BBC 'Struggles to Find' Right Wing Comedians

[Teddy Bear]

In reply to complaints about the BBC being a continual platform for left wing (supposed) comedians, a BBC chief has claimed it is because right wing comedians are hard to find.

Could it be because they mostly advertise in the Guardian?
Could it be because any right wind comedian would immediately make the BBC the obvious target for their humorous observations?

I recall quite a few BBC presenters snubbed appearing with Sacha Baron Cohen following his recent movie The Dictator, a take off of a Islamic despot. They were clearly afraid he might appear in character.

No doubt the BBC tries 'real hard' to find right wind comedians.

We struggle to find right-wing comedians, admits BBC chief

• Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation led to complaints from Radio 4 listeners
  
• Show criticised for 'Tory bashing' and 'prejudiced extreme left wing views'
  
• Commissioning editor Caroline Raphael has now admitted it is a struggle to find comedians with a right-wing point of view

By Paul Revoir

The BBC has admitted it finds it ‘very difficult’ to find Conservative comedians to appear on radio programmes in order to provide political balance.

Radio 4’s comedy boss has claimed it is a ‘struggle’ to find performers regarded as having a right-wing point of view.

The admission was made by Commissioning editor Caroline Raphael, in response to criticism from listeners over Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, described as a new ‘Tory and coalition bashing comedy’.

The content led many to complain to Radio 4 audience opinion show Feedback with one stating: ‘This programme appears to be a diatribe of Jeremy Hardy’s prejudiced extreme left wing views. It wasn’t clever and it certainly wasn’t funny.’

He added: ‘The BBC is a non-political organisation and yet it is paying for broadcasting what appeared to be a party political broadcast for the Communist Party’.

Miss Raphael suggested that ‘possibly the right feels more comfortable with a pen and paper’ when she tried to explain the dearth of right-of-centre comedians on its shows.

She admitted the problem is not that they do not exist but that they are not coming through.

The BBC executive added that she was keen to find comics who can challenge the perceived left-wing domination of BBC comedy shows such as The News Quiz.

In Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, which airs in a prime evening slot, Mr Hardy repeatedly mocks Tory politicians describing David Cameron and George Osborne as a ‘horrible kind of posh’, saying they were ‘braying hoorays’.
Among a string of anti-Conservative and coalition remarks, he also joked about the Tory party killing foreigners.
One listener told Feedback: ‘I think anyone would be hard pushed to call the 30 minutes of incessant Tory and coalition bashing comedy. Just broadcasting such a left-wing biased show in a prime-time comedy slot is I am afraid fuel to all those who accuse the BBC of such bias.’

A member of the audience added: ‘Jeremy Hardy had me screaming at the radio I’m afraid to say. Next time for a bit of balance can we maybe have a right wing comedian if you can find one.’

Miss Raphael tried to defend the show saying the targets of satire would always be ‘those in power’, but admitted the BBC did have a problem finding comedians from a right-of-centre viewpoint.

She told Feedback: ‘It is very difficult to find comedians from the right. I am not saying they aren’t out there.

‘Producers…spend a lot of time in the comedy clubs looking for people with a range of views.’

She said the broadcaster was ‘very open to names’, adding: ‘But we are not seeing them come through, there isn’t a tradition in terms of stand-up, possibly the right feels more comfortable with a pen and paper and the left standing up on a soap box, or in a comedy club.’

She added she was sure there was a PHD thesis in the subject, adding ‘but I do admit it is something we struggle with.’

Presenter of Feedback Roger Bolton suggested programmes like The News Quiz, which has been accused of being anti-Conservative and also features Jeremy Hardy, could take ‘note’ of The Now Show which is satirical about everyone.

The News Quiz is regarded by many as being dominated by left-wing voices and has been accused of being biased against Tory politicians.

But Miss Raphael said The News Quiz was very different from the other programme, because it relied on people’s ‘personal views’ while The Now Show was ‘very scripted’.

The News Quiz has been trying to extend the range of its panellists including the number of women in recent times. The Radio 4 comedy chief said they were ‘trying people out’ and producers were working hard at extending the range of people.

Among the names from a right-of-centre viewpoint who have been on the show in recent months is newspaper columnist Daniel Finkelstein.

