(17) Do you actually think that if we got rid of our military and our nuclear weapons nobody would attack us? (Stands to reason – people don’t kill people, guns kill people, right?)
(18) Do you feel slightly sick when you hear “Jerusalem” or see a Cross of St George flag because you like to think of yourself as a citizen of the world and because “patriotism is the last refuse of the scandal” or something? (They are a deliberate insult to immigrants, non-Christians and the LGBT-with-extra-mayonnaise community)
(19) Do you like free stuff? (Now you’re talking, blud)
(20) Are you absolutely certain that the political party which almost destroyed the economy, dumbed down the education system, wrecked the health service, emasculated the police, ran down the military, allowed Asian rape gangs to run riot in the name of multiculturalism, lied to get us embroiled in disastrous, unwinnable wars, undermined our tradition of free speech and gave us the worst prime minister in history deserves to be returned to power in May? (Well, naturally – I really hate this country and want it to suffer)
If you got 15 or more questions right, you're exactly the sort of person we're looking for. Unfortunately, we can't accommodate everbody who wants to take part in Question Time, even after we're excluded all conservatives, right-wingers and libertarians, so please let us know whether you have most or all of the other qualities we're looking for. If you are hopelessly inarticulate, have never had an original thought in your life, have dyed your hair a really stupid colour to prove you're really interesting, suffer from a prominent speech defect, have a nasal estuarine accent, or invariably employ a hectoring, self-righteous, aggrieved tone please tell us in the space provided below, and then submit your form for consideration. (Jews and Christians will not be considered unless they are extremely wet and dementedly left-wing).
Good luck!
The BBC Question Time Team
Wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThis is very funny. I suspect you have been inspired by the memory of how witty the Colin Welch era Telegraph used to be.
ReplyDeleteThank you both! I haven't watched a full episode of QT since the last election, but I caught ten minutes of it last night. People I trust assure me that there's no left-wing political bias involved in audience selection, but that's just terribly hard to believe given the sheer blithering libtard idiocy of the majority of the audience interventions and the bizarre crowd reaction to any sensible points made by panel members. Anyway, after switching over to something less infuriating, I genuinely began wondering how, if they were doing it deliberately, the programme's production team would manage to get so many utterly dreadful people in one room at the same time. I could be wrong of course, but the questionnaire is my best guess. How else to account for it?
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a television watcher, so haven't seen QT for years. Any Questions used to be more my thing, but that has gone in exactly the same direction.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that there are four possible explanations for this Leftist hegemony.
The first is that the BBC is lying. It does select its audiences to reflect the opinions it wishes to broadcast.
The second is that Leftists are far better organised than the Right (and particularly those on the libertarian wing). Unions, 'charities' and other collections of foaming nutters can easily conspire to pack audiences.
The third, oddly, is the choice of location. Many of these tiresome programmes are held in schools, 'community centres' and other haunts of unrepentant statists.I wouldn't even know that one of the ghastly coven meetings was taking place in my area as I shun council buildings as I would a leper colony.
Finally, there's the rabies factor. Sensible people have lives that aren't dominated by the permanent sense of grievance and outrage that seems to characterise the Left. Rather than trudge out in the depths of winter and catch the bus to the local school just for the chance to hiss at and boo a few hapless MPs, most grown-ups are at home reading books, drinking wine, listening to music, pursuing hobbies and doing all the other things mentally stable people do.
Heaven forbid - some of the poor buggers are even working!
I suspect 2, 3, 4 and 5 are spot on with 2 & 5 top of the list. Earlier this month, when Question Time was held in Finchley - which has a large Jewish population - that appalling apology for a human being George Galloway was booed, heckled and drowned out by young Jews in the audience - i.e. he received exactly the same treatment normally accorded to right-wingers. He (like some right-wing guests) subsequently accused the BBC of setting him up deliberately. I'm sure the BBC wanted a dust-up, but did they deliberately invite young Jews on the programme, or did the young Jews simply do what the left normally does so well (the only thing it does well) and organise themselves? I suspect the latter option. And of course, the programme was held in a synagogue (just kidding).
DeleteIn the film "The Shooting Party" James Mason's grand-daughter asks him why he's always writing in his big book. "It's my game book. I also sometimes write down my thoughts. It means I don't have to bother other people with them." In the 14 th Feb issue of the Spectator Rod Liddle says that he and his wife sometimes read the letter pages of the Saturday Guardian and "so we sit there and snigger at the epic self-regard, the desperate yearning to be transgressed, the nursery-school Stalinism." And Flaubert somewhere looks at a crowd..."their faces asinine with idiocy". All this is applicable to the QT audience week after week. The habit that really disturbs me is the way they familiarly address or refer to panelists by their first names - even very distinguished ex-cabinet ministers like Straw and Rifkind [whoops-a-daisy!].
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure you're not allowed to address the two titans of British politics you mention as "Jackie" or "Mal" unless you have agreed to pay them some trifling emolument - say £5,000 a day - at which stage you can start calling them "Numbnuts" or "Faceache", or, indeed, anything that takes your fancy.
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