BBC Parliament - Tenth Anniversary

Parliament is in recess, conference season has finished, I presume the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish assembly aren't in session, as is whatever they have from City Hall in London.

It's a Parliamentary channel, not a rolling News one, if it wants to show an old General election when nothing else is available, then I don't have a problem with that, they are rather good to watch for Historical purposes.

Brekkie has spoken

I think news channels can do breaking stuff far better than Parliament ever would...

BBC Parliament's remit isn't to cover breaking news, it is to report on Parliamentary activities primarily in the UK and secondly Abroad. I've had the Election on PC till around 2pm and BBC News on TV. I then reversed them, had CSPAN and MSNBC on from five to seven.

I'm now on the Election and will remain so until it ends.

Err - BBC Parliament is a channel that covers the House of Commons, the House of Lords, Party Conferences etc. - it isn't a Politics News Channel - we've got Sky News, BBC News Channel etc. for that...

I'm so annoyed I was flicking through the channels and came across BBC Parliament showing the 1964 General Election coverage right now. Wow Harold Wilson looks so young, I've never seen him with black hair.

Speaking of the 1964 General Election re-run on BBC Parliament...

I flipped over and saw a segment of Robin Day conducting a live interview over the telephone with Harold Wilson while he (Wilson) was on the train down to London. The viewers could hear Mr Wilson, Robin Day could hear Mr Wilson and the archive recording has both sides of the conversation. Nobody else in the studio could hear Mr Wilson.

Was this ever done again on election coverage, speaking to the next Prime Minister on Election Night in such a fashion?

The other question is, was Robin Day's interview technique always like that, seemingly abrupt, direct and occasionally bordering on being potentially rude? A clip turns up on TV outtakes on occasion of a politician walking out of an interview with Robin Day.

Was this the election where ITN were on that train and through a tape of an interview with Wilson out of the window to be collected by one of their team and broadcast on ITV? Did anybody else hear of this story and have I got it right?

Robin Day NEVER accepted a devious response without making it clear in his own way, which could be construed as being rude, to the viewer that his question wasn't being answered.

The famous John Nott interview was a classic.

The forensic interviewer sums up his style well. Paxman is a pale imitator of the master.

Nice to see them actually promoting BBC Parliament's 10th anniversary on BBC One earlier today just before the Andrew Marr Show.

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