Speaking about the political balance on programmes, such as The News Quiz, she added producers often did not known exactly what people’s political views are as many comedian’s routines are ‘observational’ rather than about politics.

The BBC boss added that while the corporation has a ‘responsibility’ for balance it did not mean you could not broadcast something ‘because you cannot find the opposite’.

[steevo]

I think it would be refreshing to find a comedian who wasn't political. Too many these days given prominence in and by the media are lefties and as clearly implied in this article, offensive. They're really not neutral in so far as comedy for comedy's sake. 'Humor' becomes a veil for the derogatory and dehumanization toward those they feel superior. They're not funny or likable, it's just a stage and a podium for contempt.

[Teddy Bear]

It really shows the hypocritical mindset of the left. They want to portray themselves as truly caring about the less fortunate in the world, and that this defines them. Any time you get into a debate with them on anything to go deeper into the subject they resort to insults rather than address the points one has made.

An ostrich is left-wing.

I don't mind political humour if it really addresses the inane and absurd thinking prevalent among our politicians, and shows the hypocrisy for what it is.

[steevo]

I don't mind political humour if it really addresses the inane and absurd thinking prevalent among our politicians, and shows the hypocrisy for what it is.

If that was done well it could be a big success even with the Right. The exception, would be die hard lefties.

[Teddy Bear]

And of course, they would be the main target.

[Teddy Bear]

A writer at The Commentator wonders whether this might be a turning point for the public to carry on their majority support of the BBC. I think he's being way too optimistic.

The comment I left on this article:

Is the worm turning on the BBC?

Has the nation finally had enough of BBC bias?

I wouldn't hold my breath.
For the general public to really recognise the bias of the BBC they would need an issue in which they are personally involved, and then look at it objectively.

Most have become either lazy and/or unable to think for themselves, choosing to believe that because of its charter it has to be 'fair and balanced'.

That a succession of spineless government does little to ensure this really happens, and Labour believes that because the bias mostly serves themselves it's in their best interests, the BBC will continue.

I doubt most see or understand just how negative and insidious the BBC truly is for our society.

Is the worm turning on the BBC?
Has the nation finally had enough of BBC bias?

Is the worm turning?

Jonathan Bracey-Gibbon

Could enough be enough? The accusations of BBC leftism have grown loud enough to make the pages of The Daily Mail and The Telegraph. Whether it is unbridled left-wing invective on Radio 4, or audience plants on BBC1's Question Time, could the BBC be feeling the heat? Has the nation had enough?

Correspondents to Radio 4's Feedback have taken exception to Jeremy Hardy’s Jeremy Hardy Speaks to The Nation. Clearly music to Hardy's ears, if not to those who would deny the BBC's evident left-wing bias, one of a number of complaints was broadcast thus:

“This programme appears to be a diatribe of Jeremy Hardy’s prejudiced extreme left wing views. It wasn’t clever and it certainly wasn’t funny. The BBC is a non-political organisation and yet it is paying for broadcasting what appeared to be a party political broadcast for the Communist Party”.

Indeed. But this wasn't offence being taken; this was a complaint about quality.

Fortunately Hardy's show happened to be on R4 at time of writing. Billed as 'a series of debates', Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation is no such thing, more a rant with skits, in this case about being a man in the 21st Century. One segment, delivered by a cast member, was quite funny, but the rest was one excuse after another to shoehorn in, what ex-lefty Ben Elton used to call, alittlebiddapolitics.

It does all become a bit predictable and one even finds oneself mouthing punch-lines as they are delivered. But Hardy seems to have been ploughing this particularly witless furrow for an awfully long time, and in reading, somewhat negative, reviews of his act from five years ago – by The Guardian no less – little has changed. And why should it, when the licence-fee payer has been paying for Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation for 20 years?

One can only summise that the relative laziness of BBC producers, who continue to indulge Hardy, means the man has no incentive to actually come up with a new angle to his schtick. That, or up until now, the BBC has ignored any complaints of left-wing bias on R4.

Hardy's been around long enough to have 'improved' by now, but, like Phill Jupitus, Jo Brand, and so many others of their ilk, they just grow fatter on the BBC-panel-show-gravy-train, despite most of them now being roundly recognized, by weary viewers and listeners alike, as being marginally less funny than a slightly sozzled dinner party guest.

