BBC sees politics as entertainment

Caron Lindsay's post in Liberal Democrat Voice alerts us to the insidious threat to democracy behind the BBC's bland statement about the reorganisation of its TV and internet coverage of politics. If you go to that LDV post, please read Tony Greaves' contribution and the rest of the comments.

It seems to me that the BBC is retaining the political programmes I do not watch (Daily Politics or its equivalents, anything involving Andrew Neil)  but, apart from the relay from the Commons, cutting most of what I do find informative. Once upon a time, before even multi-channel TV became possible, BBC 2 used to broadcast live from not only political party conferences but also the deliberations of the annual Trades Union Congress.  This seems to have ceased in 1990. There was some political posturing at the latter, to be sure, but also a real insight into the difficulties at the shop floor. I recall warnings of slipping marine safety standards before such disasters as the Herald of Free Enterprise brought them home to the general public.

Now the viewer is to be denied genuine unmoderated debate from party conferences as well. Real discussion (as opposed to the barely-suppressed free-for-all of Labour or Conservatives' Speer-and-Goebbels inspired rallies) at Liberal Democrat, Green or, one must admit, Plaid Cymru conferences shows up the rest. Local activists as well as politicians at Westminster and town & county hall level are allowed time to speak, bringing politics home to the man or woman in the street. I suggest that the average voter is more interested in how decisions reached in Cardiff or Westminster affect him or her rather than what seems to obsess most political commentators: the pecking-order within political parties. 

Another loss could be the informative and thought-provoking Speaker's House lectures. If the curtailment of original programme-making is taken literally, this other service to democracy would also end.