Who will win the Mass Debate Tonight ?

[Herr Tubthumper]

It was meant to be a democratic debate, i would not call an audience of 36% and 64% democratic........what has current polling got to do with it.......Watford are up the top does that mean that we field 6 against their 11 next Saturday.

What would have been fairer in your opinion, and why?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It was meant to be a democratic debate, i would not call an audience of 36% and 64% democratic........what has current polling got to do with it.......Watford are up the top does that mean that we field 6 against their 11 next Saturday.

If you want a reflection of society then maybe current voting intentions should come into it?

 

[Nibble]

Maybe "a complete breakdown" is what is needed eh. Who are the "dim" ones now. Thankfully many can see the bias and fixing in these debates, some are just short sighted.

the BBC and ICM finally revealed the make-up of audience members.

ICM used the following audience ratio for those with a party preference:

Conservative 5

Labour 5

Lib Dem 4

Ukip 3

SNP 2

Green 2

Plaid 1.

This meant that just 36% of audience members swung to the right.

In addition one fifth of the audience was made up of ‘undecided voters’ from the local area around Westminster.

Nigel Farage blasted the audience and BBC when he was booed for his views on immigration

He said: "There just seems to be a total lack of comprehension on this panel and indeed this audience, which is a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC."

Today Mr Farage said: "Sometimes these things go wrong, sometimes you get groups who apply to be on programmes who perhaps aren't as truthful on their applications as they could be.

"In this case, the BBC gave the job to a polling company called ICM who are famous for getting everything about Ukip wrong and that I think was the mistake.”

He said it wasn’t the first time a BBC audience had been aggressive towards Ukip. He added: “The night of the by-election that Douglas Carswell won in Clacton with a landslide, there was a Ukip representative - Patrick O'Flynn - on Question Time in Clacton and the audience were deeply hostile to him."

He also repeated claims of a bias audience on Sky News saying: “From the off it was so completely obvious that we did not have an audience reflective of public opinion.

"Regardless of whether you are a Ukip supporter or not, this [immigration] is something that has a huge response in the public."

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/571208/Le...s-audience-WAS-left-leaning-as-Farage-claimed

While it is probably true the audience may have been largely left wing the sign of a good leader is to conduct yourself with dignity in the face of whatever is in front of you. He came across as defensive and whining.

 

[Mr Bridger]

While it is probably true the audience may have been largely left wing the sign of a good leader is to conduct yourself with dignity in the face of whatever is in front of you. He came across as defensive and whining.

" a good leader is"

" to conduct yourself with dignity in the face of whatever is in front of you". Like Cameron in the Leaders debate. took it on the chin and listened.

" He came across as defensive and whining" Like Milliband in the leaders debate. some of the time when challenged, he just shook his head and looked down a teenager being scorned.

 

[Nibble]

" a good leader is"

" to conduct yourself with dignity in the face of whatever is in front of you". Like Cameron in the Leaders debate. took it on the chin and listened.

" He came across as defensive and whining" Like Milliband in the leaders debate. some of the time when challenged, he just shook his head and looked down a teenager being scorned.

Don't get me wrong, none of them came out of this looking good.

 

[Soulman]

If you want a reflection of society then maybe current voting intentions should come into it?

If you want a democratic debate you should have a roughly 50/50 audience, current voting intentions should not come in to it. Same if the boot was on the other foot.
How can a loaded audience achieve a fair debate in anything.

 

[Nibble]

I think the reason Cameron doesn't want to take part in most debates and is appearing to take critisism on the chin is that he has no real reason to care. We've all seen what his party will do. They set their stall out very early on in their first term. For good or bad we all know what we'll get so I think his thinking is "they know us, vote or don't". The others have everything to prove.

Combine that with the fact that Cameron has betrayed and screwed so many sections of society what could he possibly say to defend what he has done to so many in this country?

 

[Dick Swiveller]

He also repeated claims of a bias audience on Sky News saying: “From the off it was so completely obvious that we did not have an audience reflective of public opinion

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/571208/Le...s-audience-WAS-left-leaning-as-Farage-claimed

So he claimed the Murdoch owned, right wing Sky News picked a biased audience? Was he upset they were too right wing and not representative? No, didn't think so. This is why his man of the people, beer swilling smoking, everyone hates me stance is so grating on people that don't support him. Don't agree with him and its political correctness gone mad or a leftie plot. The simple fact is that less than 1 in 5 people support him and his party. And without him, it would likely be much less support. All irrelevant anyway as his little rant about the BBC and audience bias played to his core support and presumably you so job done.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

If you want a democratic debate you should have a roughly 50/50 audience, current voting intentions should not come in to it. Same if the boot was on the other foot.
How can a loaded audience achieve a fair debate in anything.

