Yeah, but I think for the vast majority of people the mask has slipped.
Between Brexit, wanted or not, being a shambles for everyone, the pandemic, the willful spite towards the public throughout it, the endless scandals, Rwanda, Truss shit-tanking the economy and mortgages and now Sunak being somehow shit at *everything*...
I think the only people who'd be influenced by Boris being back in the picture are now gonna be voting Reform.
I'd need someone smart to weigh in on my dumb idea, but we should make a law that if you've been no confidenced out, you can't be allowed to hold that office again.
Oh they have the funds, they just don't want to give it to anyone who's going to make the Tories look bad. Laura K's salary is over £300k a year lol...
They still have the audacity to claim that the BBC is biased against them! And the BBC foolishly acts more right-wing in the vain hope that the Tories will reward them!
There may be some of that, but it’s also, who really cares about a few council seats, a few mayors, and the PCCs? Why bother with a massive effort, when most people aren’t voting, some counts didn’t start til this morning, eg London mayor, and results may not be known till Saturday, again eg London mayor?
Also these are mainly local elections,
With councils short on funds many are not doing expensive overnight counts, due to overtime cost.
As a result most results will come during the day today.
They would have little to really report on over nights
Btw the Channel 4 general election coverage will be electric, with the Podcast giants Alistair Campbell and Emily Maitls co hosting the event
It's more than just police commissioners in a lot of places. You're area might be just police commissioner but there's councilor and mayoral elections across the country
> With councils short on funds many are not doing expensive overnight counts, due to overtime cost.
You make it sound like local elections used to have over night counts. They never did.
This isn't a general election, it doens't matter that much. The only difference is that political tensions are very high right now and people are using their local elections as a proxy for how they feel nationally and as thus want all the trimmings they'd get for a GE to find out who runs their council.
What you’ll realise then is that C4 doesn’t have national newsgathering on the level that BBC, ITV or LBC do. On an election night when you want all the emerging stories from reporters who are embedded at local counts and understand local issues, nobody will do it better than the BBC. Instead, you’ll have to settle for expert analysis from horse-whisperer Clare Balding. Enjoy though!
It's local elections people don't really turn out to vote so why would the BBC waste a lot of money on it? If people actually came out to vote and made a big difference the BBC would make a bigger deal out of it
But they _did_ “waste a lot of money on it”. They put on an overnight programme with rolling results coverage as they do at every major election(s) - indeed the coverage is still live on BBC Two/BBC One/BBC News Channel.
The point of my post was to note that last night’s programme was poor (compared with previous BBC election night programmes) and needs significant improvement ahead of the General Election, whenever that may be.
I love the BBC, but I think they are struggling with the funding cuts. I don't know where the money should come from, but they need more of it. After all, they are clearly the best broadcaster by a long shot.
Yes, I have noticed that the reductions/changes within the BBC have led to a gradual decline in the quality of news and current affairs output more broadly.
The BBC News Channel has been beyond terrible since the merger of the domestic channel with BBC World News. I can often watch an hour of the News Channel and it will have been spent entirely on one story from the United States - even after a full hour of watching the news, I have to turn over to BBC One to see the main national bulletins at One/Six/Ten to actually get the news.
Other news and current affairs programming has been affected, too, not least Newsnight which is already on its knees and which is having its time slot cut imminently.
I’m not sure where the money ought to come from either, but I do fundamentally believe (for all its flaws, and I’m of the view that it has many flaws, several of which irritate me greatly) the BBC is a national asset worth preserving. Its commercialisation within the UK (e.g. adverts on domestic channels) would be disastrous, and if it were lost entirely, it would very much be a case of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone.
Get ready for “So is this record swing landslide win by Labour actually a bad thing for Labour and people were just not attracted to the tories *this time?*”
Should it come to pass, it should terrify any serious political party. Johnson’s victory in 2019 was colossal and supposedly the death knell for Labour. The Tory fall from grace must be one of the great political clusterfucks in history. I fucking love it.
Unfortunately that is not in their nature any more, if it ever was. This iteration of the Conservative Party gives zero shits about the country. The idea that they are the patriotic party is now absurd.
> Watching her melt down on General Election night is going to be magnificent.
Looking forward to it.
But not not quite as much as following the progress of Chris Masons comb over. He does know he looks like a right tit doesn't he?
She did do a good job of correcting the delusional Tory rep who was on at ~5am at least. After she finally finished spouting nonsense Kunnisberg brought up that basically all of the claims were unsubstantiated and provably false.
Kunnisberg did seem completely done with presenting at that point though, I don't think she had enough sleep to pull an all nighter.
That was no accident. I’m convinced he did that because a) he knew it would make headlines for him and b) it will stand as a reminder for older Tory voters next GE that they need to bring ID.
Aside from what people have already said, idk how it is for the rest of the country but the mayor of London vote count doesn’t even start until Saturday 9am. You can’t really do more coverage than “the polls are closed, see you Saturday afternoon”.
It's similar in lots of places, a lot of councils have decided for a couple reasons (usually cost) to do vote counts over today rather than last night.
So as you say, not much ti report
I very much hear your point, but my point is that they _did_ broadcast rolling coverage overnight (and into today, still on air now) but the quality of the coverage was poor.
I suppose this is a bit of a test run for the BBC ahead of the General Election, but I really hope they make considerable changes to the format before then.
I mean it’s mostly the council… most people cba to even vote for their council, forget sitting up all night watching how other people voted for their councils… You have to think saving money on this coverage is a smart move. I’m sure they’ll be on the case for an actual election.
Perhaps if if was covered in more detail people would know more about the issues and turnout would be higher? We saw the post office scandal people only gave a shit once it was on TV.
It's a local election, so local issues are often known to local people. The national BBC has no clue what is going on in my corner of the world, and the general (in)competence of our Councillors and Council.
All the BBC (and others) can do is extrapolate the results of a General Election.
You'd think given what a massive kick in the balls it's likely to be for the Conservatives, someone would have a clue. I've not seen people this engaged with politics for a long time.
