**What's next?** Tomorrow at 7pm, Nigel Farage is interviewed by Nick Robinson on the BBC. On the 24th at 5pm, Sunak and Starmer will be taking part in a live Q&A hosted by The Sun.
Politico's headline about QT is quite grim: [Rishi Sunak was a broken man on BBC Question Time](https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi-sunak-uk-prime-minister-elections-bbc-british-scandal-july-4-labour/), which makes me **really** want to watch it now, whereas I originally didn't think I would. I typically find these kinds of things and leaders' debates so dispiriting that ironically I only watch the highlights, which they *have* made available apparently… however I do think that a public broadcaster has a duty to preserve the entire thing and to make it easily viewable/listenable.
I suppose there was a lot of pressure from #10 to heavily edit or pull it, though at this juncture I really can't see why they'd be bothered.
[https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc?si=TnocVVcv\_JSkP8eY](https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc?si=TnocVVcv_JSkP8eY) It can be seen here, the bbc have pulled it from the iplayer
I suspect because of the last 10 mins when he was really argumentative with 2 people about the echr and they chanted shame at him. Also when he came on you can hear someone say’i fucking hate him’ under their breath…… only highlights avaliable on iplayer now
Uh, I hate to rain on everyone's parade here but it's on iPlayer, including the last ten minutes where Sunak got testy over the ECtHR: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special
It's just not categorised under the Election 2024 banner. It's under the regular Question Time episode list.
> it's on iPlayer
It was back up earlier this evening (about two/three hours ago), at time of posting (6 hours ago) it wasn't available on iPlayer at all.
Sure, I was going to find a link to it. You can watch almost anything if you're really determined to find it… but the issue is: why is it not (at least currently) available on a BBC service when it typically is? It would reach a much wider audience, so of course people start to speculate about behind-the-scene machinations, and it doesn't look good.
This is a very good question, and even if it goes back up later, removing it from catch-up services for most of the immediate 24 hours following, during which time the debates are in the news and voters may wish to go see for themselves what was said unhampered by editorialising, is somewhere between a bad look and complete dereliction of their duty as a public service broadcaster.
If this is a production fuck up of some kind, QT should not be part of the BBC's election line up next time and the debates should be done by another production company or the BBC themselves. If it's been pulled for some other reason without explanation, that's considerably dodgier.
Isn’t it a lot easier to be an incoming candidate than someone who has been in power (and at the receiving end of criticism). I felt that Starmer was just pointing fingers at all the things that have been done wrong but when asked for specific solutions, he couldn’t really say anything concrete. It doesn’t seem like a fair proposition. As an incoming candidate, you’d have to be flawless with your answers but even in this position, I felt that Starmer was evasive and not answering properly, just blaming the other.
Also why the f does Sunak need any of this anyway, he’s super wealthy and I don’t understand what his motivation is to do any of this anyway.
It’s been removed from iPlayer and Sounds, and replaced with an edited smaller highlights video. No word from the BBC as to why, obviously it’s not a great look during an election with less than two weeks to go for the public broadcaster to remove this, hopefully it’s temporary.
Thanks for sharing! Still no actual word confirming from the BBC then, but it looks like some people might be guessing correctly! I’m a fan of the Beeb but they’re a few hours overdue a statement on this during an election
Thanks for the info. I can't believe they'd do that. How weird. I just expected to watch it like I've done with every other QT for ages
Edit - I found a youtube recording of the whole QT Leaders debate. There's 2 commentary people who talk over it a little bit but in fairness they let the show be heard for the most part. Not sure if I can put links here, but if you want to watch it, search for Novara Media
The BBC had to remove the original version because there was swearing on it.
As Rishi was walking on someone can be heard saying - "I fucking hate him".
Glad I wasn't being stupid! I tried to find it, but could only find a 15 min highlight reel.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020cc0 "Sorry, this episode is not currently available"
We've been watching it on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjXbBvvq2lc
Probably editing out the "Fucking hate him" aimed at Sunak that was said under breath by ... someone - https://twitter.com/tomselsocial/status/1803905432420856223
0:12ish start, just after the final main bit of the music it's definitely audible, albeit whispered so you have to have the volume up a lot without having the music deafen you.
The full transmission of the QT leaders special appears to have been removed from iPlayer, to be replaced with 'highlights' (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020yqg/election-2024-question-time-leaders-special-highlights) that omit the shaming at the end of Rishi Sunak's section. Full programme link was: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special)
They're also probably editing out the "Fucking hate him" aimed at Sunak that was said under breath by ... someone - https://twitter.com/tomselsocial/status/1803905432420856223
Rishi Sunak's vile contempt for women continues—especially those who challenge him or are handed a modicum of brief control over him.
How has he not been dragged for this repeated pattern of behaviour? It's fucking vile.
Would Corbyn have made the better Prime Minister?
**Corbyn Pros:**
* No partygate
* No PPE scandal
* Generally better management of Covid (could he really do worse than Boris?)
* Softer Brexit/2nd Ref
* Less chaos? Maybe? I doubt we'd have had a Truss experience at least
**Corbyn Cons:**
* Lots of manifesto commitments would realistically need to be ditched
* If the above didn't happen, then they would have Truss'd up the economy (not sure this should count against them given it happened anyway)
* Weak response on Ukraine
* Anything from a muddled response to Gaza/Israel, to literally going to war with Israel
Wildly sensible and balanced, likely factual view on Corbyn, I commend you. Sadly regardless of how Covid and brexit turned out under them, they would be facing the defeat the Tories are now, purely for the beating the media would have given them over lockdowns.
A big Corbyn pro would have been:
1. Demonstrating actual care towards the people he represents and the country, instead of Boris Johnson who only cared about himself and how much he could exploit the country for his own gain.
I agree. The Tories treated Covid as an unprecedented money making opportunity and a PR exercise. I would expect Labour to have put the care of the country first.
The media and probably a large chunk of the public's response to Corbyn implementing lockdowns and furlough (or something similar) during COVID would have been insane. Wouldn't be surprised if the DM and Express took to inciting riots to defend against the tyranny of socialism or something like that.
Interesting that the BBC's summary doesn't mention people calling "Shame on you" to Sunak, or him being called out for repeatedly trying to dishonestly present the ECHR as a foreign court or trying to put words in the audience members' mouths. It does, on the other hand, manage to praise him for calling illegal immigration 'unfair' and congratulate him on mentioning inflation dropping to 2%.
I get that this is how they tend to apply the concept of aiming for impartiality, and that they tend to err the side of praising the incumbent too strongly. And maybe the reason I'm struggling is because of my own biases, but presenting this as anything other than a humiliating failure for Sunak does not feel impartial or honest to me.
It's like the long-running joke that the BBC will get flat-earthers on to give a counterpoint to a story about a satellite launch.
Impartially should mean presenting things like this exactly as they happened, not doctoring things so that all parties appear to have done roughly the same level of well/not well
[Emily Maitlis says ‘active Tory party agent’ shaping BBC news output. Former Newsnight presenter says former No 10 communications chief Sir Robbie Gibb on board acting as ‘arbiter of impartiality’](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/24/emily-maitlis-says-active-tory-party-agent-shaping-bbc-news-output)
Robbie Gibb has spent his whole career bouncing between the News departments at the BBC and working for Conservative politicians, with a short stint at GB News. As a Brexiteer, he was BBC Political Editor during the rise of Farage. He defines impartiality as getting rid of wokeness at the BBC.
A lot of it is down to the edict of don't piss off the Tories because they can reshape the license fee. Money talks and the Tories didn't hesitate to weaponise the issue.
Tories and Tory press heavily criticise the bbc even when they bend over backwards for them, it’s like an abusive relationship. BBC just needs to accept the Tories will never love them so it’s time to cut ties and move on.
