ALLY ROSS
America decides… and TV’s leftie luvvies like the BBC, GMB and Sky News have a right tan-Trump
Tom Bradby referred to Trump as a 'fascist' on ITV
ALL my thoughts, at this difficult time, obviously, are with The BBC, Good Morning Britain, Sky News, Alastair Campbell, Carol Vorderman and Channel 4’s America Decides team who went AWOL at almost exactly the same time Trump sealed his victory on Wednesday morning.
A health and safety issue, I’d imagine.
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“Bats**t” crazy host Emily Maitlis was swearing pretty freely, even before this point, and would probably have planted a stiletto in the nearest Republican’s head if she’d stayed on air past 6.15.
It was an astonishing vanishing act, though, no?
All night, they’d been calling it “one of the most consequential elections in American history,” yet suddenly it was less important than a Countdown repeat?
It was almost like Channel 4 had gone into a massive Guardian-reading huff, which was certainly what was being taken on Good Morning Britain, where the reaction to Trump’s win veered erratically between the shouty indignation of Susanna Reid — “HE’S A CONVICTED CRIMINAL” — and the denial of starstruck work experience lad Noel Phillips, who was stood in front of rows of empty chairs at Kamala Harris’ “victory party” telling us: “The mood, despite there being nobody here, is one of hope.”
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As thick as GMB clearly believes its own viewers to be, they’re not.
They have eyes in their head and understand Noel’s blind optimism and the hosts’ unsuppressed fury are signs of a show that seems to care more about the presenters’ opinions and even Lady Gaga’s endorsement than it does its own audience’s views.
A failing that hardly marks out GMB as uniquely flawed, biased and hopelessly wrong about almost every significant election.
For centre-left shock was in evidence everywhere, Wednesday morning, from the ashen-faced expressions of the BBC team, at 5am, to the moment Tom Bradby claimed "the people closest to Trump call him a fascist”, in the early hours, and fellow ITN newsreader Charlene White then told the Loose Women audience: “Trump’s won the vote and we all just have to live with it.”
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You knew it was going to be like this, of course, from the moment Trump dodged a bullet in July and British television reacted with shock, not so much at the violence itself but with the dawning realisation their bogeyman could now win the Presidency, unless they threw all the woke indignation at their disposal in his direction.
You saw for yourselves, by their genuinely dismayed reactions, just how comically they all over-estimated their own importance.
'Jesus Christ, I'm so p****d off Lefty media pundits spiral into meltdown as Trump romps to victory
That’s why I’d love Wednesday to be a day of reckoning when every major network finally acknowledges their institutional political prejudices and does something about them.
It seems like a forlorn hope, though, because for that to happen some of the most deranged egomaniacs in the country, like Emily and Alastair, would not only have to address their own spectacular irrelevance, they’d also have to deal with the fact that no matter how despicable they imagine Donald Trump to be, the public hates their self-righteous, narrow-minded and dismissive brand of right-on politics far more.
It’s a shame that’s not going to happen as this moral left-of-centre certainty is destroying television’s creativity, nowhere more so than in the world of comedy, which has just become another propaganda wing of the news media, as was demonstrated perfectly on Friday night, when two satirical shows poured a bucketful of hate over Trump.
Before they did that, though, they both had a chance to rip apart Labour’s Budget but bottled it completely.
First up was Ian Hislop, who now confuses the title of his own show for Have I Got A Stout Defence Of The Government For You, followed by The Last Leg’s Adam Hills, who offered this feeble surrender to Rachel Reeves: “What does all this mean? I don’t know.
"I can’t tell if it’s a good or bad Budget, but I will say this. If we gave the Conservatives 14 years we can at least give Labour 14 weeks.”
The crushing irony here, obviously, is that both shows would’ve been finished without a Trump victory.
With him back in charge they’ll now spend another four furious years denouncing away, without ever making us laugh deliberately but occasionally making the most perfectly pompous fools out of guests like Alan Partridge writer Armando Iannucci, whose desperation for The Last Leg’s echo chamber approval, on Friday, is worth repeating.
“My gut feeling is — and it’s not scientific — Kamala Harris will win on Wednesday . . . And Trump will stop her on Thursday.”
’Cos that’s funny.
UNEXPECTED MORONS IN THE BAGGING AREA
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “What four-letter name is given to an inflatable mattress?”
Ethan: “A futon.”
Bradley Walsh: “What animals are most associated with the Calgary stampede in Canada?”
Gary: “Beavers.”
Bradley Walsh: “The name of what common farm bird is also the slang for a cowardly person?”