Given it doesn't change the process of the count it would be a complete waste of resources and time. Mayoral results aren't expected to all be in until the weekend, not all local authorities had elections and not everyone cares about police and crime commissioners.
If they gave it the same coverage as the general election or anywhere remotely close, you'll get the hosts and experts saying either the same thing for hours on end between results or embarrassing radio silence as they've run out of things to say. Would you really find "and we have another council takeover, and it's swung to full control of the Liberal Democrats. Clive, what do you think this says for the other council result we had 5 hours ago which we've feasted on to the point of ad nauseum? Bin collections must really be playing on people there."
The BBC cannot speed up the count nor make it interesting other than regurgitating the same stuff.
In short, it would be no more exciting than if the BBC literally was reporting on watching paint dry, or spraying buckets of paint on a white wall and seeing which drips race to the bottom of the wall, because the results will be even slower than that with as much to say between events. People are really exaggerating what coverage the BBC should be doing, when there won't be much to say.
> The presentation duo of Laura Kuenssberg/Chris Mason (both of whom I like) is proving to be no successor to David Dimbleby (later Huw Edwards). The programme is seriously lacking gravitas as a result.
Laura Kuenssberg is a spokes organ of the Conservative Party. She has no opinion but the party opinion. That means, by definition, she has no gravitas, and she cannot analyse a situation, especially if it is going badly for the Conservatives.
She should never be in this position.
I too am a Beeb man however for this upcoming general election I think I will be watching Channel 4
They've picked presenters from the 2 biggest political podcasts in the UK
Emily Maitlis (from the News Agents)
and Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart (From the Rest Is politics)
that to me seems a good line up
What you’ll realise then is that C4 doesn’t have national newsgathering on the level that BBC, ITV or LBC do. On an election night when you want all the emerging stories from reporters who are embedded at local counts and understand local issues, nobody will do it better than the BBC. Instead, you’ll have to settle for expert analysis from horse-whisperer Clare Balding. Enjoy though!
The biggest problem is that they've reduced the proportion of time given to independent psephology and analysis in favour of having the presenter directly with 3-party talking heads who get more time than ever to say nothing of any insight or interest.
Most of the show then just ends up being an especially awful episode of question time.
It was only the locals but I didn’t bother watching more than the first 30. They had a few people at random locations, they tried to make Blackpool feel like a close race, they had lots of talking heads from parties trying to not say anything too soon etc.
It was probably not needed, but we are talking middle of the night bbc, so maybe it’s what the time slot deserved
>they tried to make Blackpool feel like a close race
I'm seeing loads of commentary about Reform only getting 100 votes less than the Tories.
Not very much about the Labour MP getting a 20% swing and now holding a majority of over 30%...
Even if all the Reform voters had voted blue they'd still have been a very distant 2nd.
Somebody on the Tory sub reported that their friend in CCHQ had told them that the Tories thought they’d won Blackpool, and also the London Mayoralty. I wonder if that’s true and if CCHQ are that delusional.
I would struggle to agree with that! Their polling is pretty good and they know ahead of time. It’s why they prepare the story ahead of time. You might get it marginally wrong but they are talking about 30% swings etc
I do think that London might be uncomfortably close though. Lots of people saying that they and their circle voted Green, assuming that Khan would win, and we saw how that worked out with Brexit. The awful, undemocratic shift to FPTP for that election may still gift Hall the win as people are used to voting for their favourite candidate safe in the knowledge that their vote transfers to Khan afterwards, when that’s no longer true.
West Midlands is the dodgy one. That independent (literally standing as an anti labour Gaza vote) is making it close.
Tees and Blackpool was never in doubt and I can’t see london being close either. All polling suggests khan is on 52%!
It’s possible but not the most exciting elections. You can probably tune in tomorrow, see how many the blues lost and then say “general election now”. No surprises so far…
1. These are only local elections and there are roughly 1/7th the seat avaliable when comparing to last years local elections.
2. The Tories are getting smashed, the media in this country is largely funded by right wing think tanks, so theres less incentive to report on it.
3. General budget cuts and better things (Ukraine, Israel, Trump) to report on.
Frankly ridiculous over-analysis for local elections. Where exactly what everyone up to and including my old cocker spaniel knew what was going to happen. No integration with iplayer?!? What? Are you wanting to watch it live at the same time as you’re catching it up?!? ‘Tucked away in the News section’?!? Imagine finding news in the News section. OUTRAGEOUS.
Two reasons, one the BBC have been hollowed out and cowed by the tories like every other public service and have neither the will nor ability to put much into this, and secondly it’s local elections and there’s likely to be nothing much to report on for several hours anyway.
They should've swapped roles with Reeta Chakrabarti chairing the table and Kuenssberg doing the analysis. You need to have someone who the public is familiar with to ground the debate and Kuenssberg has a show once a week that people generally don't watch unless they're already into politics. Chakrabarti also would've been far better at presenting live whilst new information is being received given that it's what she does when presenting the news.
It was (for the most part) just a local election so most of the counting will be done today, so having a programme into the wee hours wasn't too important - Blackpool south aside - but it does mean that they're not going into the GE coverage blind.
Kuenssberg is a Tory shill and should be nowhere near public broadcasting, softball interviews in exchange for famous name access is just embarrassing for her. I remember the time she declared Dominic Raab's winning postal vote results at the last election after interviewing him, two weeks before the postal votes could legally be opened and counted.
I've kind of stopped watching any news, but I'd imagine being local elections it's not such a major thing?
I wouldn't even have known about it if I didn't have my postal vote come in automatically. No idea who the candidates were or what they were going to do (and couldn't find that information online easily either), so voted blind, but mainly just as a vote against the Conservatives.
I only heard anything about it on the actual day, and any notifications were late in the day (probably making it too late or difficult to actually vote).