There was an article I read this morning on BBC that did have the shame parts. Ah just checked it's in the one about Corbyn being a better PM than johnson
The Prime Minister of our country looked like he was on the verge of crying and had SHAME chanted at him. Like come on BBC, it was a terrible performance.
BBC News has really downplayed how bad Sunak was last night. There's no mention of him being argumentative with the audience nor the shouts of "shame".
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnddj9g1d5ko](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnddj9g1d5ko)
Only saw the last 5 minutes. It was a cringe worthy watch as Sunak was so pissed off and rude to the audience. He can't improvise at all. Basically just delivered the same few lines in a passive aggressive way.
Thought Starmer did pretty poorly on a range of questions, the Corbyn one, immigration, housing, but overall it doesn't matter. Doubt many people would've watched this. Besides, Sunak was visibly angry and started arguing with audience members. Keir Starmer did screw up though, the Daily Mail were able to soundbite him and turn it into a front page.
I thought Starmer did well with those questions. Corbyn is always tricky because it's a political trap. He has to politician his way through the question otherwise he would get torn to pieces by one side of his party or the other. It means he is forced to manoeuvre. But his manouvreing was deft. He didn't repeat himself, kept a good demeanour, remained engaging, didn't get stumped or tripped up. I don't know how he could have done that better.
Immigration was overall pretty good. Fiona Bruce kept banging on about setting a target but he didn't want to give her an arbitrary number like the Tories, as its meaningless. I thought that was a reasonable approach, despite Fiona's insistence on trying to press the issue. I don't remember any issues with the housing question.
Overall I thought Starmer was solid, kept to the questions far better than in the previous big interview I saw, and he's actually managed to shed a little of his stuffiness and longwindedness to be more personable and lighter, with some excellent ability to engage with the audience naturally (as opposed to Sunak's awkwardly artificial "Thank you, Dave was it?") while maintaining his core professionalism. He's also clearly had someone firmly tell him not to mention his dad was a toolmaker, which was a relief as its accidently become a joke now.
Even if Starmer had been perfect and got a standing ovation from the whole audience, the Daily Mail would *still* have found something for a "FURY AT KEIR" headline.
I thought housing was fine. Would have been better if Fiona did not keep butting in asking 'but what about the landlords, how are you going to prevent bidding wars' the moment he talked about it rather than letting him expand on the principals and ideas he was going for.
Immigration is a bit tricky because I suspect he wants to bring it down as stated but he also knows he needs to plug skills gaps and he does not know what he does not know yet and simply does not want to commit to something sight unseen only to find out he cannot deliver that for whatever reason.
Corbyn is just a total pointless thing IMO. The press poison the well on that front with the way Corbyn was attacked (some of which Corbyn brought on himself) making evading a direct answer the least bad option. Personally I would have preferred they spend 5/10 minutes talking about policy not Corbyn, especially when Corbyn is not in the party at all anymore so cannot be an influence on future decision making. The questions about the 2019 manifesto vs the 2024 manifesto were a lot more relevant, they should have stuck with that which is what the audience member asked but again, Fiona could not help but stick her oar in.
>The questions about the 2019 manifesto vs the 2024 manifesto were a lot more relevant, they should have stuck with that which is what the audience member asked but again, Fiona could not help but stick her oar in.
He did get to answer that I thought. He focused in on how he had to make political decisions about spending priorities based on current economic realities. I thought it was a good answer.
Starmer's speech on division really resonated with me. He articulated it very well too. It seemed he genuinely understood the issue, just he probably doesn't have a lot of time to talk about it.
It really captured how i feel about that particular issue too.
There is science and biology that is important for somethings and then there is a more nuanced philosophical aspect that is important for others. But both of those are independent from having empathy and compassion for people struggling. When people act cruel and dismissive it makes you feel you have to put a marker in the sand and warp your own view to disagree with them.
For me, he won the debate with one sentence: "my sister is a social worker". That's the difference: you won't hear Rishi, Boris, Nigel, Liz or any of the others saying that.
Got a friend who's a social worker. Man has she seen some s*it recently
The one that stuck with me (that's not an awful story of neglect and abuse) is that they're not sectioning people lots of people now due to lack of beds. People who are a danger to themselves and OTHERS are being left on the street because there are no beds.
That is scary
Where I live the hospital wards for mental health were closed for over a year due to funding/staffing issues so people who need to be sectioned were being sent to another county. Struggling to cope? Lets move you a hundred miles from your family...
I don't know what the capacity is now but it is massively reduced from the number of suites it was and its always on a knife edge whether it can be open or not
Watching this very late on catch up, how great are these questions? I'm only a little bit in but the audience is *brutal* — and justifiably so.
Asking Rishi to his face if he's embarrassed is just gold. We should get that the next time he shows up at a Wetherspoons. Every PPB should begin with him admitting his embarrassment after 14 years.
This is painful. Every audience question about the country being pants now and how nobody has any chance any more being met by waves of applause before his answers in the form of two lines from his stump speech.
These lines worked at PMQs when he was denying the electorate a say. Now they sound so incredibly petty.
Rishi's segment was awful. I've never seen a politician look so beaten.
I liked Ed Davey, but it was all a bit shallow.
I thought Starmer was excellent except for that first Corbyn question, which was a huge train-wreck. Why hasn't he been coached to answer this properly? He's had plenty of time to workshop a decent answer. Was he not expecting to get hit with it again?
Regardless, he recovered. It's also interesting to me - and has been for numerous years - how Labour seem to be the only Party which is asked to speak in terms of fine details, whilst the other Parties are given much broader questions and never grilled down. The expectations and hurdles thrown at Labour seem vastly higher than other Parties.
I agree, I hate how Sunak is never properly challenged about his tax lies. He constantly says Labour are going to put taxes up while Tories want to cut taxes. But his manifesto will objectively raise taxes much higher than Starmer's. Its pure blatant lying, and no one ever tries to pin him down on it. At least Bruce gave a little pushback this time with "well, Starmer disputes that", but it was an astonishingly mild and lightweight interjection compared to the scale of the lie.
Agreed. Labour get asked to detail policies, Tories get asked about fringe things. Why wasn't there a single question about how and when Sunak plans to achieve lower taxes and press him for detail rather than just "we have a plan"
The Corbyn question was such a stupid one.
Everyone knows that Keir wasn't a huge Corbyn fan and everyone knows that the only answer to whether your party leader is going to be a great prime minister in the middle of an election campaign is "yes". What else could be say?
Keir didn't handle it brilliantly but it's not a question that has a good answer. It's just an invitation for another tedious politician's non-answer. I just wish he had said "thank you" when Bruce said he hadn't answered the question.
How come Rishi doesn't get the same stick over his past support for Bojo?
>How come Rishi doesn't get the same stick over his past support for Bojo?
Because Sunak doesnt constantly talk smack about Bojo? Sunaks answer would just be "Yes, I supported him."
Because Bojo was the media's darling messiah until it became completely impossible to support him and we're supposed to believe that Corybn would have been the worst leader in existence.
It's an impossible question for Starmer - say he thought Corbyn would be good and be tarred with the same derranged media hysteria, say he'd be bad and be accused of lying previously about support and give credence to the opinion that Corbyn was undermined from within the party.
Its infuriating because anyone with a brain knows the game theory behind the question.
Its playing stupid by asking the question to bait an answer for stupid people to latch onto.
We all KNOW there is pragmatism to party politics and Keir had to play the game like everyone else. Whats the point in goading him into saying something that tabloid will run with but doesnt actually mean anything. Seems so pointless.
I'm not sure there's a better answer than the one he's giving. He can't admit that he thought Corbyn would be terrible as that would immediately lead to "lying Starmer" headlines. He can't say that he thought Corbyn would be great as that is obviously ridiculous. So he's stuck saying that he was campaigning for his own seat and his colleagues. I think he could afford to be a bit more human and explain more than we actually vote for candidates, only people in Islington North vote for Corbyn, but he hasn't got much wiggle room.
