Ok I know we are only 2 weeks in with the new chair of BBC’s Question Time but the continual interventions and quips by Fiona Bruce are becoming a bit annoying and she seems a bit light weight to me.
Can we have a people’s vote on bringing back David Dimbleby !!
My preference for the gig would have been the brilliant Eddie Mair, who will ever live on in the memory for his two demolitions of Boris Johnson. Here’s the famous “You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?” interview on the BBC.
Andrew “Brillo Pad” Neill would have been good too. That said, Bruce is doing a good job and seems to be learning fast. A good choice I think.
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She seems to be a bit opinionated at times in my view too.
Having to listen to the constant Brexit whining probably doesn’t help.
Agree she seems to be more than facilitating as she should be, and what Dimbledy was so good at. Need to give here time to settle in though.
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Agreed about Eddie Mair. What a great loss it was to the BBC. One day I hope he will return.
He’s great on LBC though.
Just notice that Diane Abbott was on the QT panel last night. I was looking for something amusing to watch later and i think i’ve just found it.
A tough act to follow and I think Fiona Bruce seems to be settling in well. I do agree she possibly intervenes a little too strongly/often, but she is finding her feet.
She seems to have a nice style though and let’s see how she develops in the role. Good to see that she won’t be bullied by the bigmouth guests though,
I’m not sure I agree that Fiona is not making it as QT’s chairperson. Her interventions that I have seen have been well informed & to the point. She seems to be better than DB at preventing panellists talking (shouting) over each other. I’ve also noted she has been quite fair on allocating time between the opposing sides of a discussion, particularly the principle experts of the discussion, if not individual speakers. One thing for sure she is not another version of David Dimblebe who I was growing more annoyed in recent times with over his sarcasm & sometimes unnecessary interventions. However I do expect Fiona, her agent/mngt & BBC are putting a lot of work into critiquing, honing & perfecting her performances going into the future.
As for last nights Diane Abbott - amusing? yes, but the scary serious side of her is pathetic, inept, incompetence. And surely even JC, despite their little fling, can see she’s way way past her sell by date.
I haven’t watched QT for a long time but must confess to being tempted to catch one now that Fiona B is chairing 
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It’s got worse and worse over the years, I used to really enjoy it with Robin Day and later David Dimbelby, but all we have now is rather formulaic politicians, and occasional non-politcial ‘characters’.
We used to have extremely charismatic/quirky politicians who were thoroughly enjoyable to watch - their modern counterparts are like watching paint dry.
The ONLY reason I watch it these days is as a prelude to ‘This Week’ which just seems far more grounded and civilised with genuine debate between the lab/con protagonists and a laudable sense of humour (Portillo’s sausage gag last night for example - hilarious).
In fact, I firmly believe Portillo could have been one of our greatest and fairest leaders in recent decades had his personal life not affected leadership aspirations following his 1997 shock defeat. I sense he was privileged but had a grasp of common decency lacking for a long long time in politics.
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Portillo’s big problem was that he was one of the architects of Thatcher’s despised poll tax. It was at the 1988 (I think) Tory Conference that he spoke of the ‘courageous, fair and sensible’ poll tax, adding that the measure ‘will prove a vote-winner which can win the Tories the election’.
Oh dear.
I think he is much better on the telly, riding trains and doing stuff like This Week, than he ever was as an MP or Minister.
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