Of course complaints about BBC leftism are part of this nation's fabric, so much so that it has been admitted by a previous Director General and the current Chairman. What is interesting is that sections of the BBC and right-leaning press have lately given these complaints legs.

If one is to trust in the Mail's peerless ability to read the pulse of middle England, there are many who feel, having paid the piper, they are listening to some other bugger's tune. The Feedback complaints really do bear the hallmark of an audience that had simply had enough of the bias, and enough of the tedium.

For me, that happened one Saturday morning about two years ago. Radio 4 had always been Saturday morning’s background noise, but on that particular morning, listening to The Now Show followed by Any Questions really felt like being force-fed some Spartist's wet dream.

From The Now Show's feeble gibes about The Tories, Cameron, Osborne being posh, Thatcher being gaga, and Marcus bloody Brigstocke bleating on about Global Warming, to the subsequent Any Questions being dominated by the usual union-mobilised audience of braying teachers and sundry public sector workers, bussed-in to distort audience bias to breaking point. I know how Angry of East Sheen felt. But I was more bored than angry, and just stopped listening.

But then again, it might have been The News Quiz, that morning, rather than The Now Show, they both consist of 30 minutes of patchy satire, and the weakness of much of the material betrays levels of complacency that we are increasingly finding out passes for the norm at the BBC. Like Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, both these shows have been going for decades and yet, seemingly, at no point have one of the BBC's legion of millionaire managers ever said, 'Surely we can do better than this?'

A look at the list of regular panellists on The News Quiz – or guests on The Now Show for that matter – reads like an Oxbridge Marxism society reunion. Indeed of the current regular panellists on The News Quiz only Francis Wheen can be conceivably described as 'not of the left'. The rest are either of the left, and work primarily for the BBC and The Guardian, or are flat-out, SWP mentalists like Hardy and Mark Steel.

In fact, of the 50-odd names associated with the show over the years, barely 10 percent are ostensibly not lefties, and most of them are Tory MPs, past or present.

On Feedback, a producer called Caroline Raphael bemoaned the lack of right wing comedians, missing the point completely, that the complaint is about balance. “They don't come through” she moans feebly, when you just know, seeking out 'right wing comedians' is not how she or her ilk are spending their evenings.

The reasoning seems to be: because there are 'no right wing comedians' ergo the only political comedy comes from the left. Surely, if there are no right wing comedians, then in the interest of balance, Jeremy Hardy, Marcus Brigstocke et al. ought to be ditched. It's not as if the nation as a whole is going to notice…

Absolutely not, according to Ms. Raphael on Feedback, emboldened to spout self-serving drivel about attaining the balance required by the remit. You really have to listen to her argument it to believe it.

This is the BBC in action: a feeble denial that it can't find the talent required to deliver balance, followed by a vehement abrogation of responsibility for the failing of the talent she and her team are required by remit to deliver. BBC management writ large.

One might ask Ms. Raphael, if the only political jokes her team can come up with have to be at the expense of the right or the coalition government, to follow the remit and dump them all. My God, if they can't regularly lampoon the likes of Miliband, Balls, Harman and the ghastly Eagle sisters, not to mention classic grotesques like Tom Watson and George 'the gift that keeps on giving' Galloway, then they really are in the wrong job.

I don't know Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's politics, but they produced a cracking take-down of Question Time, savagely lampooning every aspect of the show: audiences, panel, locations even the lame question at the end. So it can be done.

But it's not just about political bias. Stewart Lee has shown you can keep upping your game while keeping your political credentials intact. Interesting that he avoids panel shows like the plague. And while Armando Iannucci could hardly be described as hiding his leftism, The Thick of It shows political satire at its funniest, precisely because it is at its most even-handed. Have I Got News For You still washes its face.

The fact is virtually all comedians and actors are lefties, but happily most leave their politics at home. 'Funny' is key.

Alas, when chief lefty and eco-psycho Richard Curtis stopped being funny and came up with Comic Relief, the BBC ensured it became part of the national psyche and comedians, by association to the cause, are tarred as activists for one sort of social policy or other, as defined by Curtis and his highly-paid Comic Relief executives (£130K+pa since you ask, and £45K for a Climate Change Officer). Once again the schedules are cleared for Curtis' political vanity, and (insert failing comedian here)'s career. Asking the BBC not to be quite so left wing is a bit like asking the Pope to be not quite so…whatever.