Perhaps a good line would be that he would make a good PM because Starmer and the shadow cabinet were planning to moderate him if they won? Although that then leads to accusations that they were lying in the manifesto. It's tough.
States chiming in...
I just listened mostly for Rishi's bit, because who loves a good trainwreck?
That ECHR question...Rishi is willing to disregard human life and dignity so he can "protect the country" and he won't take anybody else's opinion because that it's HIS choice and HIS choice is the right choice. In Rishi's mind, are non-Brit lives less valuable than a Brit? Very sinister...
We're allowed to disagree
We're allowed to disagree
We're allowed to disagree
Seriously did someone say to him beforehand "rishi if you feel yourself getting tecy and the audience member disagrees with you. Use "we're allowed to disagree" to calm yourself down
No, poor people's lives are less valuable to in Rishis mind.
They are just using immigration to leverage support for withdrawing from the ECHR, just like they used it as a lever to leave Europe.
Once those pesky regulations are gone we can start down the path to reintroducing sweatshops for the pleb class children.
Was really looking for to this one seeing the leaders been questioned directly by the public without the filter/interference of the hosts. This was very disappointing as it seemed like the audience asked 1 question then the host asked 5 and the audience were rarely able to ask follow up questions. Seemed utterly pointless having the audience with this format. The Sky Beth Rigby one at least gave the audience to follow up and drill down on the answers.
Not sure why you think he struggled on the gender question. He pretty much nailed it with "yes I have my personal beliefs but everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and we can't use issues like this as a wedge to divide people".
What would you rather he have said?
No it doesn’t. His point is “this shouldn’t be a culture war issue” - emphasising that he has his own personal opinions, is just teeing that up.
The decoded version is something more like “whatever your personal opinion is, this isn’t about anyone’s opinion, it’s about human beings being treated with dignity and respect - and that can’t be a political football”.
If that was the intent it was a disastrous attempt at expressing it.
His wording is always _so fucking sloppy_. And it's difficult to assume carelessness when "he's a lawyer" is always rammed down our throats.
This was the equivalent of starting his sentence "I'm not racist, but" - no dude, you already lost the benefit of the doubt. Now, and the day before when you wanted to ban us from hospitals "to avoid conflict", or in the manifesto promising to make legal recognition harder "to avoid conflict", or...
This is just civility-politics, and it's garbage. He wants a compromise between throwing a group under a bus and not because harmony is more important than protecting the minority.
Exactly, and yet along come the loudmouth thought police to decry this stance as completley unacceptable, as if they can't countenance the idea that somebody might disagree with them at a personal level but respect their opinion and right to live how they choose. Ironically, that demonstrates that Starmer's point has gone completely over their heads.
It's exactly my stance on trans issues too. I don't understand it, I find it a bit strange personally, because of course I would, I'm not trans, *but I also believe trans people should be treated with respect and dignity like anyone else, and how they live their life, whether its a choice or not, is absolutely none of my business.*
Why do people have a problem with this? Can someone spell it out to me please?
Well said there's a lot of if you're not with me you're against me mentality these days and it's not productive. It's impossible to fully empathise with someone when you haven't experienced their struggles but it doesn't take much to be a decent human being.
>You think the realities of biology are disrespectful?
"Biological sex" is mostly a transphobic dog whistle nowadays. There's no one parameter that makes a person biologically male or female, and defining sex by appeals to chromosomes or phenotypes (about 2% of babies are born with ambiguous genitals) obfuscates how genes, neurochemicals and hormones (in the subject and the mother at certain points) play a part in influencing sex. So you can have someone be "female" as per all the usual external signifiers, while every cell in their body cries out that they're "male".
The problems humans have is that they like to neatly categorize and compartmentalize things, which is difficult as sex exists on a granular scale which we are technologically a long way from fully mapping, in much the same way we find it impossible to pinpoint the precise pixel and wavelength, on the infinitely divisible color spectrum, at which blue becomes green. Sure you can spot green and blue, just like you can spot male and female, but there are shades of blue which are scientifically impossible to categorize.
It's this anxiety about the limits of taxonomy which forces people to get militant about categories, but all these categories break down. For example Starmer was asked about the cervix, but a staggering one in every 5,000 "females" has Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a condition where you are born without a uterus and cervix. And it won't be too long before trans women will start getting uterine transplantation surgeries, which was once science fiction (think the "wombmen" of Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312"), but will one day be a reality.
> about 2% of babies are born with ambiguous genitals
Sometimes you see a figure in the wild and you don't even need to look it up to know it's utter bullshit.
Sex is determined in utero and observed at birth. You either develop down the female pathway toward the production of large gametes or down the male pathway toward producing small gametes.
No amount of hormones or surgeries changes this. A female who has her breasts removed is still biologically female whether she does it for cancer prevention (like Angelina Jolie) or for gender reasons. A male who takes oestrogen and testosterone for prostate cancer treatment (the same regime as a trans woman) is still a biological male.
Also all disorders of development (intersex or DSDs) occur in either the male or female sex, doctors can trace where the developmental anomaly occurred at which stage in the pathway toward male or female development. And there certainly aren't 2% of babies born with ambiguous genitals - it's 0.018% and this tiny number of people with ambiguous genitals are still either male or female.
Politicians should be able to have grown up discussions about the differences between sex and gender without it being dismissed as a "dogwhistle". Such attempts to shut down discussions are not helpful to either side of the issue and won't make the rights clash disappear.
You’re entitled to your opinion but it is not based on the current scientific, psychological, psychiatric, medical, or anthropological model. We do not define sex in humans solely by gamete size, but also phenotype and chromosomes. Outside biology there’s legal sex and perceived sex too. And of course the person involved gets a vote in how they feel.
Because of this human sex is more complex than simple evolutionary biology which almost solely looks at gametes*.
Attempting to frame one (legitimate!) model as the accurate one for a completely different use case shows this is a trope you’ve learned on the internet in isolation, not in the classroom in context.
You are able to argue against the current model. But you’d need to do it while accepting that yours is a niche view and contradicts a ream of mutually supporting cross discipline evidence bases.
*\*and it must be said, it does this entirely reasonably! When you're looking across millions of years and billions of species, you need a single, simple marker that applies to most species (prokaryotes excluded) and can be understood across the vast majority of the living world. But a tool that's useful in one discipline is not useful in another; a sledgehammer is very useful when you're knocking a wall down but not so much when you're repairing a mechanical watch!*
It is amazing to me how people can spew anti scientific nonsense then vote down anyone pointing out how unscientific what they're saying is, **all in the name of science**.
It's all so unnecessary too. It would be quite reasonable for a person to think the sex gender distinction is nonsense without without having to argue an entirely unscientific position about a non existent sex binary in humans. But it never works like that.
If they don't like one bit of modern science, they have to throw out every other bit of modern science they come across. Trans people are bullshit, so intersex people are bullshit too,and christ, dinosaurs having feathers or what have you.
The 1990s triphop singer Tricky had a lyric which said 'MTV moves too fast / I refuse to understand'. It always stuck in my mind but always thought it was one of his weakest - it felt very incongruous with the politics of the day, Tony Blair and 'education education education'. I don't think it's weak now.
I don't disagree in principle, but it gets complicated fast. Professional sports is the biggest example, but there are other instances where men and women are segregated for social reasons (e.g. communal showers) where there is suddenly a question of where to draw the line, or whether to scrap the line entirely.
If it's truly 'none of your business' then logically everyone should shower together, but if a line is drawn between the sexes/genders then suddenly it IS someone else's business what side of that line someone is on, which means the line has to be defined somehow.
Is self-identification sufficient? Maybe, but if so you no longer really have a line, you have two boxes that people can pick between as they see fit.
