We do have shows like this, and some are a mess like that show was, and some are much better. It really depends on how they're set up. I got the impression that the Question Time people were encouraging the "wild west" atmosphere though. At one point, the sound engineers turned down Michael Moore's microphone while he was still talking, and they turned the microphones up on the audience just so we could hear the audience's shouting and jeering instead of hearing what Michael Moore had to say.

In a show like that, the tone is usually set by the makers of the show. That's why Jerry Springer's shows are the way they are, and why some shows are better than that.

But it's true that there certainly are plenty of people here in the US who behave the way that panel and audience did.

The other thing I would point out is that David Frum is not an "American". He's a Canadian who likes to pose as an "ugly American". (He's one of the most strident of neocons, and a speechwriter for the Bush administration. It was Frum who wrote the "axis of evil" speech.)