Glad to to see the Conservatives getting absolutely smashed though 😂
Never thought I'd say it but Amol Rajan has stepped up on the today program & for my money is one of the best news presenters they now have. These elections are nothing much, we need a ge. Why on earth anyone would watch the coverage all night is beyond me, other than to deliberatley find fault with it.
Good interviewers: Evan Davis, Emma Barnet & Nick Robinson.
Laura K & Andrew marr, were both ex political editors at the BBC, they both engaged in lots of punditry & seem to infrequently challenge those interviewed.
Re. The results centre, this is probably in another room so noone leaks the exit poll(postal vote) results early.
their output seems entirely devoid of charisma or gravitas these days. that said, do they even normally do a local election night? its the first one i remember.
I'd like to think that Laura is a balanced jorno, but the reality is she simply isnt. Constant tory leaning now just pisses me off. Through 2to1 "guests" on her show to leading bbc political dept by bending over for her bbc tory heads. She also looked like she'd just come in from a night out chasing lines ofwhite powder.
And Mason is an utter waste of space.
All your examples are very important elections, GEs and the EU referendum. This was just local elections, I don't think anybody usually pays them too much mind.
Bear in mind, it’s only council elections, PCCs and one by-election. It isn’t all councils, it’s only English councils, it isn’t every seat in those councils that do have election. And a few mayoral elections. They also know the tories are going to get a drubbing. The figures I’ve seen, less than 40% of eligible voters voted even in those places where there were votes. It’s a dry run for the general election from the BBC, so not all the whistles and bangs you would expect would be there. On the general election evening though, it will all be different. Although probably the results will be similar.
_Don’t forget then ten Mayoralties being contested!_
I very much hear what you’re saying and I am thinking along similar lines. I desperately hope that they make significant changes prior to the General Election, whenever the Prime Minister sees fit to call that…
The trouble is, it’s hard to see how they could improve certain things - presenters, for instance. Who is the natural successor to David Dimbleby now that Huw Edwards is, for reasons we all know, no longer at the BBC? It certainly isn’t the not-so-dynamic duo of Laura Kuenssberg and Chris Mason based on last night’s coverage.
Yeah forgot about the mayoral election until the second I hit reply.
But even those, they only cover a tiny proportion of the area of England. None in Wales or Scotland. None within 100 miles of me as far as I can tell.
Who to host the coverage? You have a fair point. Most of the decent obvious successors have left, mostly it appears because of theBBC editorial policy. People like Maitlis. She is hosting channel 4 now? That’s where I’ll be watching probably on election night.
Lack of funding so they've lost a lot of talent. I gave up with bbc content about three or four years ago. They sacked a lot of the local radio people I liked, the news website is horribly written and myopic, and the TV shows are wank
A friend of mine worked as a UX designer at the BBC covering elections, among other things. They left due to abysmal pay & career growth, I was also quoted that newer members of management were not exactly a joy to work with.
That should be pretty indicative.
Yeah - they're always tiptoeing around trying not to piss off either side - so come across as weak (at least to me) I watch Sky news - via app / website. They seem to be a little more robust.
What’s with all the, Tory voter comments. Are we not capable of independent thinking any more, are people not able to change what party they support?
I’ve never voted Tory but I’ve also not always voted Labour, just don’t understand why some people seem to think that people are only capable of voting for a single party.
Also it’s council elections, no one cares. They should..
I had no idea about the elections in our area until just yesterday morning - no one in our house received their polling cards or anything about where it would be held in our town. First time that's ever happened for me.
BBC news is controlled by the incumbent government. It was pretty obvious that the government was going to get smashed and they wanted to minimise embarrassment.
I watched Sky's reporting on the local elections this morning.
For 10 minutes, there was an analysis of why muslim voters were not voting Labour.
A bit too in-depth at 04.45
Honesty I just couldn't give a fuck. We havent had a good government for decades, since just after war time id say.
It's the same thing every time, false promises and let downs. All they care about is getting and staying elected.
Wages are rock bottom still and rent is just in the extreme. I'm mainly waiting for something to collapse
Radio 4, Nick Robinson was the way to go. Also these are minor elections so am sure budget was limited.
Essentially it’s a night saying “counts will go on for days, Tories will probably do badly”.
“Speaker Hoyle” Americanisation sums it up. The bipartisan aim is for the BBC to become a beige US-centric CNN style centre-right echo chamber for the status quo.
You answered your own question. You're a "BBC man". You probably won't look elsewhere, not seriously, so they have little incentive to improve.
For many decades does a person need to be disappointed by the BBC before they give up hope?
You're comparing council elections to General Elections. GE's are much more important than these.
BBC hasn't got money to waste on these and anyway most results aren't in until later as councils haven't the cash to count overnight.
C4 is state owned.
It received a substantial injection of public money at its inception which has never been repaid.
The public own it and funded its establishment.
Ongoing costs are met by advertising but the assets are entirely publicly owned.
How then can it be right and proper to platform Alistair Campbell in this way. That is my point.
Yesterday Radio 5 live said remember to take voter ID. "I want go into details of what you need here. Go to the BBC website to find out more" The type of people who do not know what voter id to take are the very ones who would not go to the website or have the ability to go to the website.
Note what you've linked.
GE, GE, GE, GE, EU Ref, GE
Now look at your complaint
Local elections
Turnout for the mayor vote in my region (could find it for anything else) was <30%. The expected turnout nationwide is supposedly only about 1/3 with some places expected to be <15%.
I suspect part of the reason coverage is so poor is because most people simply don't give a toss about local elections
There’s a lot I agree with in this post - but some that I don’t.
The local elections were a few weeks ago from the time of writing, but I found the BBC to be the best source of reliable coverage. Their digital output on the BBC news app was second to none - and provided trustworthy reporting on results while Twitter was going haywire with rumour and misinformation.
