Douglas Carswell's Blog

10 O'Clock Live - was it funny?

What did you make of 10 O’clock Live on Channel 4 last night? 

I'd hoped that it might be a British version of David Letterman, or some of those other very funny US politics talk shows. 

Asked to appear on it, I declined, suspecting that it might simply tilt towards a tedious, leftist, Guardianista agenda. 

And, sure enough, last night's show tilted towards a tedious, leftist, Guardianista agenda. 

Lots of jokes that bashed oil companies, big banks, Sarah Palin, the US tea party movement, and the idea that a smug, self-regarding elite in London might not be the only thing folk want to watch on TV. 

In other words, it was all firmly within the Guardianista comfort zone.  Yawn. 

Satire? The show's take on events in Tunisia, the first democratic revolt in the Arab world, was used as a chance to reinforce leftist dogma about Arab-Western relations.  If comedy is supposed to challenge, might it not instead have asked if all those US neo-cons, with their democratise-the-middle-east agenda, might not have been right all along?

Worst of all, the show lacked wit.

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