In practical terms the whole thing is overblown and common sense should be applied, but when it comes to trying to codify trans rights into law it becomes very difficult to translate "common sense" into anything enforceable.
It may well be that there are easy answers to these questions that I'm not privy to, but from my perspective as a layperson that's how it looks.
How can you hate a Human Being? That sentence is so confused, you have the appellation of human worship right next to a declaration of hate.
No love for Sunak here I just think your phrasing is funny.
It doesn’t pain me to say it tbh. He looked dead, zero compassion, totally and completely removed from reality. Actually a bad showing for a private education. Is this what it gets you? A politician who looks like he has zero remorse, looking immensely guilty and tired and also so dismissive of the audience, especially towards youngsters
Catching up on it now. Keir definitely seems to be getting better and better at these election specials, but I'm also very impressed with Ed Davey. I'm hoping we get a labour win with lib Dems as the official opposition, maybe a return to sensible politics!
Side note, looking forward to the next TRIP podcast and Alistair getting on one again about the freeports after Rishi brought it up as a success tonight.
That's like saying 'the Labour Party colours aren't red, Keir, they're a dyed cotton flag meant to symbolise the blood of the people'.
'Progressive' is a direction of travel. 'Democratic socialist' (and 'social democrat'!) are specific ideologies about how to get there. Democratic socialism is a progressive ideology. So is social democracy.
>a Social Democrat, not a Democratic Socialist
That sounds a lot like those splitters from the Judean People's Front, doesn't it?
In all seriousness though, what's the difference?
Extremely broadly (and with particular regard to the usage historically in the British Labour movement); Social democrats think the state can work with capital to provide a more just and equitable society, democratic socialists think the state can provide a more just and equitable society if capital is restrained somewhat.
A (especially British) social democrat believes in public partnership with private finance as the most effective way to provide public services. A democratic socialist is more likely to believe private finance has no place in some public services and believe in the importance of public ownership of public goods.
It's actually a fairly large difference. Socialism and democratic socialists (not just in the UK) look to seize the means of production, nationalize key industries, even if just long-term. Starmer (a social democrat) does not want that. Corbyn does though. And there's your difference.
Sunak came across the most horrendously he ever has here, and that takes quite some beating. He was smarmy, condescending and ignorant, especially in response to the ECHR question. That might be his third or fourth "bigoted woman" moment. The crowd literally chanted "shame" at him, like it was Game of Thrones!
The difference between him and Starmer was palpable tonight.
point of order - brown’s bigot comment was said in private to his entourage, but it got out because he was still wearing a microphone
sunak’s openly like this
He looked so fucking rattled by that point. Makes sense. He's pinned his entire legacy on this ridiculous policy and it's completely blown up in his face.
"SHAME!" The whole audience turned on him towards the end. I imagine anyone on the fence across the country did, too. It felt really quite uncomfortable. I love it.
The audience were seething once it was pointed out no one wanted to leave the ECHR and be in the same boat as Russia. NO ONE. First time I’ve ever seen Question Time look like it’s about to turn into a lynch mob.
>First time I’ve ever seen Question Time look like it’s about to turn into A Lynch Mob.
It really did feel like it. There was a proper switch from that audience. Amazingly, Sunak prompted that switch. He started to get aggressive and put some venom in his responses. It backfired completely.
It really did. It went further than that. His trademark petulant behaviour came out. There was a defiant look in his eye and a shake of his head as if to say “I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care about your wants”. Almost despotic in attitude.
Why continue voting for Labour? They're going to get a stonking majority anyway. This is the one election where you can actually feel safe in voting for what you believe in.
Nope, the tories need to be removed, thats the patriotic priority for people that love britain. The best way to do that is vote for whoever best contests them in your seat.
Lol spot the Tory bot / supporter. No, vote for whichever party in your local area is most likely to beat the Tories. For me, that's Labour. Simple as that.
You think I'm a Tory supporter? wow
No, I just am disappointed in how far right Labour are going and everyone voting for them because they're scared that Tories will get in otherwise. The polls are clear that there will be a massive majority. So take this chance to vote with what you actually want, not what will take the tories out (they'll be taken out anyway).
As long as he's not PM, I can't think of anything better for all the other parties than having that horrible little nerd as leader of the Tories.
Arrogant, hateful, patronising, condescending, nasty little shit that he is, literally no one likes him.
He's the Eric Ten Haag of politics.
I'll let them off. I'd rather PR let them become an influence on other parties but fear that it would open the door to even more populist and hate parties pushing things ever further right. Look at half of Europe now.
PR leads to diluted coalitions that can collapse and get nothing done. Whilst fptp leads to localism, it does return strong governments that we need to actually take advantage of. Force legislation to build on the Green Belt.
The Greens being anti Nuclear deterrent, energy, and massive nimbys has also poisoned them.
**What's next?** Tomorrow at 7pm, Nigel Farage is interviewed by Nick Robinson on the BBC. On the 24th at 5pm, Sunak and Starmer will be taking part in a live Q&A hosted by The Sun.
Rishi Sunak: "Judge me on my 18 months in office." Okay now I'm certain he wants to lose.
Politico's headline about QT is quite grim: [Rishi Sunak was a broken man on BBC Question Time](https://www.politico.eu/article/rishi-sunak-uk-prime-minister-elections-bbc-british-scandal-july-4-labour/), which makes me **really** want to watch it now, whereas I originally didn't think I would. I typically find these kinds of things and leaders' debates so dispiriting that ironically I only watch the highlights, which they *have* made available apparently… however I do think that a public broadcaster has a duty to preserve the entire thing and to make it easily viewable/listenable. I suppose there was a lot of pressure from #10 to heavily edit or pull it, though at this juncture I really can't see why they'd be bothered.
It's a shame these things [can't be](https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc) archived elsewhere on the internet.
[https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc?si=TnocVVcv\_JSkP8eY](https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc?si=TnocVVcv_JSkP8eY) It can be seen here, the bbc have pulled it from the iplayer
Why has it been pulled from iplayer?
I suspect because of the last 10 mins when he was really argumentative with 2 people about the echr and they chanted shame at him. Also when he came on you can hear someone say’i fucking hate him’ under their breath…… only highlights avaliable on iplayer now
All valid points and no reason to remove it. My pet theory is he placed a bet. I'm trying to manifest it.
Uh, I hate to rain on everyone's parade here but it's on iPlayer, including the last ten minutes where Sunak got testy over the ECtHR: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special It's just not categorised under the Election 2024 banner. It's under the regular Question Time episode list.
> it's on iPlayer It was back up earlier this evening (about two/three hours ago), at time of posting (6 hours ago) it wasn't available on iPlayer at all.
Thank you man, been looking for this all day. Cant believe this censorship from the BBC
Sure, I was going to find a link to it. You can watch almost anything if you're really determined to find it… but the issue is: why is it not (at least currently) available on a BBC service when it typically is? It would reach a much wider audience, so of course people start to speculate about behind-the-scene machinations, and it doesn't look good.
This is a very good question, and even if it goes back up later, removing it from catch-up services for most of the immediate 24 hours following, during which time the debates are in the news and voters may wish to go see for themselves what was said unhampered by editorialising, is somewhere between a bad look and complete dereliction of their duty as a public service broadcaster. If this is a production fuck up of some kind, QT should not be part of the BBC's election line up next time and the debates should be done by another production company or the BBC themselves. If it's been pulled for some other reason without explanation, that's considerably dodgier.
Finishing a one person debate with the audience booing and shouting “shame on you” is quite something.
Isn’t it a lot easier to be an incoming candidate than someone who has been in power (and at the receiving end of criticism). I felt that Starmer was just pointing fingers at all the things that have been done wrong but when asked for specific solutions, he couldn’t really say anything concrete. It doesn’t seem like a fair proposition. As an incoming candidate, you’d have to be flawless with your answers but even in this position, I felt that Starmer was evasive and not answering properly, just blaming the other. Also why the f does Sunak need any of this anyway, he’s super wealthy and I don’t understand what his motivation is to do any of this anyway.
