Question Time: Fiona Bruce shuts down Zack Polanski over Reform Russia links

26 comments

1. Tbf that was going on for quite some time and the audience were very clearly uninterested

2. I loved the little audience gasp when Polanski asked if there were any topic Reform wouldn’t blame on immigration.

   Were they having a revelation, or just put out by the lack of manners?

3. Of course she did, she’s butchered the show.

   It’s a boring unwatchable mess now.

4. Zack Polanski seems to be getting almost as much coverage as Farage on here.

5. Fiona Bruce defending the right wing and tearing down the left? What a shocker.

6. So Yusuf tells blatant lies, Polanski challenges him over the lies he’s telling, and the BBC acts like Polanski is out of order?

   Why on earth are the *British* Broadcasting Corporation, *helping* Reform to try and brush this under the rug? Why are the BBC allowing Yusuf to lie in front of the entire country, when there is video evidence to disprove everything that he’s saying? We *know* that Farage and Gill worked closely together.

   But no, a man who worked closely with Farage for years, has been proven to be working for foreign intelligence services. That is espionage, and Farage was right next to him the entire time.

   Polanski had every right to call that out, and continue doing so until we get an honest answer. Anyone British should be demanding the same.

7. Russia have used ‘Green Parties’ in other countries to squeeze the more centalist parties so their ‘far right’ candidates receive proportionally more of the vote. Zack might not even know his rise could be down to Russia manipulating social media algorithms to peel off votes from Labour.

8. Its funny that because labour have had to recently to threaten reform with court proceedings because they had an electioneering campaign claiming that a welsh labour by-election candidate had links to [putin](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx203vp909go)

   Yet Nathin gill really did have russian links

9. [deleted]

10. What was worse was how the Telegraph reporter on the end summarised this as an ad homnium attack from Polanski, when it was in fact Yusef that started this with the attack first.

11. The political side of the BBC is a lost institution that Labour really need to rein in.

    Unfortunately Nandy is probably the least effective MP in all of parliament so nothing’s gonna happen.

12. Fuck you, Fiona Bruce. And fuck Nigal and Zia an’all.

13. Unfortunately Fiona Bruce was right that the audience wanted to talk about other things. The British public doesn’t care about Russian connections, if it is not a boat coming over from Calais they have been conditioned not to care.

    She wasn’t right in cutting it short though.

14. I do find it pretty mental such a senior UKIP/Reform figure just outright admits to such a serious crime, Reform’s leadership immediately respond by acting like they don’t even know a guy they themselves have put in these positions and have been photographed with on numerous occasions … … … And UK media is just like yeah no big deal nothing to see here???? What the fuck is going on??

15. It’s hard to fathom that a few will vote green next election. 

16. I find it hilarious that the Greens accuse others of operating in Russia’s interest, while at the same time having absolutely braindead policies like abolishing our nuclear deterent and leaving NATO which would be the biggest things we could possibly do to act in Russia’s interests.

    Deeply unserious party, for unserious people.

17. One of the unwritten rules of political debate is you do not call your opponents liars. If you persist you will get closed down.

    It made for good TV and Polanski got his point across. Half a go at Reform is better than no go at all.

18. You know, one day we’ll look back and this will all be so obvious. If Fiona or Laura were in the US they’d be fully botoxed up and on Fox News.

19. Why is no one grilling Farage and co on the Welsh reform leader taking £ from Russia. Well, I know why but it’s still frustrating.

20. If you think the BBC is right-wing your politicial compass is very confused. Over a decade of a social progressive party masqurading as ‘Conservatives’ will do that I guess.

21. According to the article, he asked “So were you lying or was Nigel Farage lying?”.

    I can sort of see why he got shut down. If you accuse someone of lying on prime time TV, you need to be able to prove it, otherwise you and the TV channel could be in a lot of trouble.

    And his assertion appears to be that, because some guy is standing behind Farage in one photo from nearly 10 years ago, then Farage must know the guy. Which seems like a slightly dubious argument.

22. Oh, FFS, this is ridiculous. The persecution complexes lefties have regarding Question Time are really something to behold.

    Unlike most of the people in this thread, I actually watched Question Time yesterday, so allow me to fill in some gaps. The question was about Trump and Gaza. Zack Polanski took the opportunity to call Farage a fascist, then went over a list of Farage’s past far-right connections. Zia responded, then accused Zack of believing you could increase breast size with hypnotherapy. Zack responded, then brought up Nathan Gill. Zia responded, and the two of them argued on the topic for about a minute.

    _“He stood behind Nigel Farage in the picture or was he not,” Polanski asked._

    _The Question Time host then interrupted._

    _“Hang on a minute. Can I just say, people in the audience,” she said, indicating that audience members were waiting to ask other questions._

    And this part of the article is (intentionally, I suspect) misleading. After Zack said “… or was he not” both he and Zia started talking over each other, after which Bruce finally spoke up and tried to shut them _both_ down. After several seconds of all three of them shouting, her “Hang on a minute” was finally able to be heard. There is no sense in which she interrupted Zack Polanski specifically – she gave him a fucking mile of leeway to spend multiple minutes going off-topic to attack Farage (including over a minute specifically on Nathan Gill) and then shouted down _both_ Zack and Zia, only directing her very final admonishment in Zack’s direction because he kept speaking slightly longer.

    The article strips out all this context to make it sound like Zack spontaneously asked the question and Zia barely responded before Fiona cut in.

23. Ask the hard questions zack. They think they can get away with it

24. The political and “news” sections of the BBC are staunchly right-wing Tory and openly biased.

25. Did he have any proof? Or is it the same type of evidence he had to hypnotise women to make their boobs bigger?

26. The BBC has been an elaborate joke for years now. Anyone who still thinks they’re neutral overall is delusional.

    Also pitiful that Labour have never tried to make an argument like this as forcefully and clearly as Zack did – God knows what they stand for apart from more of the same. Greens are going to have a groundswell of support from here on out.

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