But the poor old viewer doesn't really come into it. One would think commissioning editors saw the car crash that was The 10 O’Clock Show and realised that even C4 audiences are not predisposed to sub-student hectoring from millionaire, tax-dodging, left-leaning celebrities.

And it's not just comedy bias that has piqued the nationals. On the BBC's Eastleigh-edition of Question Time, an audience member described UKIP's policy of immigration as 'disgusting'. It quickly turned out, not least of all on twitter, the woman concerned was a Labour party activist and had tweeted prior to her appearance that she was going to give the 'disgusting UKIP woman', Diane James (widely acknowledged to have been the most assured candidate, by a country mile), what for.

At the time, Dimbleby floundered, and it was very much of the Harry & Paul sketch. But it took Melanie Phillips to see this spiteful creature for what she was, and slapped her down with universal support. The, somewhat late, Mail take-up of the story at least revealed the poor lamb was relying on Mum to fend off the subsequent, presumably Daily Mail, media attention. But the point was made and Question Time, with its socialist editor, briefly became a parody of itself.

Question Time this week was a modest affair, but when a particularly inspirational Asian businessman demanded tariff assistance he was greeted by silence. Amazing. Question Time needs a total revamp and to rid itself of its public sector employee audience in its entirety.

And that may be the common problem. The live audiences for all these programmes – never more than a few hundred – are easy to formulate. For example, why are so many Any Questions set in schools and colleges where unionised teachers and lecturers can mobilise a braying left wing lobby? The fact that ogres like George Galloway are so lauded on Question Time, tells you all you need to know.

Of course, there is only one openly 'right wing' popular programme on the BBC.

It is, naturally, widely reviled by the left – although many celebrity lefties are thrilled to appear on it. There is barely any political content aside from a sense of anti-political correctness. It is a man's programme that embraces women and women love it back. It is also the only BBC programme on which you will hear a hint of climate scepticism. The left hate it so because they know the people love it. And they do. It is exported globally and has made worldwide stars of its laughably unhip hosts. To be fair, it, too, occasionally shows signs of creakiness, no more so than in its last series, but then kicks again and reminds us what the BBC is for.

That programme is Top Gear. And, thanks to its phenomenal success, the BBC can indulge 20 years of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, The Now Show, The News Quiz. And Marcus Brigstocke.

Quite why the BBC cannot understand the juxtaposition of the duty to its audience and the essence of its remit by indulging for so long ostensibly tired programming simply because the left wing face fits, is a mystery.

Why the licence fee payer allows it, even more so.

[steevo]

You're right. Nothing personal toward the author but for me the smoking gun is just old. I can easily apply your sentiment to our society, especially with big legacy media. Unless a person is smacked hard in the face he/she won't care to think beyond the lazy presumption of legitimacy.

We will get what we deserve because we have too many inexcusable-duped. I can only hope to survive it.

[Teddy Bear]

We will get what we deserve because we have too many inexcusable-duped. I can only hope to survive it.

You and me both Steevo

One of the comments on that webpage tried to draw a parallel between the BBC and the US media:

ToadNav135 • a day ago −
Perhaps things have changed since I left the UK in 2001, but if you think BBC leans left, you should see the American networks!

To which my reply to him was:

Teddy Bear > ToadNav135 • a day ago −
Don't you understand the difference between a private media company following the desired agenda of those that pay to advertise with it, and where their specific agenda can be easily detected, as opposed to the BBC?

The BBC is SUPPOSED to be fair and impartial according to its mandate, and it uses this cloak to manifest an insidious betrayal of its charter and licence fee payers.
Far worse than ANY private organisation.

[Teddy Bear]

The BBC way of trying to wriggle out of accusations of their persistent bias is by saying

A BBC spokesman said: “At any point, the serving Government is likely to be the primary target for satirists. Radio 4 strives to find comedians representing different political standpoints. Listeners know that the network has a rich history of political satire and that no party is safe from ridicule.”