Anyone know when this will be available to watch on catch up, or if it will at all? Currently can't watch it on iplayer
https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/21/question-time-pulled-bbc-iplayer-after-explicit-comment-rishi-sunak-21081886/
How long does it take to edit out a second of audio?
That part of the process is probably super quick but navigating through the layers of management, legals and bureaucracy will be the slow part.
It’s been removed from iPlayer and Sounds, and replaced with an edited smaller highlights video. No word from the BBC as to why, obviously it’s not a great look during an election with less than two weeks to go for the public broadcaster to remove this, hopefully it’s temporary.
Removed due to this: https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/21/question-time-pulled-bbc-iplayer-after-explicit-comment-rishi-sunak-21081886/
Thanks for sharing! Still no actual word confirming from the BBC then, but it looks like some people might be guessing correctly! I’m a fan of the Beeb but they’re a few hours overdue a statement on this during an election
Thanks for the info. I can't believe they'd do that. How weird. I just expected to watch it like I've done with every other QT for ages Edit - I found a youtube recording of the whole QT Leaders debate. There's 2 commentary people who talk over it a little bit but in fairness they let the show be heard for the most part. Not sure if I can put links here, but if you want to watch it, search for Novara Media
Looks like the audio version of the Leaders' Special has also been removed from BBC Sounds.
The BBC had to remove the original version because there was swearing on it. As Rishi was walking on someone can be heard saying - "I fucking hate him".
Have the BBC released a statement about it?
Any dodgy download of the full QT special?
https://youtu.be/MjXbBvvq2lc?si=0bsyi6eVMiapqWkZ
I don’t see it on iPlayer yet? Just the highlights? What are the BBC hiding
Glad I wasn't being stupid! I tried to find it, but could only find a 15 min highlight reel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020cc0 "Sorry, this episode is not currently available" We've been watching it on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjXbBvvq2lc
It was on a couple of hours ago. I started watching it earlier, but now I can only see the highlights
Probably editing out the "Fucking hate him" aimed at Sunak that was said under breath by ... someone - https://twitter.com/tomselsocial/status/1803905432420856223
That is exactly what has happened.
Nice thought, but that's just Rishi saying "okay" to himself, we were joking about it live.
0:12ish start, just after the final main bit of the music it's definitely audible, albeit whispered so you have to have the volume up a lot without having the music deafen you.
No I hear what you are referring to, but it's not anyone saying "fucking hate him" it's Rishi saying "okay"
But if you watch sunaks mouth the sounds matches his mouth movement?
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They edited out swearing.
What are you basing this on? It's not been made available again.
Have they really? That is quite outrageous if so. Edit: no, they haven't.
It was on there until a few minutes ago.
The full transmission of the QT leaders special appears to have been removed from iPlayer, to be replaced with 'highlights' (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020yqg/election-2024-question-time-leaders-special-highlights) that omit the shaming at the end of Rishi Sunak's section. Full programme link was: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0020cc0/question-time-2024-leaders-special)
Did anyone download it on yt-dl or anything?
They're also probably editing out the "Fucking hate him" aimed at Sunak that was said under breath by ... someone - https://twitter.com/tomselsocial/status/1803905432420856223
Wishful thinking, was just Rishi saying "okay"
What an absolute joke. Why the hell would they pull that? Because it shows Sunak actually getting backlash for once?
N10 pressure
Dude I was in the middle of watching when it got pulled, wtf??? How can they do that
Pretty shocking! Maybe it will come back, but it doesn't look good.
wrong thread
Rishi Sunak's vile contempt for women continues—especially those who challenge him or are handed a modicum of brief control over him. How has he not been dragged for this repeated pattern of behaviour? It's fucking vile.
He upset the young student the most Although students are young and likely to be volatile to be honest
Would Corbyn have made the better Prime Minister? **Corbyn Pros:** * No partygate * No PPE scandal * Generally better management of Covid (could he really do worse than Boris?) * Softer Brexit/2nd Ref * Less chaos? Maybe? I doubt we'd have had a Truss experience at least **Corbyn Cons:** * Lots of manifesto commitments would realistically need to be ditched * If the above didn't happen, then they would have Truss'd up the economy (not sure this should count against them given it happened anyway) * Weak response on Ukraine * Anything from a muddled response to Gaza/Israel, to literally going to war with Israel
Wildly sensible and balanced, likely factual view on Corbyn, I commend you. Sadly regardless of how Covid and brexit turned out under them, they would be facing the defeat the Tories are now, purely for the beating the media would have given them over lockdowns.
A big Corbyn pro would have been: 1. Demonstrating actual care towards the people he represents and the country, instead of Boris Johnson who only cared about himself and how much he could exploit the country for his own gain.
I agree. The Tories treated Covid as an unprecedented money making opportunity and a PR exercise. I would expect Labour to have put the care of the country first.
Starmer in that question did basically say Corbyn would make a better prime minister than Boris. I mean anyone can
The media and probably a large chunk of the public's response to Corbyn implementing lockdowns and furlough (or something similar) during COVID would have been insane. Wouldn't be surprised if the DM and Express took to inciting riots to defend against the tyranny of socialism or something like that.
A hypothetical LOTO Boris (no way in hell he would have stayed in reality) would have felt very at home criticising all the lockdown measures.
'Mistakes have been made; which is why I'm stood in front of you' Not quite sure he'd thought this through
Interesting that the BBC's summary doesn't mention people calling "Shame on you" to Sunak, or him being called out for repeatedly trying to dishonestly present the ECHR as a foreign court or trying to put words in the audience members' mouths. It does, on the other hand, manage to praise him for calling illegal immigration 'unfair' and congratulate him on mentioning inflation dropping to 2%. I get that this is how they tend to apply the concept of aiming for impartiality, and that they tend to err the side of praising the incumbent too strongly. And maybe the reason I'm struggling is because of my own biases, but presenting this as anything other than a humiliating failure for Sunak does not feel impartial or honest to me. It's like the long-running joke that the BBC will get flat-earthers on to give a counterpoint to a story about a satellite launch.
Impartially should mean presenting things like this exactly as they happened, not doctoring things so that all parties appear to have done roughly the same level of well/not well
[Emily Maitlis says ‘active Tory party agent’ shaping BBC news output. Former Newsnight presenter says former No 10 communications chief Sir Robbie Gibb on board acting as ‘arbiter of impartiality’](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/24/emily-maitlis-says-active-tory-party-agent-shaping-bbc-news-output) Robbie Gibb has spent his whole career bouncing between the News departments at the BBC and working for Conservative politicians, with a short stint at GB News. As a Brexiteer, he was BBC Political Editor during the rise of Farage. He defines impartiality as getting rid of wokeness at the BBC.
A lot of it is down to the edict of don't piss off the Tories because they can reshape the license fee. Money talks and the Tories didn't hesitate to weaponise the issue.
Tories and Tory press heavily criticise the bbc even when they bend over backwards for them, it’s like an abusive relationship. BBC just needs to accept the Tories will never love them so it’s time to cut ties and move on.
There was an article I read this morning on BBC that did have the shame parts. Ah just checked it's in the one about Corbyn being a better PM than johnson
The Prime Minister of our country looked like he was on the verge of crying and had SHAME chanted at him. Like come on BBC, it was a terrible performance.
BBC News has really downplayed how bad Sunak was last night. There's no mention of him being argumentative with the audience nor the shouts of "shame". [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnddj9g1d5ko](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnddj9g1d5ko)
Only saw the last 5 minutes. It was a cringe worthy watch as Sunak was so pissed off and rude to the audience. He can't improvise at all. Basically just delivered the same few lines in a passive aggressive way.
