Question Time 27th November 2025
The Panel:
James Murray (Labour)
Gareth Davies (Conservative)
Calum Miller (LibDem)
Sonia Sodha (Journalist)
Luke Johnson (Businessman)
Venue: Watford
A glance at Wiki reveals Luke Johnson to be an ‘entrepreneur’, headlined as the former chairman of Pizza Express. This somewhat (and deliberately) lightens the optic. Mr Johnson is a venture capitalist with stakes in many companies as the chairman and co-founder of an investment vehicle called Risk Capital Partners. At the time of his last appearance on QT, their website boasted:
“We are not governed by rules and do not have to report to external committees”
Oh.
For some bizarre reason, the website’s list of current and ‘selected previous investments’ missed out both Patisserie Valerie, a cash business scam, and Mr Johnson’s Caribbean connections as revealed by the Panama Papers leak. Details of these sorry tales and others can be read in a previous QT Review here. Suffice it to say, Luke Johnson. Avoid.
A former pupil of Langley Grammar School and a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, as ever, the family disappointment is dispatched to Question Time. Father, Paul Johnson, was a Fleet Street heavyweight, popular historian, speechwriter and author. Educated by the Jesuits at Lancashire’s Stonyhurst College, Johnson senior was also a graduate of Magdalene College (History, under AJP Taylor).
National service followed in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the Royal Army Education Corps in Gibraltar. On to Paris, where he became assistant editor of the periodical Realites. After a spell as a journalist at, and editor of, the New Statesman, he drifted rightwards and contributed to the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes et al.
On 6th November 1979, a mere 46 years ago, Paul made the first of four appearances on Question Time. During those programmes he sat alongside, amongst others, Julian Amery, Hugh Montefiore, William Waldegrave, Jack Cunningham and, of course, hosts Sir Robin Day and David Dimbleby. Am I the only Puffin who realises that standards have dropped?
On the topic of falling standards, Johnson’s wife, Marigold’s, sister married another journalist, George Walden – a four-time guest on Question Time between 1983 and 1988. In the incestuous nature of such things, their daughter, Celia, married another journalist, Puffin’s favourite Penis Moron. Sometimes referred to as ‘Piers Morgan’, as another Question Time regular, Mr Moron has lowered the standard during an astonishing 28 appearances on the programme.
Sonia Sodha is a columnist and author who cntrbtes to The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC. The privately educated 42-year-old also graduated from Oxford (St Hilda’s College), and holds a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Never having had a job beyond policy and journalism, half-Hindu/half-Sikh Sonia’s credits include the Race Equality Unit, Which?, the Dartington Social Research Unit, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the office of Ed Miliband.
As further evidence of the other-worldly life of posh metropolitan Sonia, that private school was the now-defunct Old Palace of John Whitgift girls’ school in Croydon. Not quite an inner city comp, for half a millennium the buildings were the summer residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury.
A new boy to Question Time, Gareth Davies was born in Leeds to a primary school teacher and a small business owner. The 41-year-old is a graduate of the University of Nottingham who completed further studies at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government. A career in finance followed with Threadneedle Investments and its successor, Columbia Threadneedle.
After two stabs at being elected (versus Rosie Winterton in 2010 and v Hillary Benn in 2017), he entered the House in 2019 as Grantham and Stamford’s Tory MP and is the Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
Appearing on the programme only last month, forty-two-year-old James Murray was born in Hammersmith and is the current Labour MP for Ealing North. His prior series of overpaid public sector non-jobs includes Islington councillor and Deputy London Mayor for Housing, after which he became an MP. Educated at the £61,000 per annum St Paul’s School, Comrade Murray is yet another Oxford graduate (Wadham College), from where he gained, yet again, a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he is one of the architects of this week’s budget. Hmm.
Calum Alexander Miller is the Lib Dem MP for Oxfordshire’s Bicester and Woodstock and a LibDem spokesman on foreign affairs. Surprise, surprise, the 44-year-old read PPE at Oxford before taking an MPhil (with distinction) in International Relations at the same university.
Following a seven-month spell as a Marks & Spencer management trainee, Calum adjourned from the real world to take a series of non-jobs in the Civil Service working in the Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. He also served as Principal Private Secretary to the Cabinet Secretary and head of the UK Civil Service (2009-10) and to the Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg, from 2010-12.
From there, he joined Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, rising to be the school’s Chief Operating Officer and co-director of research on Improving Systems of Education. Besides now being a Fellow of Practice in Public Management at the Blavatnik School, he is also a Supernumerary Fellow at the University of Oxford.
Memo to Calum: Nobody likes a smart arse!
In the incestuous nature of such things, the married father of four and part-time rugby coach last appeared on QT in May, when tonight’s James Murray was also on the panel. As ever, the dullard of the family is sent to Question Time. Calum’s father, David, was an old boy of Edinburgh’s Merchiston Castle School and a graduate (Economics) from the University of Glasgow. A career with International Publishing Company (IPC) followed.
