Tonight Question Time comes from Cambridge; represented in the House of Commons by LibDem Julian Huppert who is Treasurer of the Parliamentary CND group. Cambridge is without a single Conservative on the local council.
On the panel tonight we have Edwina Currie, Chris Huhne MP, Chuka Umunna MP, Kate Hopkins (no, me neither) and Will Self.
The LiveBlog will also cover the surreal This Week, with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo.
Your friendly moderators David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be keeping order here from 10:30pm.
Kate Hopkins:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-458807/So-thats-called-Asset-Stripping-naked-ambition-Apprentice.html
I think it will be a toss up between her and Edwina as to who has the sharpest tongue
This political heavyweight?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Hopkins
Thanks to you both. I took “Kate” from the BBC press release and, having never heard of her, stuck the name into Wikipedia for a hint but without success. It offered George’s “Katie” option as an alternative but I had no idea if it was the right one.
Can someone please tell me how Will Self has earned his place on countless BBC programmes (appearance fees paid by us)?
Hopkins, for whom the word “slapper” seems to have been made, has previous: “On 10 June 2010, Hopkins appeared on the panel of Question Time. Following this, Hopkins appeared on the Young Voters’ version of Question Time on 20 October 2010.” So Hopkins is on someone at the Beeb’s speed dial. One of her serial conquests you have to ask?
Her Wiki-bio suggests that in the realm of reality entertainment values that dominate bBC output, she is better qualified than most of the other participants.
It’s interesting how this show cotinues to provide only one non-Labour politician, as if all they need is a representative from the one of the parties in Government. The only non-Leftoid on the panel is a discredited old has-been who slept with John Major. They do know how to pick them. Typical QT balance, then.
ConservativeHome has a thread on this QT here. My comments are *cough* still in moderation.
For those who don’t want to browse that link but fancy a highlight from the comments there, Dan Hannan MEP has posted on it.
I was asked on Tuesday morning whether I would appear on tonight’s show. I asked how definite the invitation was. The editor replied by asking me whether I supported control orders (I said that I didn’t) and whether I thought Sky had overreacted in the football sexism row (I said that had never liked the convention whereby all British politicians have to pretend to be interested in football; we played rugby at my school.) The programme replied that they were looking for someone whose views would balance the panel better than mine, which is fair enough I suppose, so that was that.
Just looked on there and many are claiming it’s a balanced panel. They are trying to make out that Huhne is now the Conservative spokesman because the Liberals are in coalition with them. You could counter that with, in that case Edwina Currie represents the left as her party is in coalition with the Liberals.
They also claim that Katie Hopkins is right wing – no idea if they’re correct, and they all miss out the blatant left bias from Dimbleby.
It’s the usual mix of one right (sometimes) four left (always) and one unknown. That is: 4-1 and a floater.
Precisely and having seen Hannan’s quote above they would obviously know where the panel sat on the various issues in advance. Having done so they would be quite clear that it wasn’t balanced.
I didn’t know CND still existed, but obviously the BBC does.