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Comment by dghf | Hacker News Reader

I believe that to be precise they check for the Today programme, the Radio 4 current-affairs slot where Cabinet ministers go to get monstered.

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The Today program is a shadow of its former self I think, as is a lot of BBC News today.

There was a long history of the PM listening to it, and it set the agenda for the day. At some point after Thatcher that stopped happening (Blair, maybe? Definitely by Cameron), and it became a lot less important to politicos to appear on it.

But yes, the BBC was always the voice of the Establishment (which is fine) but it's definitely been neutered. You can see it in the documentary output very clearly.

Yes, feels like it's just a grandstanding format for both presenter and interviewees with very little meaningful content.

Laura Keunsburg completely neutered the BBC.

Robbie Gibb is the name you're looking for. He ran BBC Politics on TV for over a decade including before and after the referendum, then went to work for Teresa May in No10.

No, Laura Keunsburg was the name I was looking for, that's why I used it.

You seem to suggest I'm confused about this and I would appreciate if you could explain why.

I think they were agreeing with you in point of "the BBC has been neutered," and also adding to the conversation like "Oh Laura is probably bad, but have you heard of Robbie Gibb?!"

It really didn't read to me like they wanted to completely invalidate your statement.

So we need to make sure that we don't get nuked on a Sunday! [I mean what kind of monster would do that]

Hah, reminds me of the joke in Asterix in Britain, where the Brits would stop fighting at 5 o'clock: https://youtu.be/asBo3JUWwDU?t=468 , to drink hot water (because they hadn't discovered tea yet).

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