Question Time 19th February 2026
The Panel:
Heidi Alexander (Labour)
Richard Holden (Conservative)
Robert Jenrick (Reform UK)
Jon Sopel (Podcaster)
Venue: Ringwood
Making his first appearance on Question Time, but a Puffin’s favourite all the same, Jonathan B Sopel is a journalist, television presenter and podcaster. The son of Myer and Miriam and hailing from Finchley, Mr Sopel is a graduate of Southampton University – Politics and Sociology – of where he is now a pro-chancellor. Myer, the boy got an ology!!
Besides studying for his ology, from 1982-83 Jonathan was also president of the Students’ Union on behalf of the National Organisation of Labour Students. Incidentally, back in the day, this humble reviewer of panel shows stood for president of his Student Union and was the proud and grateful recipient of six votes. I kid you not. Had there been a single figure turnout, I would have won instead of being last.
From there, Sopel became a BBC lifer, joining Radio Solent straight from uni, and rising to be the Corporation’s Paris correspondent, presenter of the News Channel and the BBC’s North America editor.
In 2022, Jon’s life sentence was commuted to being tagged to fellow BBC escapee and another Puffin’s favourite, Emily Maitless. Together they present the News Agents, a daily podcast produced by Global Media & Entertainment – owners of Capital Radio, Heart, Smooth, Radio X, Gold, Classic FM, LBC et al.
Since Jon doesn’t work for the BBC anymore, we can’t find out how much he gets paid. Or can we? Continuing the wandering tribe theme, Jon and wife Linda are directors of Manna (as from heaven) Media Limited.
Switching from manna to Mammon, the latest set of accounts available from Companies House show Linda and Jon had a cool £1,000,000, piling up in their company, ready to churn his ‘self-employed’ media earnings into tax-avoiding dividends and directors’ loans.
As for the News Agents, it’s sponsored by HSBC, the bank that brings us daily scandals and controversies. Including: US money laundering, sanctions violations involving Iran, Sudan and Cuba, Swiss private banking data leaks, dividend tax-avoidance trades, the sharing of sensitive UK Government bond information in message groups, etc., etc., etc.
The Temp, via the Violation Tracker Global Database, puts the total paid by HSBC in regulatory fines and penalties at a whopping $7.3 billion. You heard it first on the News Agents! Or rather, you didn’t.
Not to worry. Announcing the sponsorship deal, Becky Moffat, CMO at HSBC UK, said: “Helping the UK to understand and connect with the key issues of the day goes hand in hand with our efforts to open up a world of opportunity for our customers and the wider communities we serve.”
These are the nice people that Maitliss and Sopel are in hoc to.
Meanwhile, a recent YouTube episode of the podcast is topped by an advert for Microsoft. Hmmm. In it, Maitliss and Sopel wonder of the probity of Prince Andrew – but not of Microsoft proprietor Bill Gates. Hmmmm.
What a pair of frauds.
Heidi Alexander is the Labour MP for Swindon and the current Secretary of State for Transport. Born in that town in 1975 and a graduate of Durham University, all else revolves around London, with Heidi rising to be Deputy Mayor of London for Transport, and MP for Lewisham between 2010 and 2018.
Robert Jenrick was first elected Conservative MP for Newark in 2014. He served in government roles including Housing Secretary and Immigration Minister, and once ran for party leader. In 2026, he defected to Reform UK and is their current shadow chancellor.
Richard Holden has served as Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay (formerly for North West Durham) since 2019. The 41-year-old has held government posts including Transport Minister, Conservative Party Chairman, and is now Shadow Transport Secretary.
The grammar school boy, whose parents were both teachers, grew up in Lancashire’s posh Ribble Valley. A graduate in Government and History from the London School of Economics, Richard has never had a job. Straight from college he took a position at Conservative Campaign Headquarters, where he rose to be deputy Head of Press. In the 2015 General Election, the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Blackburn, old boy unsuccessfully contested the Preston seat and resumed his non-jobs as a special advisor to the Ministry of Defence.
Incidentally, if you don’t know where Ringwood is, it’s halfway between Blashford and St Leonards. No wiser? Halfway-ish between Southampton and Bournemouth.
***
Question one: Can the Royal Family survive the arrest and potential trial of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor?