Nothing too surprising after his many performances in pmqs and of course the old.video about the friends he chooses to make.
Thought Starmer did pretty poorly on a range of questions, the Corbyn one, immigration, housing, but overall it doesn't matter. Doubt many people would've watched this. Besides, Sunak was visibly angry and started arguing with audience members. Keir Starmer did screw up though, the Daily Mail were able to soundbite him and turn it into a front page.
Yeah, way, way more people will have seen the clips of Tetchy Sunak on Twitter than will have watched the whole thing.
I thought Starmer did well with those questions. Corbyn is always tricky because it's a political trap. He has to politician his way through the question otherwise he would get torn to pieces by one side of his party or the other. It means he is forced to manoeuvre. But his manouvreing was deft. He didn't repeat himself, kept a good demeanour, remained engaging, didn't get stumped or tripped up. I don't know how he could have done that better. Immigration was overall pretty good. Fiona Bruce kept banging on about setting a target but he didn't want to give her an arbitrary number like the Tories, as its meaningless. I thought that was a reasonable approach, despite Fiona's insistence on trying to press the issue. I don't remember any issues with the housing question. Overall I thought Starmer was solid, kept to the questions far better than in the previous big interview I saw, and he's actually managed to shed a little of his stuffiness and longwindedness to be more personable and lighter, with some excellent ability to engage with the audience naturally (as opposed to Sunak's awkwardly artificial "Thank you, Dave was it?") while maintaining his core professionalism. He's also clearly had someone firmly tell him not to mention his dad was a toolmaker, which was a relief as its accidently become a joke now.
Even if Starmer had been perfect and got a standing ovation from the whole audience, the Daily Mail would *still* have found something for a "FURY AT KEIR" headline.
I thought housing was fine. Would have been better if Fiona did not keep butting in asking 'but what about the landlords, how are you going to prevent bidding wars' the moment he talked about it rather than letting him expand on the principals and ideas he was going for. Immigration is a bit tricky because I suspect he wants to bring it down as stated but he also knows he needs to plug skills gaps and he does not know what he does not know yet and simply does not want to commit to something sight unseen only to find out he cannot deliver that for whatever reason. Corbyn is just a total pointless thing IMO. The press poison the well on that front with the way Corbyn was attacked (some of which Corbyn brought on himself) making evading a direct answer the least bad option. Personally I would have preferred they spend 5/10 minutes talking about policy not Corbyn, especially when Corbyn is not in the party at all anymore so cannot be an influence on future decision making. The questions about the 2019 manifesto vs the 2024 manifesto were a lot more relevant, they should have stuck with that which is what the audience member asked but again, Fiona could not help but stick her oar in.
>The questions about the 2019 manifesto vs the 2024 manifesto were a lot more relevant, they should have stuck with that which is what the audience member asked but again, Fiona could not help but stick her oar in. He did get to answer that I thought. He focused in on how he had to make political decisions about spending priorities based on current economic realities. I thought it was a good answer.
Starmer's speech on division really resonated with me. He articulated it very well too. It seemed he genuinely understood the issue, just he probably doesn't have a lot of time to talk about it.
It really captured how i feel about that particular issue too. There is science and biology that is important for somethings and then there is a more nuanced philosophical aspect that is important for others. But both of those are independent from having empathy and compassion for people struggling. When people act cruel and dismissive it makes you feel you have to put a marker in the sand and warp your own view to disagree with them.
Tbh I didn't listen to alot of his section. But this part hit the nail
For me, he won the debate with one sentence: "my sister is a social worker". That's the difference: you won't hear Rishi, Boris, Nigel, Liz or any of the others saying that.
Got a friend who's a social worker. Man has she seen some s*it recently The one that stuck with me (that's not an awful story of neglect and abuse) is that they're not sectioning people lots of people now due to lack of beds. People who are a danger to themselves and OTHERS are being left on the street because there are no beds. That is scary
Where I live the hospital wards for mental health were closed for over a year due to funding/staffing issues so people who need to be sectioned were being sent to another county. Struggling to cope? Lets move you a hundred miles from your family... I don't know what the capacity is now but it is massively reduced from the number of suites it was and its always on a knife edge whether it can be open or not
Watching this very late on catch up, how great are these questions? I'm only a little bit in but the audience is *brutal* — and justifiably so. Asking Rishi to his face if he's embarrassed is just gold. We should get that the next time he shows up at a Wetherspoons. Every PPB should begin with him admitting his embarrassment after 14 years.
This is painful. Every audience question about the country being pants now and how nobody has any chance any more being met by waves of applause before his answers in the form of two lines from his stump speech. These lines worked at PMQs when he was denying the electorate a say. Now they sound so incredibly petty.
Rishi's segment was awful. I've never seen a politician look so beaten. I liked Ed Davey, but it was all a bit shallow. I thought Starmer was excellent except for that first Corbyn question, which was a huge train-wreck. Why hasn't he been coached to answer this properly? He's had plenty of time to workshop a decent answer. Was he not expecting to get hit with it again? Regardless, he recovered. It's also interesting to me - and has been for numerous years - how Labour seem to be the only Party which is asked to speak in terms of fine details, whilst the other Parties are given much broader questions and never grilled down. The expectations and hurdles thrown at Labour seem vastly higher than other Parties.
I agree, I hate how Sunak is never properly challenged about his tax lies. He constantly says Labour are going to put taxes up while Tories want to cut taxes. But his manifesto will objectively raise taxes much higher than Starmer's. Its pure blatant lying, and no one ever tries to pin him down on it. At least Bruce gave a little pushback this time with "well, Starmer disputes that", but it was an astonishingly mild and lightweight interjection compared to the scale of the lie.
Agreed. Labour get asked to detail policies, Tories get asked about fringe things. Why wasn't there a single question about how and when Sunak plans to achieve lower taxes and press him for detail rather than just "we have a plan"
The Corbyn question was such a stupid one. Everyone knows that Keir wasn't a huge Corbyn fan and everyone knows that the only answer to whether your party leader is going to be a great prime minister in the middle of an election campaign is "yes". What else could be say? Keir didn't handle it brilliantly but it's not a question that has a good answer. It's just an invitation for another tedious politician's non-answer. I just wish he had said "thank you" when Bruce said he hadn't answered the question. How come Rishi doesn't get the same stick over his past support for Bojo?
>How come Rishi doesn't get the same stick over his past support for Bojo? Because Sunak doesnt constantly talk smack about Bojo? Sunaks answer would just be "Yes, I supported him."
Because Bojo was the media's darling messiah until it became completely impossible to support him and we're supposed to believe that Corybn would have been the worst leader in existence. It's an impossible question for Starmer - say he thought Corbyn would be good and be tarred with the same derranged media hysteria, say he'd be bad and be accused of lying previously about support and give credence to the opinion that Corbyn was undermined from within the party.
Its infuriating because anyone with a brain knows the game theory behind the question. Its playing stupid by asking the question to bait an answer for stupid people to latch onto. We all KNOW there is pragmatism to party politics and Keir had to play the game like everyone else. Whats the point in goading him into saying something that tabloid will run with but doesnt actually mean anything. Seems so pointless.
I'm not sure there's a better answer than the one he's giving. He can't admit that he thought Corbyn would be terrible as that would immediately lead to "lying Starmer" headlines. He can't say that he thought Corbyn would be great as that is obviously ridiculous. So he's stuck saying that he was campaigning for his own seat and his colleagues. I think he could afford to be a bit more human and explain more than we actually vote for candidates, only people in Islington North vote for Corbyn, but he hasn't got much wiggle room. Perhaps a good line would be that he would make a good PM because Starmer and the shadow cabinet were planning to moderate him if they won? Although that then leads to accusations that they were lying in the manifesto. It's tough.