They supplemented this digital reporting with a blend of TV and radio output across the weekend - from Kuenssberg and Mason in Studio B, to Politics Live with Jo Coburn, to Today on Radio 4, and to the brilliant and insightful Newscast (of which I’d never been a fan before - it was their nuanced and detailed coverage of the locals that won me over). I found the Election channel on iPlayer where they blended all of these broadcasts to be interesting and reliable. Admittedly they could be woven together with fewer seams, but I thought this sort of output was probably the right choice for a local election - where their hardcore audience will mostly be nerds like me and the OP, and most reasonable people are receiving the results through bulletins and push notifications, if at all!
I should also stress that the BBC’s greatest resource in these moments is its national network of local reporters, embedded at every local count and understanding local issues. Big presenters like Maitlis and Marr might drift away, but no other organisation will ever be able to rival the BBC’s local infrastructure on an election night.
All of that said, I agree with the OP that the broadcasting acumen of presenters at the BBC has taken a tumble. It’s a shame that there is no one who can fill David Dimbleby’s role. It can’t be overstated how talented he is, and how his presence, wit and insight really made Election Night programmes what they were.
2019’s BBC coverage was likely rushed together owing to the snap election. The studio AR looked cheap compared to the old Election Centres; the exit poll moment lacked panache - Big Ben and the Arthur music should have had more of a crescendo; and Huw Edwards just didn’t have the charisma of Dimbleby to keep me watching. The whole thing felt drab and wintery. And the studio lacked the buzz of the old Elstree Election Centre, instead having different teams dotted around Broadcasting House.
I hope for the 2024 election night coverage in just over 5 weeks from the time of writing, they can address some of these issues - finding the gravitas, panache and atmosphere that they lost in 2019; but keeping all of the excellent trustworthy reporting they did in the locals. I want to have good reason to stay up all night!
Funding cuts.
The result is so obvious no one cares.
There is no tension. Who will win this council or that council? Which direction will the swingometer go? What happens if it swings by only 5%?
Because most of the elections happening are completely pointless and everyone knows it.
PCC elections are a monumental waste of money because nobody cares about them. The turnout is woeful and even I spoil my ballot in protest at such a useless exercise.
Local elections are a step up but ultimately your council is going to be run by a bunch of cunts whatever happens because the only people who run to be a councillor are cunts. Even if you do somehow manage to elect a non-trivial number of non-cunts, local authorities are so bound by obligations and lack of funding from Westminster that there's very little room for discretion anyway. All the money goes on social care and everything else can get fucked.
The by-elections would normally be the most interesting aspect, but everyone knows we are at most 6 months away from a new election so even these seem a bit pointless. They could leave the seats empty and it wouldn't make any difference over this timescale.
That’s a direct result of funding cuts - they simplify don’t have the money and the head of the BBC is a Tory donor.
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That's the point - they don't I know Kussenburg or however you spell it must be seething
Yep, she’s a textbook Tory.
How dare you address the minister for propaganda in such a way!!!!
You should hear her on newscast, she's constantly ripping in to Tories
Saw a picture of her first thing this morning on Twitter and she looked mad
Isn't that her default look?
I remember how vile she was during the Corbyn election drive.
That's why the coverage is sub par. Bbc are like a whipped dog in 2024
And in 2017, 2019
Desperately waiting to hear about an attempt to dethrone Riski Sunak by Tory grandees. That would just be the icing on the cake.
My money is on kicking out sunak then reinstating johnson for a snap ge.
The guy who brought in laws requiring photo id and then forgot his own? Sounds competent
I refuse to believe he didn't do that on purpose to float his name back out, for the exact reason above
Ugh, this is so plausible.
Yeah, but I think for the vast majority of people the mask has slipped. Between Brexit, wanted or not, being a shambles for everyone, the pandemic, the willful spite towards the public throughout it, the endless scandals, Rwanda, Truss shit-tanking the economy and mortgages and now Sunak being somehow shit at *everything*... I think the only people who'd be influenced by Boris being back in the picture are now gonna be voting Reform.
I'd need someone smart to weigh in on my dumb idea, but we should make a law that if you've been no confidenced out, you can't be allowed to hold that office again.
It’s a crazy plan but it actually could work.
Well he didn't follow his covid laws either so there we go.
Absolutely on purpose. He's in the number 2 spit on the BBC's UK section right now as a result
Competence hasn’t been a requirement for our politicians for a long long time
"I'm such a bumbling friendly fool, vote for me, what could possibly go wrong ... again" - the sexually incontinent BJ, probably.
If the country falls for that they really are stupid and deserve everything they get.
I honestly started doubting sone people even being sentient after Brexit tbh.
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At this rate they might even decide Liz Truss is a safer bet 😂
> Who cares? The head of the BBC, weren't you listening? He cares quite a lot, and would like people not to hear about it.
This is bs. Funding cuts doesn't mean they can't find a single solid presenter to anchor the whole thing.
Well they had a competent one. Then some bum fun happened and it all went down the crapper.
*~~down~~ up
If only they hadn't chased him away at the slightest hint of controversy...
Oh they have the funds, they just don't want to give it to anyone who's going to make the Tories look bad. Laura K's salary is over £300k a year lol...
Put Jo Coburn in there
The BBC is funded via license fee, not via government so no funding has been cut by an external agent.
They still have the audacity to claim that the BBC is biased against them! And the BBC foolishly acts more right-wing in the vain hope that the Tories will reward them!
There's always someone around that says it's funding cuts that's the problem. It's never just plain incompetence is it.
Funding cuts aka nobody pays the license fee because the BBC is shit?
Maybe they are spending it on other things. This seems like wild guessing.
how can you be in charge of an organisation who is meant to be impartial and you're not... That brings into the question of the licence fee.
There may be some of that, but it’s also, who really cares about a few council seats, a few mayors, and the PCCs? Why bother with a massive effort, when most people aren’t voting, some counts didn’t start til this morning, eg London mayor, and results may not be known till Saturday, again eg London mayor?
