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In a small BBC EU audience
We were in the audience for this morning's Vicky Ford Show BBC Radio Norfolk discussion programme about the the EU referendum. First thing we learned: the listeners at home don't know the audience is only some 30 strong, and an audience that size is quite enough for the programme staff to manage.
Second lesson: the format of panel plus audience isn't useful in the EU debate any more. For the most part, the panel made familiar points. It's not enough for the chairman to manage the broadcast; if the programme is to add value he has to challenge the panel quite brutally on some of their assertions. This didn't happen.
Permitted audience interventions are simply that if they are not put specifically to the panel. They weren't.
Third lesson: a politician will keep talking until they are stopped. The longer they talk, the less they say.
Fourth lesson: don't place the chairman out of sight of the most loquacious panel member, so that he can't control her when she thinks it's her turn. Which is pretty much always.
Fifth lesson: if you are a professor at the University of East Anglia, and a Pro Vice Chancellor, don't talk in public about politics and expose your ignorance. It will lose you respect and it's not a sign of a fine mind.
For instance, scientists seem to think the EU is essential to their scientific co-operation (why?) and their funding. Just where do these unworldly boffins think the EU gets its money from?
His warning that a vote to Leave could lead to the “break-up of the union” (i.e. Scottish independence) brought loud applause from the compact Remain bloc in the audience.
What's the logic of this warning? That if England is inclined to Brexit, it must draw back so as not to upset the Scots. Let the tail wag the dog, say the Remainers.
So that's how they want us to behave in our union. And in the European Union too? 27 countries are an awful lot to placate. Hang on, though, if memory serves, they want Britain the lead in the EU. But they don't want England to lead in the UK. All clear?
In any case, the UK won't fragment. With oil around $50 a barrel, Nicola knows Scotland can't afford to be independent. She knows an independent Scotland couldn't join the EU: the euro is now compulsory for new entrants. And Spain would veto Scotland joining, because it doesn't want a precedent for a breakaway Catalonia joining the EU.
Oh, and Nicola has said she would only want a second Scottish referendum if it was clear that the Scots overwhelmingly wanted independence. The polls say they don't, to her relief.
Do you know this Professor Pro Vice Chancellor and remainers know this? If you do, you are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. If you don't, keep your ignorance to yourselves.
Overall an interesting experience. But not illuminating.
Source: http://thepurplescorpion.blogspot.com/2016/06/in-small-bbc-eu-audience.html
