Feedback: Slut walks and the Moral Maze
Post categories: Feedback,ÌýMoral Maze
13:47, Friday, 27 May 2011
I have chaired a couple of editions of the Moral Maze on Radio 4 and it was terrifying - and not just because it was live and not recorded.
Imagine trying to control all those formidable and passionate intellects on the panel; especially when they spend most of the programme with their back to you, facing the witness they are interrogating. (The Maze table is a rectangular one. The panellists sit two aside and the witnesses are at the opposite end to the (quaking) presenter.)
Editor's note (PM): Although this was taken many moons ago it gives you an idea of the set up that Roger refers to. Caption info: "The Moral Maze : 1994 01/01/1994 © Ö÷²¥´óÐã Picture shows - (clockwise from front) Michael Buerk, Edward Pearce, Janet Daley, David Starkey and Rabbi Hugo Gryn in "The Moral Maze" (TX: 15, January 1994)."
Michael Buerk seems to have a natural authority which imposes itself on the most recalcitrant panel member. I was reduced to tugging at their elbows and on one occasion told Dr David Starkey not to be rude. I shall never forget the slow motion swivel as he turned towards me, indignation puffing out his cheeks and chest. He'd been described as 'the rudest man on radio' and wore the badge with pride, as had done many moons ago.
Dr Starkey is no longer a panellist but Melanie Phillips does moral indignation as well as anyone.
But did she go too far last week when the subject was '' and the witness she was interrogating was Elizabeth Head from the London Slut Walk?
Here is an example of their exchanges along with views from some Feedback listeners. The stand in chairman is David Aaronovitch.
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Many listeners were in no doubt that Ms Phillips had overstepped the mark. Actually I am being too polite.
One listener accused her of being 'absolutely obnoxious, sneering, personally insulting and patronising in the extreme', and that was just for starters.
The executive producer of the Moral Maze is Christine Morgan who is also Head of Radio Programmes at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Religion and Ethics Department. I asked her if she thought Melanie Phillips had gone over the top?
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Also in this edition of Feedback I talked to the Controller of English Regions, responsible for local radio stations and having to repel cost cutting boarders as the Ö÷²¥´óÐã works out how it can adjust its spending to the reduced licence fee.
Next week I will be in Carlisle, visiting Radio Cumbria to see whether it truly serves its community and where savings might be made. They are hosting a phone in with their editor Nigel Dyson and myself and will be taking calls from their listeners but I'd like to hear from you as well if you have a view on local radio. If you'd like the chance to take part in that phone-in you can ring 0845 3051122 any time between 9 and 10am on Tuesday 31st May, you'll be charged at the local rate from a BT landline but calls from mobiles will vary between operators. We'll be broadcasting the best bits in next week's Feedback.
Or email me at the usual address, Feedback@bbc.co.uk, and tell me what you think of local radio or any other Ö÷²¥´óÐã radio station.
Feedback also wants to hear from Britain's young radio critics. Do you listen to the radio? Do you have opinion about it? We want to know what you think! If you are aged 13 or under then send us no more than 250 words saying what you love (or hate) about any Ö÷²¥´óÐã radio programme. You can write to
Feedback,
PO Box 67234,
London SE1P 4AX
or email feedback@bbc.co.uk. Please include contact details for your parent or guardian. The deadline Monday 6th June.
Roger Bolton is the presenter of Feedback
- Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
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Comment number 1.
At 27th May 2011, Joe Fonebone wrote:The comments made by Ms Phillips did not forward the case she was making one iota (possibly having the opposite effect) as they were rude and uncalled for.
Christine Morgan talks of 'context' and infers that one of her measures for assessing rudeness is whether the perpetrator is angry. In my view there is no 'context' that would excuse outright rudeness and to suggest that overly beligerent comments need to accompanied by a degree of anger to fulfill some imagined criteria of rudeness is nonsense.
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Comment number 2.
At 27th May 2011, Russ wrote:Melanie Phillips did cross the line, and Christine Morgan should have admitted it.
Russ
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Comment number 3.
At 27th May 2011, Picnicmomma wrote:I thought Melanie Phillips was brilliant. Long may it continue.
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Comment number 4.
At 27th May 2011, newlach wrote:Phillips' interlocutor was unperturbed by the questioning. As I listened to the exchange I imagined the guest saying to herself: "Melanie, just calm down and ask me a relevant question?" This incident showed how a Moral Maze panellist can look foolish when a guest stands firm in the face of inappropriate questioning.
In the most recent edition of the Moral Maze Ms Phillips asked a guest something like: " I don't know, do you have a son?" The guest answered that her child was transgender; I was left wondering if this really was a revelation to Ms Phillips.
Guests who appear on the Moral Maze know what to expect. Only a small number of questions are inappropriate and the quality of guests is such that they know how to answer irrelevant and unnecessarily intrusive questions.
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Comment number 5.
At 29th May 2011, teresa meyer wrote:Melanie Phillips is incredibly rude [anyone ever read her blog in The Spectator]. I do think she's on the programme partly because of this - just as Starkey was. I'd love to be a fly on the wall if those two ever got to debate gay marriage, say.
The rudeness of both of these characters seems to stem from their impatience with people holding views other than theirs - they really do seem to think they're stupid, as if only a stupid person would disagree with them.
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Comment number 6.
At 30th May 2011, claire9037 wrote:Melanie Phillips' views were so ignorant and so shocking. How can anyone believe that the way you dress could in any way make you culpable if you are sexually assaulted? Her arguments were ridiculous, for one thing dressing sexily does not automatically mean that you are promiscuous. At least her bullying completed undermined all her points.
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Comment number 7.
At 30th May 2011, mark poole wrote:I was delivering pizzas whilst listening to the programme and thought about the signs clothing signifies or at least represent's, and sexy clothing has it signifier's we with our interpretation feel are connotations; sexy clothing is with or with-out Porn going to provoke the same instance in man, I know, I'am one! In my opinion the argument is one broadly based around sign, the attempt to recondition thousands of year of selective breeding by marking a day in natural human history by wearing sexy clothing because they feel it yet don't want it, is profoundly hypocritical of how we came to be here and probably would inspire a notion to rape in some individuals. Please reconsider the protest...
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Comment number 8.
At 30th May 2011, Su Thompson wrote:Without question Ms. Phillips overstepped the line - she wasn't listening to the other person's opinions and was clearly trying to drive through her own ideas. This is not a situation (as far as I understand it) where you are be trying to hold a politician or other elected official to account, you are attempting to understand and illuminate another person's viewpoint in order to move the argument forward. It was horrible to listen to.
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