On last Thursday’s Makerfield edition of the ever-popular BBC Question Time, a lady in the audience prefaced her point by saying she watches the Fiona Bruce-chaired programme ‘all the time’. Is she after my job? If so, she’s not the only one, as a review of the Andy Burnham-inspired Greater Manchester by-election special, penned by an upstart called Tim Stanley, appeared the next day in an inferior publication known as the Daily Telegraph.
Rather than do any prep, grammar school boy Mr Stanley (Judd School, Tonbridge), merely hurled abuse at all present. Not bothering to recall all their real names, let alone their not their real names, the ‘Green woman’ was ‘all empathy and teeth’ with birds’ nest hair. Another panellist had a ‘Lib Dem’ face and was ‘a sort of local shop for local people’ wallah with a 2.1 in rocks. Puffins will be relieved to hear that man-of-the-people Stanley’s degree is in Modern History from Trinity College, Cambridge.
The 44-year-old tried harder with Robert Kenyon, not only calling him by name but feeling able to discern the Reform UK candidate to be ‘dressed as a cheeky bus conductor from the 1970s.’ Since Mr Stanley wasn’t born until 1982, we can only conclude that when not watching Question Time, he is glued to the relevant Reg Varney sitcom on UK Gold, perhaps imagining the same pleasure from Olive as some are said to dream of from Carol Vorderman.
Would Stanley hack it at QT Review HQ? No!
He then started on the audience. A willowy young man seated therein became a ‘boy with a dream catcher hanging off his ear’. Whereas Tim gives the impression of one who might prefer to be a dream catcher with a boy hanging off his ear.
A lady in the audience, giving her two penneth worth, became one who ‘wouldn’t shut up’. On firmer ground, the La Bruce audience’s much-heralded range of opinions was noted to be from around about Mao to somewhere near Trotsky.
Hurled abuse at not quite everybody.
Beyond the disappointing panel and audience, chair Fiona Bruce was ‘composed and authoritative as ever’. What a crawler. A London media bubble lifer, with BBC work that includes the Moral Maze and Thought for the Day, Stanley has been on Question Time longer than Bruce, having made the first of his sixteen appearances in 2014, five years before David Dimbleby vacated the chairmanship.
It would have been 2013 and 17 had it not been for an unfortunate transport delay on another QT also from Manchester. In the incestuous Islington bubble nature of these things, both La Stanley and fellow panellist Joan Bakewell were unable to make the programme on time as they were both heading north on the same delayed train.
Perhaps Stanley should not sneer at those standing for public office. In 2005, he stood for the Labour Party in the mean streets of his native Sevenoaks. He finished in third place, 13,336 votes behind Tory Michael Fallon, the disgraced former Minister of Defence famous for making lewd remarks to 63-year-old colleague Andrea Ledsome MP and for running his hand up the leg of 58-year-old journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer. Carol Vorderman, join the queue!
Given its inferior nature, people actually read not only Telegraph articles but the comments beneath them. Might I log on and mention ‘Other reviews are available’ ? No, because I’ve been banned. Not only that, banned days after paying £120 up front for a year’s subscription.
Why so? Because, as the range of opinion allowed on QT spans from Maoist to Trot, so the DT’s разрешено extends all the way from dripping wet soy boy Tory/Liberal backbencher, to the dripping wet soy boy Tory/Liberal backbencher sat next to they/them.
Not to worry. Having no doubt perused all the reviews available, QT regular Camilla Tominley took to X to praise Mr Stanley’s piece to the skies. Based upon the prose and biting humour, and nothing to do with Camilla being a fellow Telegraph journalist who presents a podcast with Mr Stanley.
In reciprocation, Tim tweets endless smiley pictures of Ms Tominey, and that in her journalistic interviews, Camilla is a ‘destroyer of politicians’.
While on the topic of unbiased positivity, not all the QT by-election candidate panellists took a hammering. With more than half an eye on the fact that he may be the next prime minister, Burham is pronounced, ‘unrelentingly not bad; consistently not terrible. Contrasted with Keir Starmer, he looks like JFK.’
During Question Time’s now lengthy summer break, shall we book mascara Andy and his inferior review fanboy an open top trip to Dallas?
© Always Worth Saying 2026