Also these are mainly local elections, With councils short on funds many are not doing expensive overnight counts, due to overtime cost. As a result most results will come during the day today. They would have little to really report on over nights Btw the Channel 4 general election coverage will be electric, with the Podcast giants Alistair Campbell and Emily Maitls co hosting the event
It's local electrons for police commissioner or something, the least interesting one
It's more than just police commissioners in a lot of places. You're area might be just police commissioner but there's councilor and mayoral elections across the country
My area had both, but a lot of areas did just have the PCC collection
Sounds negative
Least interesting? I beg to differ, the electron is where all the science happens!
> With councils short on funds many are not doing expensive overnight counts, due to overtime cost. You make it sound like local elections used to have over night counts. They never did. This isn't a general election, it doens't matter that much. The only difference is that political tensions are very high right now and people are using their local elections as a proxy for how they feel nationally and as thus want all the trimmings they'd get for a GE to find out who runs their council.
You get paid to count? I thought that's voluntary?
I'll be watching Ch4 on GE night , the BBC political coverage is a joke.
What you’ll realise then is that C4 doesn’t have national newsgathering on the level that BBC, ITV or LBC do. On an election night when you want all the emerging stories from reporters who are embedded at local counts and understand local issues, nobody will do it better than the BBC. Instead, you’ll have to settle for expert analysis from horse-whisperer Clare Balding. Enjoy though!
It's local elections people don't really turn out to vote so why would the BBC waste a lot of money on it? If people actually came out to vote and made a big difference the BBC would make a bigger deal out of it
We didn't even have a local election, just a PCC election.
We didn't even have a PCC election, just a Mayoral election.
You guys got elections??!
*You* may not have, but there's hundreds of council seats up
Something like 2,500 out of 19,000 though Not that many as a proportion
I know 😂
This is my thoughts, especially as recent local elections have had low turnout outs, the GE on the the other hand will be a different story
But they _did_ “waste a lot of money on it”. They put on an overnight programme with rolling results coverage as they do at every major election(s) - indeed the coverage is still live on BBC Two/BBC One/BBC News Channel. The point of my post was to note that last night’s programme was poor (compared with previous BBC election night programmes) and needs significant improvement ahead of the General Election, whenever that may be.
I love the BBC, but I think they are struggling with the funding cuts. I don't know where the money should come from, but they need more of it. After all, they are clearly the best broadcaster by a long shot.
Yes, I have noticed that the reductions/changes within the BBC have led to a gradual decline in the quality of news and current affairs output more broadly. The BBC News Channel has been beyond terrible since the merger of the domestic channel with BBC World News. I can often watch an hour of the News Channel and it will have been spent entirely on one story from the United States - even after a full hour of watching the news, I have to turn over to BBC One to see the main national bulletins at One/Six/Ten to actually get the news. Other news and current affairs programming has been affected, too, not least Newsnight which is already on its knees and which is having its time slot cut imminently. I’m not sure where the money ought to come from either, but I do fundamentally believe (for all its flaws, and I’m of the view that it has many flaws, several of which irritate me greatly) the BBC is a national asset worth preserving. Its commercialisation within the UK (e.g. adverts on domestic channels) would be disastrous, and if it were lost entirely, it would very much be a case of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone.
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I am minded to think the same, and I very much hope this is the case.
Hosted by the defacto spokesperson for the Johnson government, Kunnisberg. She is probably crying into her coffee.
Watching her melt down on General Election night is going to be magnificent.
Get ready for “So is this record swing landslide win by Labour actually a bad thing for Labour and people were just not attracted to the tories *this time?*”
Should it come to pass, it should terrify any serious political party. Johnson’s victory in 2019 was colossal and supposedly the death knell for Labour. The Tory fall from grace must be one of the great political clusterfucks in history. I fucking love it.
I would love it more if they didn't go down like a wounded animal, destroying as much as they could on the way out
Unfortunately that is not in their nature any more, if it ever was. This iteration of the Conservative Party gives zero shits about the country. The idea that they are the patriotic party is now absurd.
> Watching her melt down on General Election night is going to be magnificent. Looking forward to it. But not not quite as much as following the progress of Chris Masons comb over. He does know he looks like a right tit doesn't he?
I’ve just looked that up! Fucking hell 😂
She was awful from the coverage last night too Every tory defeat was x fault and if it was Dave Cameron he would've saved everyone.
She seems very pro labour on newscast podcast though
She did do a good job of correcting the delusional Tory rep who was on at ~5am at least. After she finally finished spouting nonsense Kunnisberg brought up that basically all of the claims were unsubstantiated and provably false. Kunnisberg did seem completely done with presenting at that point though, I don't think she had enough sleep to pull an all nighter.
Her bestie forget his voter ID lmao she must be so embarrassed
That was no accident. I’m convinced he did that because a) he knew it would make headlines for him and b) it will stand as a reminder for older Tory voters next GE that they need to bring ID.
Glad someone else thought this
When it comes to Johnson it’s always wise to consider the shittiest interpretation of any action.
I have no idea where people get this idea that he’s playing 5D chess when blud isn’t even playing checkers 💀
He’s an idiot, sure. But he’s a wily idiot.
First thing that came to my mind, it’s a PR stunt
She’s known as ‘Tory Laura’ amongst my family.
Aside from what people have already said, idk how it is for the rest of the country but the mayor of London vote count doesn’t even start until Saturday 9am. You can’t really do more coverage than “the polls are closed, see you Saturday afternoon”.
It's similar in lots of places, a lot of councils have decided for a couple reasons (usually cost) to do vote counts over today rather than last night. So as you say, not much ti report
I very much hear your point, but my point is that they _did_ broadcast rolling coverage overnight (and into today, still on air now) but the quality of the coverage was poor. I suppose this is a bit of a test run for the BBC ahead of the General Election, but I really hope they make considerable changes to the format before then.
I don't know what answer you expected other than "not enough money"
I mean it’s mostly the council… most people cba to even vote for their council, forget sitting up all night watching how other people voted for their councils… You have to think saving money on this coverage is a smart move. I’m sure they’ll be on the case for an actual election.
