Any Questions? intro annoys town residents
Monday, 26th November 2012.
BBC Radio Four's perennial favourite, Any Questions? with Jonathan Dimbleby, pulled a good cro0wd at Samuel Ward Academy in Haverhill on Friday night.
But the most controversial moment of the evening locally came a matter of seconds into the 45-minute broadcast.
Mr Dimbleby, having first pronounced the first syllable of the town's name to rhyme with 'have' rather than 'rave', and then given the correct pronunciation as an alternative - "as it is often called" - then went on to annoy residents with a bleak thumbnail sketch of the town in which he metionaed unemployment and social deprivation and described it as having 'more than it's fair share of problems'.
After the programme some members of the audience complained, and BBC researchers the following morning admitted the error and a new introduction was recorded which just talks of 'a share of social problems' for the Saturday repeat.
This now appears on the BBC's iPlayer for both the live and the repeat broadcast.
Some on-line commentators had suggested the introduction had been prepared by Samuel Ward Academy, but its head teacher Howard Lay said he was shocked by the tone of the introduction and raised it with Mr Dimbleby himself.
Those who remember the last visit of Any Questions? to Haverhill Arts Centre several years ago may recall the BBC had supplied a similar introduction then which irritated members of the audience at the time.
The panellists on Friday were the shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change Caroline Flint MP, the Rev Canon Rosie Harper chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham and member of the General Synod, pensions minister Steve Webb MP and Conservative MP Mark Reckless who led the recent Tory rebellion on the Euro budget.
The programme only managed to include four questions in the whole 45 minutes due to lengthy debate - one on the Euro-budget negotiations, one on the Church of England's vote against women bishops, one on the energy bill and one on votes for prisoners.
But the most controversial moment of the evening locally came a matter of seconds into the 45-minute broadcast.
Mr Dimbleby, having first pronounced the first syllable of the town's name to rhyme with 'have' rather than 'rave', and then given the correct pronunciation as an alternative - "as it is often called" - then went on to annoy residents with a bleak thumbnail sketch of the town in which he metionaed unemployment and social deprivation and described it as having 'more than it's fair share of problems'.
After the programme some members of the audience complained, and BBC researchers the following morning admitted the error and a new introduction was recorded which just talks of 'a share of social problems' for the Saturday repeat.
This now appears on the BBC's iPlayer for both the live and the repeat broadcast.
Some on-line commentators had suggested the introduction had been prepared by Samuel Ward Academy, but its head teacher Howard Lay said he was shocked by the tone of the introduction and raised it with Mr Dimbleby himself.
Those who remember the last visit of Any Questions? to Haverhill Arts Centre several years ago may recall the BBC had supplied a similar introduction then which irritated members of the audience at the time.
The panellists on Friday were the shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change Caroline Flint MP, the Rev Canon Rosie Harper chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham and member of the General Synod, pensions minister Steve Webb MP and Conservative MP Mark Reckless who led the recent Tory rebellion on the Euro budget.
The programme only managed to include four questions in the whole 45 minutes due to lengthy debate - one on the Euro-budget negotiations, one on the Church of England's vote against women bishops, one on the energy bill and one on votes for prisoners.
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