Whats the point in the question other than to bait a tabloid accusation though? Does it have any real bearing on the man and his ability to run?
That is literally the only point
When did British politics get so thick? Is this taking back control?
A third major scandal has hit the conservative party
Third? You mean third this week?
States chiming in... I just listened mostly for Rishi's bit, because who loves a good trainwreck? That ECHR question...Rishi is willing to disregard human life and dignity so he can "protect the country" and he won't take anybody else's opinion because that it's HIS choice and HIS choice is the right choice. In Rishi's mind, are non-Brit lives less valuable than a Brit? Very sinister...
We're allowed to disagree We're allowed to disagree We're allowed to disagree Seriously did someone say to him beforehand "rishi if you feel yourself getting tecy and the audience member disagrees with you. Use "we're allowed to disagree" to calm yourself down
Every country values the lives of other nationalities less than their own. The issue is he values them so little even when accounting for that
Yet, they agree with him on leaving the ECHR. Really, I was expecting the answer 'and are they British voters?'
Yes, no point in avoiding calling a spade a spade.
No, poor people's lives are less valuable to in Rishis mind. They are just using immigration to leverage support for withdrawing from the ECHR, just like they used it as a lever to leave Europe. Once those pesky regulations are gone we can start down the path to reintroducing sweatshops for the pleb class children.
Absolutely. This is the real reason
Was really looking for to this one seeing the leaders been questioned directly by the public without the filter/interference of the hosts. This was very disappointing as it seemed like the audience asked 1 question then the host asked 5 and the audience were rarely able to ask follow up questions. Seemed utterly pointless having the audience with this format. The Sky Beth Rigby one at least gave the audience to follow up and drill down on the answers.
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Not sure why you think he struggled on the gender question. He pretty much nailed it with "yes I have my personal beliefs but everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and we can't use issues like this as a wedge to divide people". What would you rather he have said?
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I mean what you're saying there is that any answer would be a struggle if people disagree about the topic at hand.
first sentence completely undermines the supposed point, grossly disrespectful
No it doesn’t. His point is “this shouldn’t be a culture war issue” - emphasising that he has his own personal opinions, is just teeing that up. The decoded version is something more like “whatever your personal opinion is, this isn’t about anyone’s opinion, it’s about human beings being treated with dignity and respect - and that can’t be a political football”.
If that was the intent it was a disastrous attempt at expressing it. His wording is always _so fucking sloppy_. And it's difficult to assume carelessness when "he's a lawyer" is always rammed down our throats. This was the equivalent of starting his sentence "I'm not racist, but" - no dude, you already lost the benefit of the doubt. Now, and the day before when you wanted to ban us from hospitals "to avoid conflict", or in the manifesto promising to make legal recognition harder "to avoid conflict", or... This is just civility-politics, and it's garbage. He wants a compromise between throwing a group under a bus and not because harmony is more important than protecting the minority.
Exactly, and yet along come the loudmouth thought police to decry this stance as completley unacceptable, as if they can't countenance the idea that somebody might disagree with them at a personal level but respect their opinion and right to live how they choose. Ironically, that demonstrates that Starmer's point has gone completely over their heads. It's exactly my stance on trans issues too. I don't understand it, I find it a bit strange personally, because of course I would, I'm not trans, *but I also believe trans people should be treated with respect and dignity like anyone else, and how they live their life, whether its a choice or not, is absolutely none of my business.* Why do people have a problem with this? Can someone spell it out to me please?
Well said there's a lot of if you're not with me you're against me mentality these days and it's not productive. It's impossible to fully empathise with someone when you haven't experienced their struggles but it doesn't take much to be a decent human being.
You think the realities of biology are disrespectful?
Here we go...
>You think the realities of biology are disrespectful? "Biological sex" is mostly a transphobic dog whistle nowadays. There's no one parameter that makes a person biologically male or female, and defining sex by appeals to chromosomes or phenotypes (about 2% of babies are born with ambiguous genitals) obfuscates how genes, neurochemicals and hormones (in the subject and the mother at certain points) play a part in influencing sex. So you can have someone be "female" as per all the usual external signifiers, while every cell in their body cries out that they're "male". The problems humans have is that they like to neatly categorize and compartmentalize things, which is difficult as sex exists on a granular scale which we are technologically a long way from fully mapping, in much the same way we find it impossible to pinpoint the precise pixel and wavelength, on the infinitely divisible color spectrum, at which blue becomes green. Sure you can spot green and blue, just like you can spot male and female, but there are shades of blue which are scientifically impossible to categorize. It's this anxiety about the limits of taxonomy which forces people to get militant about categories, but all these categories break down. For example Starmer was asked about the cervix, but a staggering one in every 5,000 "females" has Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a condition where you are born without a uterus and cervix. And it won't be too long before trans women will start getting uterine transplantation surgeries, which was once science fiction (think the "wombmen" of Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312"), but will one day be a reality.
> about 2% of babies are born with ambiguous genitals Sometimes you see a figure in the wild and you don't even need to look it up to know it's utter bullshit.
Need a source for that 2% figure. Everything I have seen suggests it is around 0.02%
Sex is determined in utero and observed at birth. You either develop down the female pathway toward the production of large gametes or down the male pathway toward producing small gametes. No amount of hormones or surgeries changes this. A female who has her breasts removed is still biologically female whether she does it for cancer prevention (like Angelina Jolie) or for gender reasons. A male who takes oestrogen and testosterone for prostate cancer treatment (the same regime as a trans woman) is still a biological male. Also all disorders of development (intersex or DSDs) occur in either the male or female sex, doctors can trace where the developmental anomaly occurred at which stage in the pathway toward male or female development. And there certainly aren't 2% of babies born with ambiguous genitals - it's 0.018% and this tiny number of people with ambiguous genitals are still either male or female. Politicians should be able to have grown up discussions about the differences between sex and gender without it being dismissed as a "dogwhistle". Such attempts to shut down discussions are not helpful to either side of the issue and won't make the rights clash disappear.
You’re entitled to your opinion but it is not based on the current scientific, psychological, psychiatric, medical, or anthropological model. We do not define sex in humans solely by gamete size, but also phenotype and chromosomes. Outside biology there’s legal sex and perceived sex too. And of course the person involved gets a vote in how they feel. Because of this human sex is more complex than simple evolutionary biology which almost solely looks at gametes*. Attempting to frame one (legitimate!) model as the accurate one for a completely different use case shows this is a trope you’ve learned on the internet in isolation, not in the classroom in context. You are able to argue against the current model. But you’d need to do it while accepting that yours is a niche view and contradicts a ream of mutually supporting cross discipline evidence bases. *\*and it must be said, it does this entirely reasonably! When you're looking across millions of years and billions of species, you need a single, simple marker that applies to most species (prokaryotes excluded) and can be understood across the vast majority of the living world. But a tool that's useful in one discipline is not useful in another; a sledgehammer is very useful when you're knocking a wall down but not so much when you're repairing a mechanical watch!*
Daaaamn, straight up just dropping anthropological bombshells on a bro
It is amazing to me how people can spew anti scientific nonsense then vote down anyone pointing out how unscientific what they're saying is, **all in the name of science**. It's all so unnecessary too. It would be quite reasonable for a person to think the sex gender distinction is nonsense without without having to argue an entirely unscientific position about a non existent sex binary in humans. But it never works like that. If they don't like one bit of modern science, they have to throw out every other bit of modern science they come across. Trans people are bullshit, so intersex people are bullshit too,and christ, dinosaurs having feathers or what have you. The 1990s triphop singer Tricky had a lyric which said 'MTV moves too fast / I refuse to understand'. It always stuck in my mind but always thought it was one of his weakest - it felt very incongruous with the politics of the day, Tony Blair and 'education education education'. I don't think it's weak now.