How can you have 50/50 with 5 parties represented? 50% Tory, 50% PC, 50% Green, 50% SNP, 50% UKIP doesn't work does it? This is about as wonky as the figures in Dave's manifesto. And left and right doesn't work as I think I'm correct in saying the Green Party do not consider themselves either. And if you could spilt it on left and right then why should a single minority right wing party be afforded half the audience ? You would not expect the Greens to demand half the audience to consist of environmentalists would you?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

So he claimed the Murdoch owned, right wing Sky News picked a biased audience? Was he upset they were too right wing and not representative? No, didn't think so. This is why his man of the people, beer swilling smoking, everyone hates me stance is so grating on people that don't support him. Don't agree with him and its political correctness gone mad or a leftie plot. The simple fact is that less than 1 in 5 people support him and his party. And without him, it would likely be much less support. All irrelevant anyway as his little rant about the BBC and audience bias played to his core support and presumably you so job done.

Well put

 

[Soulman]

How can you have 50/50 with 5 parties represented? 50% Tory, 50% PC, 50% Green, 50% SNP, 50% UKIP doesn't work does it? This is about as wonky as the figures in Dave's manifesto. And left and right doesn't work as I think I'm correct in saying the Green Party do not consider themselves either. And if you could spilt it on left and right then why should a single minority right wing party be afforded half the audience ? You would not expect the Greens to demand half the audience to consist of environmentalists would you?

I think you know what i was getting at. Ok then, i will put it another way then, instead of 36% right and 64% left, which has been PROVED with the ICM figures, how about an audience (easy to hand pick judging by the biased audiences on this debate and QT) that would fairly equally or at least address the parties.....not so easy, but surely easier than just loading the audience with 64% lefties.

 

[Soulman]

How can you have 50/50 with 5 parties represented? 50% Tory, 50% PC, 50% Green, 50% SNP, 50% UKIP doesn't work does it? This is about as wonky as the figures in Dave's manifesto. And left and right doesn't work as I think I'm correct in saying the Green Party do not consider themselves either. And if you could spilt it on left and right then why should a single minority right wing party be afforded half the audience ? You would not expect the Greens to demand half the audience to consist of environmentalists would you?

How do they pick the audiences where you live?

 

[Flex Your Head]

[MENTION=26105]Soulman[/MENTION] and his Express links. Is this the Express whose proprietor just donated a million quid to - you'll never guess - UKIP?

 

[Soulman]

[MENTION=26105]Soulman[/MENTION] and his Express links. Is this the Express whose proprietor just donated a million quid to - you'll never guess - UKIP?

Ok then. Has it not been proved by the figures from ICM that the audience of nearly 70% were left wing, have the BBC now given Farage half an hour airtime.........obviously you are not keen on the facts coming from a paper that has donated to UKIP..........but the facts are true and would hardly be printed by the Guardian.
So well spotted, but the content stands, and yes we would guess.

 

[Flex Your Head]

Ok then. Has it not been proved by the figures from ICM that the audience of nearly 70% were left wing, have the BBC now given Farage half an hour airtime.........obviously you are not keen on the facts coming from a paper that has donated to UKIP..........but the facts are true and would hardly be printed by the Guardian.
So well spotted, but the content stands, and yes we would guess.

Firstly, your figures are ridiculously skewed, but then with UKIP being far to the right, pretty much everything else is to the left.

Secondly, the BBC haven't 'now' given Farage half an hour, he has 30 minutes to face an audience as do all the other party leaders; this isn't some special concession to Nige, this was scheduled long before Thursday's debate.

Thirdly, the BBC does have a bias, but not in the way the right-wing press try and convince us (and have clearly convinced you).

http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-25/peston-is-right-left-wing-bias-at-the-bbc-is-a-myth

Of course, you won't accept any if this because it doesn't fit your agenda, and besides, there's an awful lot of mileage in playing the 'victim' card.