Posts in the ‘Sky’ category

Sky News debate

Wednesday, 30 April 2008, 0.34 by Mr. Stop Boris

Unfortunately, as chronicled by The Tory Troll, who was there, the Sky News debate was very disappointing.

It was truly bizarre how they would take some perfectly good questions, and then go to a break and never really address them. They also took a question about crime from – unless a Boris-stopper’s eyes deceive him – the very member of Team Boris who was peddling lies about crime outside the Time Out hustings earlier this month!

It was also seriously frustrating how they kept cutting things off every time the candidates starting interacting and coming alive. I lost count of the number of times Boris would come out with some rubbish and the other candidates would then be cut off without being given a chance to show it up as the nonsense it was. As I said, it was very disappointing.

Fortunately, the LBC radio discussion afterwards, featuring Dave Hill, wasn’t.

Grab it as an MP3 (I’ve even chopped out the ads) and put it on your MP3 player to pass 50 minutes of your commute. I don’t want to oversell it but I did find it a good listen on the bus this afternoon.

I was particularly cheered by a caller (I think he was the only caller they had on actually!) saying that he’d been determined he wouldn’t be voting for Ken at the start, and was a Conservative, but can’t believe how rubbish Boris has been in all the debates so will now be voting to stop him. That’s my kind of caller. (He pops up just before 28 minutes into the file, if you’re keen to hear him.)

So, the debates are over, and indeed as I type this we are now into the last day before the election itself. This is it.

Reminder: Sky News debate tomorrow evening

Sunday, 27 April 2008, 19.15 by Mr. Stop Boris

Sky News are really going to town for what will be the final televised debate of the campaign, just three days before the polls come to a close:

Decision Time: The London Debate will see Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Brian Paddick slug it out live from 8pm just three days before polling.

Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton will chair the debate, and more than 500 people will be at Cadogan Hall in central London to watch the action first-hand.

Coverage begins at 7.30pm with Decision Time: The London Debate Unplugged.

Sky’s Martin Stanford and a panel of experts will let you know what to look out for and size up the campaign so far.

Unplugged will continue on Sky News Active and online during the TV ad breaks and for an hour after the end of the debate at 9pm.

The panel will include a range of political bloggers, sadly not including me. I mean, I’d've worn a disguise and asked for my voice to be digitally altered, so perhaps their budget wouldn’t have stretched to it, but really, you’d think they’d've asked, wouldn’t you? ;)

Unfortunately some personal and family commitments may well mean I won’t get to watch this until late Tuesday evening, which is rather frustrating, particularly as I’m not sure how easily I could record the ‘Active’ stuff. Hopefully Dave Hill and the Tory Troll will be able to sort you out with some coverage of the debate in the mean time.

TV debate alert

Monday, 21 April 2008, 18.32 by Mr. Stop Boris

ITV London are recording a debate between the main three candidates tonight, for transmission on ITV1 in London tomorrow evening at 22.40. It’s a full hour long so should provide more space for exploring the issues than any of the TV debates during the campaign have done so far – and so hopefully more chance for Boris to get a good skewering.

As you may already be aware, that’s followed on Thursday night at 22.45 on BBC One by a near-live TV debate between the three, again for an hour, in a special edition of Question Time.

I think there’s also a debate on Sky News next Monday evening, 28 April, just three days before the polls near closure.

It’s all go! Fingers crossed for some election-losing Boris gaffes on all three programmes!

Another TV date for your diary

Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 22.31 by Mr. Stop Boris

Sky News have secured the final TV debate of the campaign, to be broadcast live, in front of an audience of over 300, on Sky News at 8pm on Monday 28 April.

That’s just three days before the election itself, so here’s hoping for an irrecoverably awful gaffe from Boris during the proceedings!