Events | 2009.12.11
Wootton Bassett hosts BBC's Question Time
Focus is inevitably on the war in the town so strongly linked with the conflict in Afghanistan
The conflict in Afghanistan dominated BBC TV\'s Question Time from Wootton Bassett tonight amid fears that politics could begin to encroach on the town\'s honouring of fallen service personnel.
Residents and civic leaders have worked to keep debate about the rights and wrongs of the war away from the Wiltshire town, the focus of the country\'s grief when bodies of service personnel are repatriated.
But inevitably the arrival of the BBC\'s high-profile current affairs show and a panel full of figures with strong military connections, made that impossible.
The first question pulled together two of the big current issues – bankers\' pay and the war with a member of the audience asking if City bonuses should be given instead to troops in Afghanistan.
Panellist Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, said he would like to take bankers to Afghanistan and "show them a real day\'s work".
Displaying an image of her soldier son killed while serving, another member of the audience said she thought service personnel were paid too poorly. The wife of a Royal Navy sailor said he would soon be deployed and would spend six months away from his family.
Before the broadcast the town\'s mayor, Steve Bucknell, had urged the show\'s makers not to focus simply on the war. "I think it is wrong to use what happens here for political ends," he said.
Bucknell had called on the programme\'s editors to make sure a range of topics, not just Afghanistan, were tackled and suggested that the state of the economy ought to be a major subject.
But the programme, which was beamed to troops via the British Forces Broadcasting Service, never strayed far from the war. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army and now an adviser to David Cameron, repeated his claim that Gordon Brown had not understood the conflict and the role of British troops in it until recently. Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and an ex-Royal Marine, said there was a lack of strategy in Afghanistan and a lack of unity among the allies.
Bill Rammell, the armed forces minister, rejected an attack on politicians as "amateurs" when it came to military strategy.
The BBC said a huge number of people had expressed interest in attending the event. Before the broadcast a spokesman said that, as ever, the audience would set the agenda, but acknowledged it was inevitable the war would be at the centre of the programme. The discomfort of the town is likely to continue today – BBC Radio 1 will present an outside broadcast from Wootton Bassett.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec[...]n-time-worries-wootton-bassett
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