For those people who don’t know, BBC Question Time is a long running political debate series that is shown in the UK. It is recorded at different venues around the country and members of the public are invited into the audience to pose questions and comment on the answers given by the panel. The panel is usually made up of three members of the main political parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats), a journalist or other member of the press and another person, sometimes a celebrity, sometimes a business leader, sometimes a member of one of the smaller political parties or a lobby group.
I was successful this week in getting a ticket to be part of the audience. You can see this weeks episode on the BBC iPlayer until 23.34 (BST) on Friday 18 June 2010. It was a fantastic experience and, although I didn’t get to say anything to the panel (not for the want of trying!), it was an excellent experience that I would highly recommend to anyone who’s interested in political discourse.
So, how do you get picked? Well, firstly I signed up on the Question Time website to register my interest. There are a number of questions on the form that need to be completed so that the producers can make sure that they have a good spread of the population. The day before the show was going to be aired I received a phone call from one of the show’s producers who told me I was succesful and that she would send me an email with the details. She also asked me to email a question in to the producers that evening and then think of a second question to pose that I would write down when I arrived.
The email came and I replied with my first question – as you may have guessed from my recent blog posts – it was about voter apathy. The question needed to be less than 30 words and preferably around 20. The question I emailed was “Voter apathy is at an all time low, in my house of four eligible voters only one voted. What is the Government doing to help turn the tide?” Basically, I panicked! I should have asked what the PANEL thought we should do.
The email also reiterated that the panel was going to be the former Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer, Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesman Ed Davey MP, Journalist Esther Rantzen and Guardian Columnist Polly Toynbee.
The next day I headed off to the Nissan Factory in Sunderland (well, Washington to be precise) and queued up to get in. While we were stood in the queue being blown around by the wind in drove Esther Rantzen who walked straight in! Of course that was a bit miffing as she had a bloody stylist to stop her from looking like a mare! Anyway, we got in and were searched to make sure that no-one had any funny shaped vegetables for Esther (for those people who don’t know – Esther Rantzen presented That’s Life! for what seemed like a lifetime). We then walked into the waiting area where there were some tables and chairs dotted about and we were given the card for our second question.
I can’t remember how I worded my second question but it was something like “Considering the recent attacks on Romanian refugees in Northern Ireland and the BNP’s recent success in the European Elections does the Panel think Britain is becoming more bigotted?”
It wasn’t long before David Dimbleby came out to have a chat with the audience. He told us what was going to happen, the way that the show would be filmed and what we could expect and also gave a couple of anecdotes about previous shows. I’ve always held him in high regard from his performance on the show but this 5-10 minutes that he spent talking to everyone helped me realise that he’s also quite a nice, genuine and funny guy!
We then were given about 15 minutes for ablutions and to have a chat with each other before we went into the studio. We were able to sit wherever we liked and then 5 members of the audience were asked to be “temporary panelists” so that we could go through a quick ‘dry run’ and get a feel for the show. During the dry run the six questions that were going to be asked were selected and the people who had been chosen were taken away.
The way that the questions are selected are that they are put into piles and the a question is taken from each of the biggest piles. This of course means that the direction of the show comes from the audience and it’s the subjects that the audience want to discuss that are posed.
The Panel then came out and we had a practice run with the panel before filming began. The practice question was about climate change and the increase in temperature in the North East, which surely can only be a good thing!?! The light-hearted question was an excellent ice-breaker and led quite easily into the show proper…
Oh, and for those of you who didn’t see me, here’s my hand (which was up for about 20 friggin’ minutes!):
And here’s me:
Very early on Monday morning I wrote 
It’s difficult to know what to say. As I type this I know that the 