At the time Gordon Brown was heading the Labour Party while they were in power I don't recall a relentless satire of his actions by comedians on the BBC, and he was somebody that was screaming out for it.

The Telegraph have done an analysis of recent BBC humour.

Have you heard the one about BBC Radio 4 and the Left-wing bias?
BBC Radio 4 listeners have suspected a slight Left-leaning bias when it comes to gags on comedy programmes, and it seems that their cynicism was no joke.

By Claire Duffin and Josie Ensor

The corporation all but confirmed such a bias, when it admitted that it struggled to find Right-wing comedians.
Not all listeners saw the funny side — with the BBC disclosing that it had received complaints about the issue.

Following the admission, The Sunday Telegraph set out to analyse the station’s comedy output.

This newspaper examined the last 16 of the station’s comedy programmes over the past 10 days and, for each political joke, noted which party it targeted.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the main party in power, the Conservatives were most ridiculed, on the end of 35 separate punchlines. Their Coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, were the subject of 10, while Labour was targeted by seven. The Coalition parties found themselves the butt of jokes not just in topical news programmes such as The Now Show, but also largely non-political shows, such as the panel show Just a Minute. In the latter, George Osborne, the Chancellor, was the subject of a joke by Paul Merton.

The Lib Dems were even mocked in comedy drama HR, which tells of the misfortunes of a middle-aged human resources officer.

Mr Osborne and David Cameron were the two Conservatives who received the most abuse from comedians. The next most ridiculed was Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, who, on one occasion, was likened to a “mutant fish” by Jeremy Hardy, on his show Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation.

It is not the first time that comedians on Radio 4 have targeted the minister, apparently for his appearance. Last month, there was criticism after he was described as a “foetus in a jar” on the News Quiz, which is hosted by Sandi Toksvig. Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, was also targeted more than once, including by Maeve Higgins, an Irish comedian.

The other Right-wing political figures mocked were Nadine Dorries, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire who the Conservative whip removed after she appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and Baroness Thatcher, the former prime minister.

Both women were mocked by Bridget Christie in her feminist comedy series Bridget Christie Minds the Gap, with Baroness Thatcher described as a hoof-footed “milk snatcher”.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, was also singled out on more than one occasion, as was his former Lib Dem colleague Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, with all the jokes relating to the pair’s recent convictions for perverting the course of justice.

While the results of the survey might irritate the governing parties, as the overwhelming targets, they might also be a source of frustration to Labour strategists, concerned that the party’s senior figures are struggling to make a public impact. Labour’s only serving politician to be singled out was the leader, Ed Miliband. The only other Labour figure to be on the comedians’ receiving end was Tony Blair, the former prime minister.

Among the favourite political topics for the comedians were Europe, the NHS, and recent issues such as the horse meat scandal and the Eastleigh by-election, of which Hugh Dennis said: “The Lib Dems are revitalised after they held on by the seat of their pants, unlike the Tories who lost by being pants in the seat.”

Many of the jokes were also on the subject of class, several of them mocking Conservatives for trying to conceal their apparently wealthy backgrounds. On one show, Nick Doody said: “Cameron and Osborne talk about pasties with all the relaxed familiarity of Eric Pickles holding a surfboard.”

The most common political subject in the surveyed comedy shows was the Government’s austerity programme. Among the comedians making jokes on this topic were Christie, Dennis and Steve Punt, the co-hosts of The Now Show.

Senior Conservatives have expressed frustration that the BBC habitually describes reduced spending as “cuts”, rather than “savings” and have made more than 20 formal complaints to the broadcaster about its news coverage of the topic over the past year, with accusations of “bias” and “inaccuracies”.

The recent complaints from listeners over an alleged Left-wing bias have focused on the new series of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation. After Hardy, a former member of the Socialist Alliance, described Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne as “braying hoorays” on a recent show, one listener contacted the BBC’s Feedback programme to describe the show as “30 minutes of incessant Tory-Coalition bashing”.

Caroline Raphael, Radio 4’s commissioning editor of comedy, conceded it was difficult to find comedians from the Right.

A BBC spokesman said: “At any point, the serving Government is likely to be the primary target for satirists. Radio 4 strives to find comedians representing different political standpoints. Listeners know that the network has a rich history of political satire and that no party is safe from ridicule.”