Heresy is a comedy talk show on BBC Radio 4, created and originally hosted by David Baddiel, now hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell. In the show, the presenter and a panel of guests commit "heresy" by challenging people's most deeply received opinions on a subject, in front of a studio audience.
For example, received wisdom in 2004 was that New Labour is all about spin, so the panel tried to argue that New Labour was not all about spin, and the guests had to try to make the audience change their minds. Other assumptions challenged have included, "We should never negotiate with terrorists", "Television is dumbing down" and "We are on the brink of an environmental catastrophe".
The pilot and first series had four guests on each episode, but this has since been reduced to three. In the fifth series, Coren Mitchell replaced Baddiel as host.
In one episode Jo Brand made a joke about milkshakes being thrown over politicians and suggested that battery acid might be used instead. This was heavily criticised in the media and Ofcom looked into the case but did not pursue an investigation.[1][2]
"The Atkins diet is bad for your health", "Rugby players are saints, football players are sinners", "David Blaine's 44 days of starvation was a magician's trick", "The royal family is being destroyed by scandal", "Gigli was a turkey"
"Women are better than men at expressing their emotions", "The Labour party's seven years in power has been built on spin", "We are too obsessed with celebrity"
"Public figures should be allowed to have a private life", "There is something intrinsically naff about being middle class", "The Libertines are at the cutting edge of popular music"
"People should be encouraged to believe that they can achieve their dreams", "An organic turkey is a happy turkey", "Christmas has become too commercialized"
"The Beatles are the best band in pop music ever", "Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' relationship is a publicity fiction", "The honours system is outdated and irrelevant"
"Britain will never produce a great tennis player until the middle classes let other people play", "Starbucks is a bad thing", "It's OK to legalize cannabis as it is a soft drug"
"The Olympic Games would be great for Britain (Revisited)", "Voter apathy is a bad thing", "The Da Vinci Code is a rubbish book", "The sandwich is the best convenience food there is"
"Heather Mills just married Paul McCartney for his money", "James Blunt is a middle class ponce whose music is just for big girls", "Hollywood films are just box office tat"
"We would have resisted the German occupation more bravely than the French", "Prog rock was overblown pretentious nonsense", "Gingers are the last bastion of politically incorrect humour"
"Football used to be a game played by real men, now it's all just about money", "Women don't understand the offside rule or anything about football, really", "England can't win this World Cup without Wayne Rooney"
"Men who deal with midlife crisis by buying a flash car and going out with much younger women are pathetic", "Classical music and opera is elitist", "Political correctness has gone mad"
"Germans have no sense of humour", "Men who are big fans of musicals are generally gay", "Sleeping with someone famous should not make you a celebrity"
"Militant feminism is a thing of the past", "There is such a thing as the British establishment and it is in control", "The England manager is an impossible job"
"The queen is marvellous, but the other Royals are a waste of space", "We spend too much time on social networking sites at the expense of real friendship", "Barbara was the sexy one in The Good Life"
"If you want to get dates you should join an evening class", "To succeed in politics you must be media-savvy", "The Scots are tougher than the English"
"Daniel Day-Lewis is a better actor than Christopher Biggins", "There is nothing more beautiful than the innocence of a child", "The free nations of the world should use the 2008 Olympics to show their disapproval of China"
"If the Church of England wants to survive, it needs to get off the mat and start fighting", "The Rolling Stones are too old to keep touring", "We are safe because we have gun control"
"Radio 4 is too geared towards middle aged, middle class Middle England", "Rising sea levels will prove disastrous for mankind", "Short men look silly with tall wives"
"The bankers are to blame for getting us into this mess", "People who go to psychics are gullible", "British cuisine is better now than it was in the nineteen seventies"
"We should save Britain's art treasures from being sold abroad", "The smoking ban has worked out rather well", "A shell suit is inappropriate attire for a court appearance"
"One Third World Baby should be enough for any celebrity", "There are too many students around these days", "It's better to regret something you've done than something you haven't"
"It's unpatriotic of Lewis Hamilton to live as a tax exile in Monte Carlo", "It's annoying how ill-equipped we are to deal with snowfall", "You can't trust what you read online"
"The Large Hadron Collider is a massive waste of money", "Women look better in men's clothes than men do in women's", "An artist who doesn't make his own work is a fraud"
"Cameron and Osborne are too posh by half", "If it doesn't involve running about, it's not a sport", "We might as well just stop listening to the weather forecast"
"Panto is an outdated art form", "Drunken displays on British high streets are a matter of national shame", "It would be nice to live in a house like Downton Abbey"
"The economy is up the creek without a paddle", "The innocence of children is snatched away too fast these days", "Britain is better off without the News of the World"
"The Labour Party chose the wrong Miliband", "You should not go to church just to get your kids in the local faith school", "If a friend is doing something for charity you should sponsor them"
45. 8-4
21-12-2011
Rufus Hound, Phil Hammond, Germaine Greer
"You should not self-diagnose using the Internet", "The Sixties were a great time to be young", "The best Christmas presents are the ones you make yourself"
"I don't want celebrities telling me how to vote", "It's good news that sales of chick lit have slumped", "Princess Beatrice wore a terrible hat at the Royal Wedding"
"The world would be a better place if it were run by women", "It's more fun to be a pop star than a classical violinist", "Internet dating has lost its stygma"
