!

[lupestripe]

After all the talk about the BNP on Question Time last night and the bipolarity of opinion it has caused - on which I could write an entire treatise if I could be bothered - I would just like to say that I hate the exclaimation mark. It is a completely superfluous piece of punctuation and should be banned from the English language immediately.

Comments

[simbab.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of the program(me) until everyone started talking about it as a result of this. I did, however, find this article about it interesting.

Even though he's probably right that it wouldn't work here in the U.S., I still would like to have a program like that on U.S. television. D:

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

It is one of the good things about the BBC and indeed a nice example of true accountability in action. The article is very interesting - I guess that's one of the diferences between the US and UK systems. I don't know - would the American electorate want such a show anyway?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Sure they would, they like to see powerful people on the spot as much as you guys do. It's the politicians that would never, ever do such a thing.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Why's that?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Because it is as the author of the BBC article says, they are "astonishingly remote" from their electorate. It's ironic, this elite ruling class that we have here, seeing the whole reason we started this silly little country.

[simbab.livejournal.com]

Oh, and given our media, the questions would be really fucking retarded.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

That was the fear. Do you have an impartial based media source in the US?

[simbab.livejournal.com]

PBS is pretty close. It could be on PBS or NPR (radio) but they tend to be pretty quiet and subdued, they shy away from rowdy stuff.

PBS at least is funded by the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) which is a public benefit corporation controlled by U.S. Congress. I doubt putting those same people on the spot is helpful to their need for funding.