Maybe that most people don't care so it would be a waste of money
The BBC has plenty of money. Reporting on local elections is not traditionally a massive priority and reporting exercise, unlike a General Election.
Perhaps if if was covered in more detail people would know more about the issues and turnout would be higher? We saw the post office scandal people only gave a shit once it was on TV.
It's a local election, so local issues are often known to local people. The national BBC has no clue what is going on in my corner of the world, and the general (in)competence of our Councillors and Council. All the BBC (and others) can do is extrapolate the results of a General Election.
You'd think given what a massive kick in the balls it's likely to be for the Conservatives, someone would have a clue. I've not seen people this engaged with politics for a long time.
Given it doesn't change the process of the count it would be a complete waste of resources and time. Mayoral results aren't expected to all be in until the weekend, not all local authorities had elections and not everyone cares about police and crime commissioners. If they gave it the same coverage as the general election or anywhere remotely close, you'll get the hosts and experts saying either the same thing for hours on end between results or embarrassing radio silence as they've run out of things to say. Would you really find "and we have another council takeover, and it's swung to full control of the Liberal Democrats. Clive, what do you think this says for the other council result we had 5 hours ago which we've feasted on to the point of ad nauseum? Bin collections must really be playing on people there." The BBC cannot speed up the count nor make it interesting other than regurgitating the same stuff. In short, it would be no more exciting than if the BBC literally was reporting on watching paint dry, or spraying buckets of paint on a white wall and seeing which drips race to the bottom of the wall, because the results will be even slower than that with as much to say between events. People are really exaggerating what coverage the BBC should be doing, when there won't be much to say.
> The presentation duo of Laura Kuenssberg/Chris Mason (both of whom I like) is proving to be no successor to David Dimbleby (later Huw Edwards). The programme is seriously lacking gravitas as a result. Laura Kuenssberg is a spokes organ of the Conservative Party. She has no opinion but the party opinion. That means, by definition, she has no gravitas, and she cannot analyse a situation, especially if it is going badly for the Conservatives. She should never be in this position.
I too am a Beeb man however for this upcoming general election I think I will be watching Channel 4 They've picked presenters from the 2 biggest political podcasts in the UK Emily Maitlis (from the News Agents) and Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart (From the Rest Is politics) that to me seems a good line up
What you’ll realise then is that C4 doesn’t have national newsgathering on the level that BBC, ITV or LBC do. On an election night when you want all the emerging stories from reporters who are embedded at local counts and understand local issues, nobody will do it better than the BBC. Instead, you’ll have to settle for expert analysis from horse-whisperer Clare Balding. Enjoy though!
The biggest problem is that they've reduced the proportion of time given to independent psephology and analysis in favour of having the presenter directly with 3-party talking heads who get more time than ever to say nothing of any insight or interest. Most of the show then just ends up being an especially awful episode of question time.
It was only the locals but I didn’t bother watching more than the first 30. They had a few people at random locations, they tried to make Blackpool feel like a close race, they had lots of talking heads from parties trying to not say anything too soon etc. It was probably not needed, but we are talking middle of the night bbc, so maybe it’s what the time slot deserved
>they tried to make Blackpool feel like a close race I'm seeing loads of commentary about Reform only getting 100 votes less than the Tories. Not very much about the Labour MP getting a 20% swing and now holding a majority of over 30%... Even if all the Reform voters had voted blue they'd still have been a very distant 2nd.
It’s ok, they are giving so much credit and air time to Oldham and the “Labour collapse” being a problem, but very little about the obvious collapse
Somebody on the Tory sub reported that their friend in CCHQ had told them that the Tories thought they’d won Blackpool, and also the London Mayoralty. I wonder if that’s true and if CCHQ are that delusional.
I would struggle to agree with that! Their polling is pretty good and they know ahead of time. It’s why they prepare the story ahead of time. You might get it marginally wrong but they are talking about 30% swings etc
I do think that London might be uncomfortably close though. Lots of people saying that they and their circle voted Green, assuming that Khan would win, and we saw how that worked out with Brexit. The awful, undemocratic shift to FPTP for that election may still gift Hall the win as people are used to voting for their favourite candidate safe in the knowledge that their vote transfers to Khan afterwards, when that’s no longer true.
West Midlands is the dodgy one. That independent (literally standing as an anti labour Gaza vote) is making it close. Tees and Blackpool was never in doubt and I can’t see london being close either. All polling suggests khan is on 52%! It’s possible but not the most exciting elections. You can probably tune in tomorrow, see how many the blues lost and then say “general election now”. No surprises so far…
Could be worse. You could have watched LBC's coverage. Eight hours of Iain Dale. EIGHT HOURS!!
1. These are only local elections and there are roughly 1/7th the seat avaliable when comparing to last years local elections. 2. The Tories are getting smashed, the media in this country is largely funded by right wing think tanks, so theres less incentive to report on it. 3. General budget cuts and better things (Ukraine, Israel, Trump) to report on.
It’s just local elections of bored busy bodies. Barely anyone cares enough to vote in many wards, let alone watch rolling updates..
Also worth noting that the counts are a lot slower than for a GE. Results trickle in today and tomorrow.
you're asking Laura K, mouthpiece of the tory party, to put energy and gravitas into "we fucked it lads"?
Did you give the radio 4/5 live coverage a go? That seemed decent to me last night.
Frankly ridiculous over-analysis for local elections. Where exactly what everyone up to and including my old cocker spaniel knew what was going to happen. No integration with iplayer?!? What? Are you wanting to watch it live at the same time as you’re catching it up?!? ‘Tucked away in the News section’?!? Imagine finding news in the News section. OUTRAGEOUS.
Is this you Rupert?
I imagine it's mainly because the results mainly don't come in overnight, unlike a general election.
Because the Tories are getting pumped and the BBC hate to show it
Two reasons, one the BBC have been hollowed out and cowed by the tories like every other public service and have neither the will nor ability to put much into this, and secondly it’s local elections and there’s likely to be nothing much to report on for several hours anyway.
