Is Question Time Biased?

Every week on BBC's political panel discussion show Question Time we seem to have one, or more, utterly rabid right wing fiends. The spawn of Melanie Philips, as well as Shelob herself, stalk menacingly into the studio cackling as they go. At least that's how it feels to me.

It turns out that the right think it's infested with Communists, a claim so unutterably off the wall as to literally make my head spin round. No, hold on, not literally.

James Dellingpole rails against "the appointment of Vladimir Stalin – or “Nicolai Gentchev” to give him his current SPECTRE agent name – as Question Time’s new editor", an appointment caused by its imminent move.

Now I've met Nicolai Gentchev who is, or was, a Trotskyist and a very nice bloke. He also came across as someone who is professional, and more than capable of objective distance. I miss hearing his name as an editor of the Today Programme but I'd not noticed references to deflected permanent revolution in any of John Humphrey's pieces during his time there. More's the pity.

Personally I think if Gentchev's appointment means less Melanie Philips' and more David Mitchells I think the audience would heartily approve, but it may well not signal a noticable change of direction.

As the exception that proves the rule this week saw Green MSP Patrick Harvie's first ever appearance on BBC QT despite the Scottish Greens having been represented at Holyrood from its inception in 1999. This prompted twitter to cry "Who's this bald bloke? He's rather good."

Even Working Class Tory paid grudging tribute to him saying "The Green guy, Patrick Harvie, rambled on at several points, but the audience seemed to like it. He was the most left-wing panellist they've had on in about three years. He even looked like Lenin."

I'm not sure if he actually is the most left-wing panellist they've had in three years seeing as Bob Crow, George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob have all appeared in that time, and they're *almost* as Lenin-esque as Harvie. However, I know how to take a reflected compliment - so thanks!

However, what is clear is that the Greens provide a distinctive and interesting voice expressing a significant current of thought in this country. They should be part of the mix more often rather than as the occasional after thought when Melanie can't make it. As it happens her eminence Caroline Lucas will be on QT in two weeks time, they're like buses you wait all year for a Green on TV and then two come along at once.

There is a real problem that as the three main parties have come closer together politically (with two of them currently fused) mainstream politics is simply too shallow a pool to draw an interesting panel from that can represent the real political views of the country. One reason to support Jeff's petition to include Harvie in the upcoming Scottish leaders' debates.

Of course, I wouldn't be for excluding the professional ideologues of the right wing press. These off the shelf, bought and paid for opinionbots are part of the political geography of the country, but the same is just as true of those to the left of Labour and no matter what the right think they are simply far too scarce on QT leaving a good proportion of the audience tearing out their hair and feeling unrepresented.