O Fiona, dinna toss your head

Fiona, mid-'apology'

Well, the Corbynista war against Fiona Bruce over Diane Abbott's Question Time ordeal raged on all week, and the online debate (between two tribes who didn't interact much at all, other than to throw abuse at each other) eventually boiled down to this question: Did the BBC bully Ms. Abbott, or was Ms. Bruce in fact bullied by the Corbynistas? 

Anyhow, this week's Newswatch said there have been "thousands of complaints" and that "more are still coming into the BBC" (doubtless most from committed Corbynistas, and some of it coordinated). 

On the lesser question of the opinion polls row, thwarted wannabe Question Time host Samira Ahmed said:

Despite Fiona Bruce's agreement [with Isabel Oakeshott] that Labour is "definitely" behind in the polls, that is not a fully accurate version of events, as the BBC's statement later acknowledged, and as the presenter herself mentioned on this week's programme.

Wow, an on-air BBC apology? You don't get many of those! So what did Fiona Bruce say on Question Time this week, just over half way through:

I'm going to move on in a moment, but before I do I just want to pick up on something from last week's programme. There was some discussion about opinion polls, you may be aware of this. I was talking about a poll that came out on the day of the programme which suggested the Conservatives were ahead, and the Shadow Home Secretary mentioned some other earlier polls, which showed Labour in the lead, and we should have made that context clear, and I'm really happy to do that now. Now, I want to tell you about Question Time next week...

Well, it's not much of an apology, is it? 

Of course, the bigger storm was over the alleged remarks made by Fiona Bruce before the programme before the recording began, and lots of left-wingers are demanding that the BBC release a recording of what went on during that warm-up. Did Fiona Bruce joke about Diane Abbott's sexual relationship with Jeremy Corbyn? Was Diane Abbott singled out for mockery? 

Now, I have to say that I'd love to see such a video (or listen to such a recording) myself, if only to hear what goes on pro-show, but I suspect - like so many Freedom of Information requests to the BBC - that such a recording (if it exists) would never be released "for purposes of journalism, art or literature".