Most politicians are desperate to appear on BBC Question Time. Britain’s most watched political show can make or break a career, but most folk in Westminster are vain enough to take the gamble. The exception is Gordon Brown.
As far as anyone can remember, Brown never appeared on the show during his decade as chancellor. Answering questions from ‘real people’ is just not his thing. Read more
Why GDP figures are bad for Gordon
The fact that the UK has seen six successive quarters of negative growth – meaning we are still in recession – is bad news for the prime minister. Not least because he claimed, only last month, that Britain was likely to return to growth by now. The implication was that his Pre-Budget Report would not quite so grim. Unfortunately he was wrong:
September 24, FT: Read more
Further Reading
MPs go home early for Christmas - but will they come back early?
Gordon Brown evades straightforward rugby question Read more
Griffin on Question Time: Why no defence of immigration?
I agree with Kelvin McKenzie’s argument that the appearance of the gruesome Griffin on Question Time was not the BBC’s fault: blame the people who voted for the BNP.
But I have misgivings about the potential impact of the programme (watched by 8m people, about triple the usual). Firstly there is a danger that some viewers will be left with the impression of one man defending his views against the shrill “liberal elite” and a mostly hostile crowd. Read more
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Jim Pickard is the FT's chief political correspondent, having joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the FT since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.
Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.
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