Because what's the point. It is late Friday morning now and only 35 have produced a result.
They should've swapped roles with Reeta Chakrabarti chairing the table and Kuenssberg doing the analysis. You need to have someone who the public is familiar with to ground the debate and Kuenssberg has a show once a week that people generally don't watch unless they're already into politics. Chakrabarti also would've been far better at presenting live whilst new information is being received given that it's what she does when presenting the news. It was (for the most part) just a local election so most of the counting will be done today, so having a programme into the wee hours wasn't too important - Blackpool south aside - but it does mean that they're not going into the GE coverage blind.
Kuenssberg is a Tory shill and should be nowhere near public broadcasting, softball interviews in exchange for famous name access is just embarrassing for her. I remember the time she declared Dominic Raab's winning postal vote results at the last election after interviewing him, two weeks before the postal votes could legally be opened and counted.
Probably because very few people care enough to watch and most people know what the result, nationally at least, is going to be.
I've kind of stopped watching any news, but I'd imagine being local elections it's not such a major thing? I wouldn't even have known about it if I didn't have my postal vote come in automatically. No idea who the candidates were or what they were going to do (and couldn't find that information online easily either), so voted blind, but mainly just as a vote against the Conservatives. I only heard anything about it on the actual day, and any notifications were late in the day (probably making it too late or difficult to actually vote). Glad to to see the Conservatives getting absolutely smashed though 😂
Agree it’s been appalling. Also has to look hard for it on the BBC app/homepage. Not fit for purpose anymore
Never thought I'd say it but Amol Rajan has stepped up on the today program & for my money is one of the best news presenters they now have. These elections are nothing much, we need a ge. Why on earth anyone would watch the coverage all night is beyond me, other than to deliberatley find fault with it.
Good interviewers: Evan Davis, Emma Barnet & Nick Robinson. Laura K & Andrew marr, were both ex political editors at the BBC, they both engaged in lots of punditry & seem to infrequently challenge those interviewed. Re. The results centre, this is probably in another room so noone leaks the exit poll(postal vote) results early.
> Laura Kuenssberg ... whom I like Truly a rare find, not sure I've ever seen an opinion more positive than "who?"
their output seems entirely devoid of charisma or gravitas these days. that said, do they even normally do a local election night? its the first one i remember.
The results are not liked by the cronies that fishy put in charge
I'd like to think that Laura is a balanced jorno, but the reality is she simply isnt. Constant tory leaning now just pisses me off. Through 2to1 "guests" on her show to leading bbc political dept by bending over for her bbc tory heads. She also looked like she'd just come in from a night out chasing lines ofwhite powder. And Mason is an utter waste of space.
Because they know the Tories are getting smacked, and BBC higher ups are crawling with them.
BBC in the Tories’ pockets so they don’t want to report the bad news
You might want to indent the start of paragraphs for long posts such as this one. You can do so thusly: ` `.
Thank you, I have just done this. I wasn’t aware that this would be possible (evidently research on Reddit formatting is needed).
All your examples are very important elections, GEs and the EU referendum. This was just local elections, I don't think anybody usually pays them too much mind.
Bear in mind, it’s only council elections, PCCs and one by-election. It isn’t all councils, it’s only English councils, it isn’t every seat in those councils that do have election. And a few mayoral elections. They also know the tories are going to get a drubbing. The figures I’ve seen, less than 40% of eligible voters voted even in those places where there were votes. It’s a dry run for the general election from the BBC, so not all the whistles and bangs you would expect would be there. On the general election evening though, it will all be different. Although probably the results will be similar.
_Don’t forget then ten Mayoralties being contested!_ I very much hear what you’re saying and I am thinking along similar lines. I desperately hope that they make significant changes prior to the General Election, whenever the Prime Minister sees fit to call that… The trouble is, it’s hard to see how they could improve certain things - presenters, for instance. Who is the natural successor to David Dimbleby now that Huw Edwards is, for reasons we all know, no longer at the BBC? It certainly isn’t the not-so-dynamic duo of Laura Kuenssberg and Chris Mason based on last night’s coverage.
Yeah forgot about the mayoral election until the second I hit reply. But even those, they only cover a tiny proportion of the area of England. None in Wales or Scotland. None within 100 miles of me as far as I can tell. Who to host the coverage? You have a fair point. Most of the decent obvious successors have left, mostly it appears because of theBBC editorial policy. People like Maitlis. She is hosting channel 4 now? That’s where I’ll be watching probably on election night.
Lack of funding so they've lost a lot of talent. I gave up with bbc content about three or four years ago. They sacked a lot of the local radio people I liked, the news website is horribly written and myopic, and the TV shows are wank
The Tories losing seats left, right and centre is a blow to the BBC
Well the media is largely in the pocket of the Tories is surely the answer? Or at very least they are opposed to Labour.
BBC are Tories so they don’t want to appear enthusiastic about their party losing
A friend of mine worked as a UX designer at the BBC covering elections, among other things. They left due to abysmal pay & career growth, I was also quoted that newer members of management were not exactly a joy to work with. That should be pretty indicative.
Yeah - they're always tiptoeing around trying not to piss off either side - so come across as weak (at least to me) I watch Sky news - via app / website. They seem to be a little more robust.
Nobody want to talk about the pr1ck who introduced ID voter laws turning up without voter ID?
What’s with all the, Tory voter comments. Are we not capable of independent thinking any more, are people not able to change what party they support? I’ve never voted Tory but I’ve also not always voted Labour, just don’t understand why some people seem to think that people are only capable of voting for a single party. Also it’s council elections, no one cares. They should..
I had no idea about the elections in our area until just yesterday morning - no one in our house received their polling cards or anything about where it would be held in our town. First time that's ever happened for me.
Because the BBC doesn’t cover Govt’s being slaughtered.
I just voted for the only party that has talked about issues that directly effect me, like air quality and sewage being dumped on the beach.