We shall get my two iffy jokes out of the way. Those who bother the unread comments will not have laughed at them already. ‘What if the detectives find those receipts from Reading Pizza Hut?’ and ‘Even the member of the Royal Family who was Jack the Ripper didn’t get arrested.’
Of course they will survive, began Sopel, but this is the most serious crisis in the Royal Family since the abdication almost a century ago. If this comes to trial, he continued pompously, it will be Rex versus Rex’s brother. The eighth in line to the throne has spent the day in a police interview room facing serious allegations that are so serious. He touched upon Andrew’s behaviour as a trade envoy.
Reaching peak pomposity, Sopel quoted Bagehot, we must not let daylight in upon the magic of the Royal Family. Added as a postscript, Jon concluded daylight had been let in, and it didn’t look good. Heidi likes the daylight and thinks the Royal Family will survive with the help of the public service of King Charles and Queen Camilla. Andrew has brought the monarchy into disrepute. The government supports the police. She invented a ‘proud tradition’ of policing here happening ‘without fear or favour’.
Richard Holden contrasted Andrew’s behaviour to that of other members of The Firm, who have been ‘besmirched’. He tried to score a political point by bringing in the appointment as ambassador to the USA of the former Lord Mandelson.
La Bruce reminded us the Royal Family aren’t in a position to answer back and added she didn’t suppose they’d ever appear on Question Time. Can’t say I blame them after what happened when one of them appeared on Newsnight.
Robert thought it a blessing that the late Queen, with her ‘blemishless’ life, wasn’t alive to see Porchie’s illegitimate son in the cells. Very, very serious allegations. Both the crime of giving away secrets and the suffering of victims abused by Jefery Epstein and those around him. Disgrace, disgrace, disgrace chanted Robert.
Question Two: Is a U-turn a weakness or a sign of good leadership? The questioner mused on both the Labour Party and Reform – who are U-turning into a care home for old Tories – to applause from the carefully selected BBC audience.
La Bruce had lost count of the Labour U-turns as she turned to Heidi Alexander. Heidi labelled such things as ‘course corrections’. Lifting the two-child benefit cap wasnt a U-turn, it was an ‘adjustment’.
When knocking on doors in Swindon during the general election, she’d seen toddlers wrapped up warm because their families couldn’t afford the heating. Hold on a minute. Since then, under Heidi’s new Labour government energy has become even more expensive. As for her next point about parents ‘not being able to put food on the table’, those who didn’t see the programme will have to trust me when I say, dear reader, food on the table is not a problem in Heidi’s house.
Sopel pointed out the absurdity of a government with a giant majority having to climb down over and over again. The U-turn on local elections wasn’t a U-turn, Heidi assured us, but ‘updated legal advice’. Sopel (rightly) laughed at her. Likewise Winter Fuel Payments; ‘a change of course’.
La Bruce manhandled Reform UK into the U-turn firing line over their two-child benefit cap. Here was Jenrick’s opportunity to ignore the chair and remind viewers that the local council election U-turn was because of his party’s legal action. But he blew the chance. La Bruce found another Reform UK ‘adjusted change of course’ over personal tax thresholds.
A harpie in the audience pointed out that Jenrick had performed a u-ie from the Conservative Party to Reform, to applause and some whopping from the BBC audience. Instead of saying it’s the Conservatives who’ve changed not me, he rambled.
Having moved the deabate towards Reform and away from Labour, La Bruce turned to Richard Holden. Jenrick got kicked out of the Tories and moved on to the first people who would have him. Forget about Starmer’s one hundred and one U-turns, folks, it’s all about Reform.
Sopel joined in the thumping and mocked Jenrick’s Shadow Treasury title – to more whooping. Robert turned on Sopel and reminded us he’d called Mandelson a ‘class act’ when appointed as ambassador to the USA. Sopel has form. Quick to condemn Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Robert Jenrick, Mr Serpol has been more magnanimous when the daylight shines closer to his London media bubble.
And I quote: ’We all know there was no illegality, so what are we left with? Someone’s private life has come under scrutiny, who is now unwell, it will be a crying shame if this is…’ Wait for it, wait for it. ‘The last we see of Hugh Edwards on television, when the allegations have turned out to be not that much. All his friends will be wishing him well at this stage because Hugh commands huge respect in this industry.’
Excuse me while I puke.
© Always Worth Saying 2026
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