A Question

I was going to complain that that Douglas Murray had been on Any Questions again this week. But at least they didn't mention his imaginary think tank (in fact, he's just too rich to need to work). And I suspect that, following Newsnight's glorious exposure of Policy Exchange, the dear old Beeb (like the Guardian in at least one case) is now just having the neocons on for a laugh while it still can, before they all flee to America or Israel in order to escape imprisonment.

But I do have a question for Any Questions, and also for Question Time: why do they bother touring the country if they are always going to have London-based panellists? This week, Any Questions came from Birmingham. But only one of the panellists did. She was a Respect councillor, and so good that they'll probably never allow her on again. (In particular, only the Tory Right is permitted to express Euroscepticism on the BBC.) And it certainly was not as if the others were so distinguished that some sort of favour was being done to the provincial audience by enabling it to hear them.

At the very least, Any Questions, since it is on a broadcast live on a Friday evening, could feature well-known local MPs who have gone to their constituencies for the weekend. I thought that that was why it moved around. Isn't it?