[Jameison]

"BBC news has to be the most dispiriting experience one can have watching television"

It really is.
Suits the British though.
They are a pretty dispiriting, pessimistic folk.
That's why the keep paying a TV tax that goes to pay the super high salaries of the rabid loony left crazies that hold sway at the BBC.

[driftless]

"pretty dispiriting depressing"

Er, not necessarily. My English in-laws are fairly good-natured and optimistic. They do tend to be on the lib side of the political spectrum though. Two in-laws broached the subject of global warming to me without my prompting it. In separate individual instances they started yammering away about the "weird" weather. They apparently believe everything they've read or heard about it from the Beeb and other sources.