Olden days

BBC Radio 4’s Archive on 4 this week looked at the quality of political debate in this country over the last half century, using as its main source the Any Questions programme archive.

The most memorable moments for me were the pieces used to illustrate the kind of thing that panel members used to feel free to say.

Thus we heard Viscount Monckton explain why he would refuse to accept an African as a son-in-law: he was not, of course, a racist – he would happily accept an educated man as a dinner guest in his home, invite him for a drink at his Club, or introduce him to his golf club - but marriage is about culture, & mixing could not be made to work.

We heard a discussion on whether it should become mandatory for an Any Questions panel to include at least two women, and ‘Just because it’s funny’, a selection of answers to a member of the public who wished to know at what age an unmarried woman becomes a spinster.

It is easy to laugh now, perhaps, but diferent when you think that this was the world in which I grew up & these recordings were made just around the time I was leaving home to enter the grown up world.

Link
BBC Radio 4: Debate of Our Times
Any Questions
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