[BITList] Have I Got News For You: women hit back against ‘too modest’ claims | Television & radio | The Guardian

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/06/have-i-got-news-for-you-women-hit-back-against-too-modest-claims

Have I Got News For You: women hit back against ‘too modest’ claims
Politicians and comics dispute Ian Hislop’s comments about reasons for lack of female hosts on panel show

Emine SanerLast modified on Fri 6 Apr 2018 12.06 BST
In 2007, Ann Widdecombe, then a Conservative MP, presented the topical BBC1 comedy show Have I Got News For You for the second time. She is still the only female politician to have sat in the host’s chair.

One of the team captains, Paul Merton, said this week that having her host it was his “worst experience” with a politician on the show, and that she had been arrogant. But watch it again and, no matter how you feel about her politics, it’s not Widdecombe who comes across badly. She does a good job against the four often surly and contemptuous male panellists who constantly interrupt and undermine her.

There is mock flirting, and “jokes” about her looks (“ooh, take off your glasses, you’re beautiful,” says the comedian Jimmy Carr) and about her working in a strip club. Merton makes two references to Widdecombe getting the men cups of tea. Carr makes a joke about getting a sexually transmitted disease from her. When he earlier joked about how a look from the MP had made him lose an erection, she wearily said: “I don’t think I shall return to this programme.”

That was more than 10 years ago and no female MP has been the guest presenter since. It’s true that not many male MPs have either, but they have vastly outnumbered women over the years.

When asked by the Radio Times this week about why so few women MPs have hosted, Merton said: “The producers always ask more women than men. More women say no.” Ian Hislop, the longtime Private Eye editor who captains the other team, suggested it may be because “on the whole, women are slightly more reticent and think, maybe modestly, ‘I can’t do that’. Maybe more men in public life say ‘yes, I can do that’.”

You need “quite a robust personality” to go on the show, says the Labour MP and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who has appeared as a panellist twice. She laughs at the idea, however, that female politicians are shy. “If you are a politician, you are not shy. You wouldn’t be in parliament if you were shy. But not everyone wants to go and get involved [with] these guys and their quite boisterous sense of humour,” she says.

“The men on the programme have quite big egos and they’re professional comedians,” Abbott adds. “I was used to going on a show with men with robust egos because I did [BBC politics show] This Week for 12 years with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo; but if you’re not used to it, it’s a tricky programme to do. Partly because of the way they edit it. Even if you tell a good joke, you will find it’s edited out – and it’s edited in such a way to make the men on it look good. I’m not saying it’s deliberate but that’s what happens. Although I did it and I think it’s a good show to go on, I wouldn’t blame any woman who felt she didn’t want to go on there and be talked over by these guys.”

The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who has appeared on the programme once, says female MPs are not too modest. “As female politicians, we function in a very tough working environment, an ego and testosterone-driven environment dominated by men,” she says. “We are used to fighting our corner. But in that studio, in [none] of my work environments – I’ve worked in the NHS, in business, in parliament – has anyone set out to make people laugh by belittling me. That’s what HIGNFY does.”

But male MPs are subject to the same, aren’t they? “I don’t think it’s that women take exception to that because we’re weak, I think we take exception to that because we know that it’s not an appropriate way to behave. Whereas I think men may say ‘that’s just banter’,” Dorries adds. She stands by her claim earlier this week that the show was “vicious”.

 
MP Nadine Dorries said she was belittled when she appeared on Have I Got News For You. Photograph: HIGNFY/YouTube
The comedian Jo Caulfield disagrees. She has been on it several times, including once with a female host and another female panellist. “Nadine Dorries, you should be held to account and you should be prepared for anybody to ask you anything,” she says. “It’s not to do with her being a woman, it’s to do with MPs worried about their image. I don’t think it’s a woman thing, and it’s not a bearpit kind of show. There is plenty of time for everybody to say their piece. I think for comics they’re a lot of work. You have to go in ready and I don’t think it’s fair to say they’re harder for women.”

What’s more daunting, Newsnight or Have I Got News For You? It’s easily the latter, says the Labour MP Angela Eagle, with a laugh. She turned down requests lots of times, she says, “then I thought ‘what the hell?’” Why did she turn it down? “I have sort of an old-fashioned view of politics, that you should try to be serious, but in the end I thought I might as well give it a go and it will be an interesting experience.” Guest politicians expect to be the butt of the joke, she says. “There’s a tension between being taken seriously and also being game for a bit of a laugh.” But she wouldn’t have done it had she been a frontbencher, she adds.

It is a “male kind of show – quite in your face, deeply cynical about big political themes”, she says. “I think women’s humour is different to men’s humour and if you’re the only woman on there, it is a bit three against one.”

In an ongoing study of the gender split of comedy panel shows, compiled by data scientist Stuart Lowe, HIGNFY is one of the worst offenders. Even if you discount the two permanent male captains, 73.6% of guests are male.

“I don’t think the format is offputting to women,” says Lynne Parker, founder of Funny Women, which promotes and supports female comedians. “I think it’s more a case of the establishment production team not taking risks and giving more women an opportunity.

“Why aren’t these bookers out there looking? It’s not good enough just to look at video clips and YouTube. The live comedy circuit is where this new talent is building its base and getting its experience.” Similar shows such as Radio 4’s News Quiz seems to have a better gender balance. “I think radio is more open to women’s voices,” she says. “Perhaps they go out and seek it a bit more. My main criticism is [HIGNFY bookers] don’t go out and look at what’s happening on the circuit.”

Hislop claimed that “everyone you think should have been asked has been”. However, the Conservative MP Anna Soubry tweeted that she offered to host the show and had been turned down, so perhaps Hislop’s claim doesn’t stand up.

Female comics also said on Twitter they had never been offered a place on the panel. Gina Yashere has never been asked, despite a high profile, sold-out gigs and appearances on other shows such as Mock The Week. Now working mostly in the US, she is a regular on The Daily Show and has a Netflix special. “I don’t know why and I’ve never really questioned it, I just get on with what I’m doing, but I put it down to the same tokenism that pervades the entire industry,” she says. “You watch panel shows and it’s always one woman or one black comic and if you have a black comic and a woman rolled up in one, that’s ‘great’.

“That’s partly why I left and started doing comedy in the States, because in America they go out and look for comedy. They don’t rotate the same 30 comics, which is what these shows in the UK tend to do.”

 
Comedian Gina Yashere said she had never been invited to appear on Have I Got News For You. Photograph: Weston Wells for the Guardian
She adds that as the lone woman – and especially the lone black woman – on a panel “you’re always aware that however well you do or don’t do, you’re representing female comics, whereas men don’t have that pressure. A guy goes on the show and he doesn’t do well, they go ‘he wasn’t great’ or ‘he was having an off night’. A woman goes on the show and doesn’t do particularly well, then it’s ‘women comedians are horrible’ or ‘black comedians don’t work in this environment’. There is an added pressure.”

Having more women on in general may encourage more female MPs to say yes to an invitation. “It’s like a lot of these panel shows,” says Abbott. “If they had balance between men and women it would be a completely different experience, and maybe a more illuminating experience for the viewer. It’s a boys’ show and Ian Hislop should consider what makes it a boys’ show before saying women are too shy.”

Ultimately, though, female politicians will always be judged more harshly than men. The show virtually made Boris Johnson, whose onscreen buffoonery raised his profile. “I think women politicians are judged very differently and that’s what we always have to think about before going on light entertainment shows,” adds Abbott. “Boris can make any number of mistakes and be a complete buffoon but he’s still taken seriously as a politician. Most women wouldn’t be.”

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