New Alternative News Channel "GB News" chaired by Andrew Neil launching - read OP before posting

I've seen a lot of stupid posts in my time. So many, many stupid posts. This one isn't the dumbest take but it's not far off. The post where it was suggested that settled people might be dumping rubbish in halting sites gets the top spot but your post is close.

That's not a great omen for the tv station.

Those views on youtube aren't bad for a hobbyist channel. For a 60m TV station though... well now I can see why they point to number of tweets and youtube views. Should we tell them that a lot of those views on social media are from less gammony folk with no intention of watching the station? I myself have clicked on a bunch to read the trolling comments.

So, what did you learn tonight from Farage?

What about those of us who just want to be informed? I get that a lot of people like a talking head like James O Brien or Farage or Joe Rogan and so on but that sort of thing is for more for the chronically uninformed. I don't see how I would learn anything from a Farage video that I haven't already learned from an Al Murray skit.

So what did you learn tonight or are you just as informed about the world after watching Farage as you were before? Or are you now even less informed?

You're a braver man than I. Years ago in my student days, I would probably have watched it on the couch, stoned out of my mind, thinking that these people are talking a form of "sense" that we didn't get from the mainstream media but I'm a middle-aged man now with less free time and I have professional and personal obligations to know things when I'm not writing shíte on boards. I get that there's a cohort of people who don't really need to know how the world works and that there's an economic argument to be made that we, as a whole, benefit from having a section of the population be kept ignorant while the rest of us get on with things but these days, I think we're at risk dumbing down too many people and we could end up like the US or the UK where that stupidity is leading to very tangible, real life effects like thousands of unnecessary deaths. To some extent, we're lucky on this side of the Irish sea that this sort of thing doesn't show any signs of taking hold but it's always a concern.

On Andrew Neil, I've mentioned before in this thread that I used to watch his show with Michael Portillo and Dianne Abbot (i think that's her name anyway). It was insightful and it kept me up to date with UK politics. I learned quite a bit from it and that was all down to the expertise and experience from Neil himself and to a lesser extent, the pair on the couch. It cut through the spin and politicking effectively and it wouldn't have worked without someone like Neil.

I think that what happened with him is that he saw the state of the US and the opportunities there to make a lot of money from enough stupid people. It was a gamble and after Brexit, I can't blame him for thinking that the number of gullible people in the UK would be enough to sustain a TV station where they just get outraged by the antics of internet woke people and straight bananas. It was a gamble, and a brave one at that, but he obviously overestimated the number of people in the UK who would be satisfied to tune in to the same old outrage every day. The UK is a different market compared to the US where, let's face it, they have the broadcasting and cultural infrastructure ready to have the marks meet the needs of the conmen. For all its faults, the UK is in better shape than that and a FOX News without any news just isn't going to cut it. It'll attract the very bottom of the intellectual barrel in the same way that Baby Shark attracts toddlers with it's repetitive, yet catchy, shtick but that's simply not enough. They'll need to hire some heavyweights if they want to turn it around but that brings me to my next point.

I agree with your guess that Andrew Neil's distancing himself from this whole shítshow and you can't really blame him. He knows what it's like to be taken seriously and I don't think he wants to be seen as a clown like the rest of the presenters have been made to look. Farage is comfortable acting the clown so I could see him stick around but his appeal is very over-stated. I'm not sure what Neil will do next but I don't think we've seen the last of him.

On saturday morning host Tonia Buxton and MP Esther McVey were drinking wine (British of course) discussing the hot topics.

They had decided that they should reduce covid tests as the plastic was bad for the enviorment.A cynic might think they want less testing to keep their numbers lower.

Andrew Neil tweeted a Spectator piece earlier this year claming Farage was now a pantomine act& had desrtoyed his own legacy in regards to cameo videos

Fact: 50% of the UK are below average intelligence...

*Slugs pint* "That should get the puritans screaming..."

Yes, the woke left ARE known for their hatred of pints, Nigel.