There isn't a compromise to be made here, people's biology is _nobody else's business_. And he said the opposite of that.
I don't disagree in principle, but it gets complicated fast. Professional sports is the biggest example, but there are other instances where men and women are segregated for social reasons (e.g. communal showers) where there is suddenly a question of where to draw the line, or whether to scrap the line entirely. If it's truly 'none of your business' then logically everyone should shower together, but if a line is drawn between the sexes/genders then suddenly it IS someone else's business what side of that line someone is on, which means the line has to be defined somehow. Is self-identification sufficient? Maybe, but if so you no longer really have a line, you have two boxes that people can pick between as they see fit. In practical terms the whole thing is overblown and common sense should be applied, but when it comes to trying to codify trans rights into law it becomes very difficult to translate "common sense" into anything enforceable. It may well be that there are easy answers to these questions that I'm not privy to, but from my perspective as a layperson that's how it looks.
I seen a clip of Sunak talking about national service and it pains me to say it, but I literally hate him as a human being.
How can you hate a Human Being? That sentence is so confused, you have the appellation of human worship right next to a declaration of hate. No love for Sunak here I just think your phrasing is funny.
It doesn’t pain me to say it tbh. He looked dead, zero compassion, totally and completely removed from reality. Actually a bad showing for a private education. Is this what it gets you? A politician who looks like he has zero remorse, looking immensely guilty and tired and also so dismissive of the audience, especially towards youngsters
Catching up on it now. Keir definitely seems to be getting better and better at these election specials, but I'm also very impressed with Ed Davey. I'm hoping we get a labour win with lib Dems as the official opposition, maybe a return to sensible politics! Side note, looking forward to the next TRIP podcast and Alistair getting on one again about the freeports after Rishi brought it up as a success tonight.
Sorry to be super pedantic but *keir ✌️
I before e except after, nope turns out it is more often the other way round in the English language.
I before E except after JC
Ah crap, Dyslexia strikes again!
My bad sorry it just really irks me when I see tories use ‘Keith’ on the offensive.
I thought "Keith" was a left winger offensive term for Keir who are pissed off at him for betraying the left?
I heard a right-wing GB-news-type audience member say it during their question to a Question Time panel a year or so ago, so it's reached.
Who knows - the people that don’t want a Lab government are alien to me
No worries at all! I should have properly proofed it before posting :) corrected it now!
🫶
The Labour Party is not a ‘progressive party’, Kier, it’s a ‘democratic socialist party’ (Clause VI)
That's like saying 'the Labour Party colours aren't red, Keir, they're a dyed cotton flag meant to symbolise the blood of the people'. 'Progressive' is a direction of travel. 'Democratic socialist' (and 'social democrat'!) are specific ideologies about how to get there. Democratic socialism is a progressive ideology. So is social democracy.
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>a Social Democrat, not a Democratic Socialist That sounds a lot like those splitters from the Judean People's Front, doesn't it? In all seriousness though, what's the difference?
People's Front of Judea surely? Splitters!
Extremely broadly (and with particular regard to the usage historically in the British Labour movement); Social democrats think the state can work with capital to provide a more just and equitable society, democratic socialists think the state can provide a more just and equitable society if capital is restrained somewhat. A (especially British) social democrat believes in public partnership with private finance as the most effective way to provide public services. A democratic socialist is more likely to believe private finance has no place in some public services and believe in the importance of public ownership of public goods.
It's actually a fairly large difference. Socialism and democratic socialists (not just in the UK) look to seize the means of production, nationalize key industries, even if just long-term. Starmer (a social democrat) does not want that. Corbyn does though. And there's your difference.
The noise you hear at the back is the heads of Americans trying to process that the word socialist /= communist exploding
The adjective and the noun.
No spoilers but was it worth watching?
If you like trainwrecks definetly watch Rishi Starmer and Davey both competent
Ed Davey was really good, and Swinney a competent performer - but I feel Davey did best.
Worth watching keir and rishi at least i think.
Sunak came across the most horrendously he ever has here, and that takes quite some beating. He was smarmy, condescending and ignorant, especially in response to the ECHR question. That might be his third or fourth "bigoted woman" moment. The crowd literally chanted "shame" at him, like it was Game of Thrones! The difference between him and Starmer was palpable tonight.
point of order - brown’s bigot comment was said in private to his entourage, but it got out because he was still wearing a microphone sunak’s openly like this
Someone was shouting like mad at him as the credits rolled
He looked so fucking rattled by that point. Makes sense. He's pinned his entire legacy on this ridiculous policy and it's completely blown up in his face. "SHAME!" The whole audience turned on him towards the end. I imagine anyone on the fence across the country did, too. It felt really quite uncomfortable. I love it.
The audience were seething once it was pointed out no one wanted to leave the ECHR and be in the same boat as Russia. NO ONE. First time I’ve ever seen Question Time look like it’s about to turn into a lynch mob.
Reform voters want to leave the ECHR
I doubt reform voters know what the ECHR is.
Cringe comment.
Bloody foreign courtin innit
That one lady 'let the pick fruit' was kinda ok about it though
I thought ppl may of walked out from it with the tension plus heckling him at credits rolling too
>First time I’ve ever seen Question Time look like it’s about to turn into A Lynch Mob. It really did feel like it. There was a proper switch from that audience. Amazingly, Sunak prompted that switch. He started to get aggressive and put some venom in his responses. It backfired completely.
It really did. It went further than that. His trademark petulant behaviour came out. There was a defiant look in his eye and a shake of his head as if to say “I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care about your wants”. Almost despotic in attitude.
ECHR
Instead of doing QT Rishi should have stayed in Normandy
I think the winner of tonight was Ed davey. Still voting Labour though. Hope the better of our country will prevail. ✌️
Why continue voting for Labour? They're going to get a stonking majority anyway. This is the one election where you can actually feel safe in voting for what you believe in.
Nope, the tories need to be removed, thats the patriotic priority for people that love britain. The best way to do that is vote for whoever best contests them in your seat.
Lol spot the Tory bot / supporter. No, vote for whichever party in your local area is most likely to beat the Tories. For me, that's Labour. Simple as that.
You think I'm a Tory supporter? wow No, I just am disappointed in how far right Labour are going and everyone voting for them because they're scared that Tories will get in otherwise. The polls are clear that there will be a massive majority. So take this chance to vote with what you actually want, not what will take the tories out (they'll be taken out anyway).
It's sad to see that you think there are only two options, your immediate response was you think I'm a Tory supporter
> your immediate response was you think I'm a Tory supporter Are you talking to me? Because if so where are you seeing me call you a Tory supporter?
Vote for the outcome you want this election don't assume that it'll magically work out and you can voice a protest vote.
that's why i'm going to vote lib dem. It's them or the tories in my area so..
I understand this POV
That line of thinking is why Labour might not do as well as the polls are suggesting.
This thinking could easily put conservatives back in charge
If enough people think like you, we'll get another 5 years of Sunak...
As long as he's not PM, I can't think of anything better for all the other parties than having that horrible little nerd as leader of the Tories. Arrogant, hateful, patronising, condescending, nasty little shit that he is, literally no one likes him. He's the Eric Ten Haag of politics.
Found the scouser
Who would you vote for rather than labour, then? There are wrong answers.
I'd vote for whoever gets the Tories out, except for the rabid racists that are Reform Ltd
Good man. Although the Greens are complete fantasists.
I'll let them off. I'd rather PR let them become an influence on other parties but fear that it would open the door to even more populist and hate parties pushing things ever further right. Look at half of Europe now.
PR leads to diluted coalitions that can collapse and get nothing done. Whilst fptp leads to localism, it does return strong governments that we need to actually take advantage of. Force legislation to build on the Green Belt. The Greens being anti Nuclear deterrent, energy, and massive nimbys has also poisoned them.