An enthusiastic, successful and determined marketing manager, a pull towards the Kirk persisted. Led to return to his native land, he both work for the Church of Scotland and pursued Liberal politics, rising both to be General Secretary of the Scottish Liberal Party and to be an ordained minister in the church. An excellent Herald Scotland obituary is available here.
This recalls the Rev Miller as being one of a remarkable generation of debaters at Glasgow University in the 1960s, which included future Labour leader John Smith and Scottish Labour leader Donald Dewar, who was best man at David Miller’s wedding.
As mentioned before, standards in public life, and, come to think of it, in budgets, have dropped. Which brings us to…
***
Question one: What is the point of working hard when Rachael Reeves taxes everything?
It’s depressing, began Luke. Yesterday’s budget was for benefit claimants, not working people. Bleak. Investors and entrepreneurs are demoralised. Growth? There is none. This will not have a good ending. Happy and prosperous countries do not look like this. He suggested a rethink of Net Zero, which is destroying industry. Luke Johnson? Hold!
Sonia, rightly, traced our present problems back to the (Labour) credit crunch of 2008. Labour’s mistake was to over-promise before last year’s election. Sonia supported throwing money at claimants. She seemed to think child poverty was cured by raising rather than cutting taxes.
From the audience, cut taxes and cut public sector defined-benefits pensions. What the Chancellor was trying to do was cut the cost of living, improve the Health Service and cut borrowing, began James Murray. All else is the fault of the last government and global conditions. Rather than borrow more (which they can’t, as we’re spent up) or cut spending, they’re raising taxes.
‘A vicious circle’ mentioned an audience member, presumably hinting at tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend until the government runs out of our money. Another member of the audience, in a roundabout way, hinted at an economic doom spiral. James was thrilled at an OBR growth forecast of 1.5%, which, despite the jubilation, was a result of the ‘failures of the last government’. Challenged by La Bruce, James said he wouldn’t go into he technical details but would, in effect, drone on without saying anything.
Luke said the opposite. Wealth creators are leaving. The economy is sinking. None of your MPs have any idea and have never worked in the private sector. You’re obsessed by the public sector and taxing. Luke Johnson? BUY!
Increasing taxes and spending, repeated Gareth. The public weren’t told this before the election, not of the removal of the two-child benefit cap or of the size of the rise in taxes. Sonia pointed out the Tories would be doing no better.
Hopeless, began Calum Miller. Lift red tape suggested the politician who represents the party that wants to rejoin the EU. Sure enough, that was his next point, tangle ourselves in the lead chains that are Rejoiner’s Brussels bureaucracy. He wanted even more taxes, especially on the gamblers and the banks.
Hold on a minute, fake news. Fake, fake news. Listen to this, in the guff, the BBC spelt Calum’s name wrong. Gave him a double ‘l’. Can’t believe a word they broadcast. Maybe a BBC mistake levy? We could call it the Verify Tax?
A posh lady mentioned the plight of young people who have no chance of moving out of the family home (in Watford). Well, leave Watford. Le Bruce had a hands-up. Only two (Labour plants?) in the audience were happy with the budget.
She then focused on broken promises. Amongst the droning, James rewrote the Labour manifesto, saying the government would keep taxes as low as possible for working people rather than not raise them at all.
Sonia pointed out the discrepancy between young people paying high interest on student loans (while payment thresholds have been frozen), as older people get a triple lock pension increase.
A pretty girl in the audience distracted this reviewer, and the topic at hand, by wanting to talk about the underwhelming COP30 conference and the state of the planet.
Question 2. Should we have a judge without a jury?
Sonia said 90% of crimes go before magistrates. She thought that line was in the right place. They’re just doing it to save money. This contradicts what Justice Minister David Lammy said himself previously, began Gareth. Courts should work longer hours.
La Bruce asked if anybody had been on jury service. Sonia and James raised their hands, as did some of the audience. Tranny alert, but not what you think. La Bruce pointed to a lady with blonde hair who told us of her complicated case of a paedophile who had been sent to jail, transitioned to a woman and then returned to court as a result of allegations made by his own family.
‘There was plenty of evidence’, concluded the lady. She had a second case. An horrific history of crime, a nasty man. She felt honoured to lock people up, but noted you can be locked up on very little evidence. Someone else had been called for jury service but just sat around for two weeks. An inefficient system, he concluded. He was also involved in employment tribunals, which take years to be heard.
QT became interesting; for once Judge Viewer in the Court of QT Review was pleased to be listening and making notes. Another was called for a long trial, but it only lasted three days. Had it lasted longer, his remuneration of £80 a week would have left him destitute.
Calum thought the jury system a jewel in our crown. But we need a fundamental overhaul of the system. We also have to think about the victims who have to wait years for cases to come to court. My verdict? After a wait of many years, Question Time is threatening to become worth watching.
Someone who could barely speak English had been on a jury. Hope he’s not on mine! Nope, couldn’t understand what he was saying. James said, in slightly different words, that the jury was out on Lammy’s ideas and no decision had yet been reached. At which point, the unanimous verdict in the court of QT Review was … time for bed.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
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