Cillian: “Pass.”
And Bradley Walsh: “Which 19th century British Prime Minister had the nickname Dizzy?”
Candice: “Margaret Thatcher.”
RANDOM IRRITATIONS
CHANNEL 4 offering “support information for the issues raised” in Generation Z (the zombie apocalypse?).
Judi Love talking down to absolutely everybody on her Culinary Cruise.
Big Brother’s Khaled describing himself as “a voice for Palestine” while dressed as Dracula in the Vampires And Villagers task.
And ITV effortlessly winning 2024’s Monkey Tennis award, without me having seen a single frame of “Gary Barlow’s Wine Tour: South Africa” or the network even having the decency to subtitle it Malbec For Good.
I’M VORD STIFF BY ROMESH
WELL that was frustratingly close.
For a moment there I thought British TV was actually going to go an entire month without a new Romesh Ranganathan show.
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ITV’s just dashed those hopes, though, with another steaming pile of chod called Parents’ Evening, which features host Romesh and three other people who are also on TV far too often, Alison Hammond, Iain Stirling and Carol Vorderman, plus either a child or parent who, in every single case, is the far more likeable half of their quiz show pairing.
There’s a pretty familiar format as well, which seems to be loosely based on another ITV howler called Big Star’s Little Star.
But, I’ll be honest with you, for my own peace of mind, I zoned out of Parents’ Evening from the exact moment, 93 seconds into proceedings, when Carol Vorderman announced she wanted to be “the first person to have sex in space”.
A cease and desist order probably followed, pretty sharpish, from Nasa, while I’d imagine the Russian space agency has almost certainly told her they’d like to try it with a monkey up there first.
I get the distinct impression, however, the mad old walloper will not be denied. She’s going to give it her all, in the name of science, loneliness and the fight to disprove at least one famous theory.
In space, absolutely everyone can hear one poor bloke scream.
AND the 2024 Alan Whicker Award for excellence in travel reporting goes to . . . Big Brother’s Emma: “When I went to Rome last year, we did the Vatican tour.
“Boring as f***. Not another fookin’ ceiling, not another fookin’ tapestry.
"They all wanted a good beating as well. They were just fookin’ dust collectors.”
Yeah, Sistine Chapel? Pisstine Chapel, more like.
SUBLIME moment of revelation during BBC2’s wonderful series Scotland: The New Wild, on Sunday, where the black grouse were lekking and their distinctive mating call echoed out across the beautiful southern Highlands, above my beloved childhood playground of Crieff, as the awestruck narrator Thoren Ferguson whispered: “On a clear day, these cocks can be heard 4km away.”
And I realised for certain, that’s exactly why I’ve never watched RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
THE Last Leg, Adam Hills: “We want to issue an apology, as you can see from this unfortunate photo, last week’s Radio Times advertised our guests as Phil Wang, Graham Coxon and Miriam Gargoyles.”
“Unfortunate,” how?
THE Chris Kaba Shooting, on BBC1, was a dangerously stupid piece of journalism fatally undermined by Panorama’s reflex anti-police bias and mind-blowing gullibility.
A lethal combination which meant that when his parents claimed they “didn’t know anything” about this monstrous thug’s criminal activity, the immediate response should’ve been: “What?
"Not even when he got four years for possession of an imitation firearm? Where did you think he’d gone?”
But it wasn’t. Go figure.
TV GOLD
THE one saving grace about ITV, right now? It’s really got the hang of serial killer dramas.
Hindley and Brady, The Yorkshire Ripper, Dennis Nilsen, the Bullseye psychopath and now another noose-dodger called John Sweeney, whose crimes were brought chillingly to life, on Until I Kill You, by the brilliance of Shaun Evans and Anna Maxwell Martin, who played survivor Delia Balmer with a strange, hybrid accent that put in more air miles than Lulu’s.
From Glasgow to Toronto, it travelled and then back again, via Bristol.
Slightly off-putting it was too, until I watched last night’s accompanying documentary, Until I Kill You: The Real Story, where I discovered, minus the Bristol detour, that’s how Delia Balmer actually talks.
Outstanding.
LOOKALIKE
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THIS week’s winner is SAS: Who Dares Wins’ legend Foxy and the BFG from a well-known supermarket’s new Christmas advert.
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Sent in by Peter Allan, Aberdour, Fife.
CLARIFICATION re: The Last Leg’s Keir Starmer lookalike/heating engineer who “once went to Downing Street to fix John Major’s boiler”. Her name’s Edwina. Have some respect.
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