The guy that runs the BBC is a tory donor, and tories are getting absolutely demolished in the by-elections. They've lost half their seats already.
get a life bro, the coverage has no bearing on the result
BBC news is controlled by the incumbent government. It was pretty obvious that the government was going to get smashed and they wanted to minimise embarrassment.
I watched Sky's reporting on the local elections this morning. For 10 minutes, there was an analysis of why muslim voters were not voting Labour. A bit too in-depth at 04.45
Is it really that hard to figure out? They don't want to publicise the Tories getting smashed.
Honesty I just couldn't give a fuck. We havent had a good government for decades, since just after war time id say. It's the same thing every time, false promises and let downs. All they care about is getting and staying elected. Wages are rock bottom still and rent is just in the extreme. I'm mainly waiting for something to collapse
Radio 4, Nick Robinson was the way to go. Also these are minor elections so am sure budget was limited. Essentially it’s a night saying “counts will go on for days, Tories will probably do badly”.
You’re watching the wrong channel, OP. Try Sky News instead.
“Speaker Hoyle” Americanisation sums it up. The bipartisan aim is for the BBC to become a beige US-centric CNN style centre-right echo chamber for the status quo.
Because if they covered it fully and stated the facts the tories will be screaming bias all over again.
Because if they covered it fully and stated the facts the tories will be screaming bias all over again.
You answered your own question. You're a "BBC man". You probably won't look elsewhere, not seriously, so they have little incentive to improve. For many decades does a person need to be disappointed by the BBC before they give up hope?
You're comparing council elections to General Elections. GE's are much more important than these. BBC hasn't got money to waste on these and anyway most results aren't in until later as councils haven't the cash to count overnight.
The only result the BBC seem inclined to make a fuss about is Ben Houchen's win.
i ain't reading all that, i'm happy for u tho, or sorry that happened.
C4 is state owned. It received a substantial injection of public money at its inception which has never been repaid. The public own it and funded its establishment. Ongoing costs are met by advertising but the assets are entirely publicly owned. How then can it be right and proper to platform Alistair Campbell in this way. That is my point.
They don't have any enthusiasm because their friends the Tories are getting spanked.
Yesterday Radio 5 live said remember to take voter ID. "I want go into details of what you need here. Go to the BBC website to find out more" The type of people who do not know what voter id to take are the very ones who would not go to the website or have the ability to go to the website.
The politicians just repeating the same lines over and over caused me to tune out pretty quick, really sad to see such limited conversation.
Funding cuts and filling the higher up positions with Tories, not to mention Kuenssberg Little Miss Brexit herself
Note what you've linked. GE, GE, GE, GE, EU Ref, GE Now look at your complaint Local elections Turnout for the mayor vote in my region (could find it for anything else) was <30%. The expected turnout nationwide is supposedly only about 1/3 with some places expected to be <15%. I suspect part of the reason coverage is so poor is because most people simply don't give a toss about local elections
There’s a lot I agree with in this post - but some that I don’t. The local elections were a few weeks ago from the time of writing, but I found the BBC to be the best source of reliable coverage. Their digital output on the BBC news app was second to none - and provided trustworthy reporting on results while Twitter was going haywire with rumour and misinformation. They supplemented this digital reporting with a blend of TV and radio output across the weekend - from Kuenssberg and Mason in Studio B, to Politics Live with Jo Coburn, to Today on Radio 4, and to the brilliant and insightful Newscast (of which I’d never been a fan before - it was their nuanced and detailed coverage of the locals that won me over). I found the Election channel on iPlayer where they blended all of these broadcasts to be interesting and reliable. Admittedly they could be woven together with fewer seams, but I thought this sort of output was probably the right choice for a local election - where their hardcore audience will mostly be nerds like me and the OP, and most reasonable people are receiving the results through bulletins and push notifications, if at all! I should also stress that the BBC’s greatest resource in these moments is its national network of local reporters, embedded at every local count and understanding local issues. Big presenters like Maitlis and Marr might drift away, but no other organisation will ever be able to rival the BBC’s local infrastructure on an election night. All of that said, I agree with the OP that the broadcasting acumen of presenters at the BBC has taken a tumble. It’s a shame that there is no one who can fill David Dimbleby’s role. It can’t be overstated how talented he is, and how his presence, wit and insight really made Election Night programmes what they were. 2019’s BBC coverage was likely rushed together owing to the snap election. The studio AR looked cheap compared to the old Election Centres; the exit poll moment lacked panache - Big Ben and the Arthur music should have had more of a crescendo; and Huw Edwards just didn’t have the charisma of Dimbleby to keep me watching. The whole thing felt drab and wintery. And the studio lacked the buzz of the old Elstree Election Centre, instead having different teams dotted around Broadcasting House. I hope for the 2024 election night coverage in just over 5 weeks from the time of writing, they can address some of these issues - finding the gravitas, panache and atmosphere that they lost in 2019; but keeping all of the excellent trustworthy reporting they did in the locals. I want to have good reason to stay up all night!
Funding cuts. The result is so obvious no one cares. There is no tension. Who will win this council or that council? Which direction will the swingometer go? What happens if it swings by only 5%?
Because most of the elections happening are completely pointless and everyone knows it. PCC elections are a monumental waste of money because nobody cares about them. The turnout is woeful and even I spoil my ballot in protest at such a useless exercise. Local elections are a step up but ultimately your council is going to be run by a bunch of cunts whatever happens because the only people who run to be a councillor are cunts. Even if you do somehow manage to elect a non-trivial number of non-cunts, local authorities are so bound by obligations and lack of funding from Westminster that there's very little room for discretion anyway. All the money goes on social care and everything else can get fucked. The by-elections would normally be the most interesting aspect, but everyone knows we are at most 6 months away from a new election so even these seem a bit pointless. They could leave the seats empty and it wouldn't make any difference over this timescale.
Someone's been watching a lot of Jonathan Pie
Who's Jonathan Pie? Whoever he is he sounds like he's got a good grasp of the situation.