Question Time 12 March 2026
The Panel:
Lucy Powell (Labour)
Harriet Baldwin (Conservative)
Sian Berry (Green Party)
Kay Burley (Journalist)
Fraser Nelson (Journalist)
Venue: Wythenshawe
If you’re wondering why we’re being tormented by an endless news and current affairs female presence, it’s because this is the week of International Women’s Day. Question Time is no exception. Besides Fiona Bruce, four women carefully selected by the BBC sit on tonight’s panel. But how representative of womenkind are they? Does your auntie/mother/wife/daughter/squeeze earn £30,000 an hour while never having had a job after Oxford or Cambridge and grammar school or public school? Possibly not.
As the Navy’s Dragon strikes out for Cyprus, so the London media’s finds her way to Withenshawe. Twice-divorced Kay Burley was originally Katherine McGurrin, the old battleship having emerged into the world down a slipway in Wigan. Although she claims not to have attended university, she is a graduate of Preston Poly’s (now the University of Central Lancashire) famous journalism course. After stints on local print titles, she moved into broadcast journalism, eventually becoming a presenter on SKY for a marathon 36 years.
Her controversies included being suspended by SKY after attending a birthday gathering during the pandemic, grabbing an interviewee by the throat, and announcing the death of a missing child before an official police announcement. A published author, the 65-year-old’s great work Betrayal – a scandalous page-turner perfect for all fans of Tasmina Perry – sits a duplicitous (and QT Review record-breaking) 2,009,689 places behind the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom on the Amazon best sellers list.
Lucy Powell has never had a job. After attending Parrs Wood High School in Greater Manchester’s posh Didsbury, Lucy went up to Somerville College, Oxford, graduating in Chemistry. The 51-year-old continued her studies at King’s College, London, before a career of non-jobs in PR and public affairs took her to Westminster politics. In 2010, the current Deputy Leader of the party managed Ed Miliband’s successful Labour leadership campaign.
For two years she was his Deputy Chief of Staff before being elected to Parliament via a by-election. Not her real name, Lucy Maria Williamson’s husband is James, a Warrington A&E doctor who sits on the Central Council of the Socialist Health Association. This campaigning membership organisation promotes ‘health and well-being and the eradication of inequalities through the application of socialist principles to society and government’.
Despite her elevated position, Lucy is not in the Cabinet and therefore, in the interests of the eradication of inequality and in line with socialist principles, can accept donations and freebies. Although it’s difficult to hate the BRIT Awards more than one already does, Ms Powell tempts us when we learn via our friends at They Work For You that last month Miss Powell and a guest, presumably her millionaire public sector husband, accepted dinner, drinks and ‘awards ceremony arena’ seats to the value of £5,016.
Harriett Baldwin, not her real name – Dame Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin, Most Excellent Order of the British Empire – is a public school headmaster’s daughter and herself an old girl of the exclusive Marlborough College (£51,000 PA). Dame Harriett graduated from St Edmond Hall, Oxford, with a First in French and Russian before further study at Montreal’s McGill University Desautels Faculty of Management. Armed with an MBA, the 64-year-old embarked upon a two-decade-long career with JPMorgan Chase. Elected to parliament in 2010, Mrs Baldwin represents West Worcestershire on behalf of the Conservative Party. Present husband, James Stanley Baldwin, is a businessman and television producer.
Sian Berry is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, where at the July 2024 general election she succeeded the outgoing Puffins’ favourite Caroline Lucas. The Cheltenham-born grammar school girl (Pates, Cheltenham, whose ominous motto reads ‘That which is hidden shall be revealed’) is a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford. A daughter of two grammar school teachers, the 51-year-old is a former councillor in London’s borough of Camden. Upon graduation, Ms Berry worked as a medical copywriter for large pharmaceutical companies before moving into the charidee business in what she describes as an ‘ethical temping agency.’
Fraser Nelson is a former long-serving editor of the Conservative-leaning Spectator magazine and current Times columnist. Born in Truro and raised in Nairn, the 53-year-old’s father was a serviceman at nearby RAF Kinloss. Fraser’s connection to in-the-news Cyprus is that his father was stationed there. While overseas, Fraser was privately educated while boarding at £48,000 PA Dollar Academy in Clackmannanshire. Subsequently, he attended the University of Glasgow (History and Politics) and the City University, London (Journalism). Mr Nelson is married with two sons and a daughter and lives in Twickenham. His wife, Linda, is Swedish. He describes himself as a Europhile and is soft on Islam.
***
Never mind the Gulf War, what about the Girl War? All were in dark colours apart from Kay. La Bruce in velvet. Powell in a plunging neckline, revealing not much. Harriett in giant pearls. Sian in a dark jacket atop a bright green blouse. The winner? Kay Burley, but in what? Yes, a tailored trouser suit but what colour? This humble reviewer struggles with the spectrum, especially the reds and the greens. The Temp called it a muted soft purple base with pink undertones. A bit wordy, shall we just call it kaiburleigh?
Question 1: Is Trump winning the war or is this another Iraq? Fraser thought the war would only be a success if Iran becomes a democratic country. Clutching at straws, he has heard a whisper coming out from Iran that there is going to be an uprising. Is there?
There are great challenges here at home, began Lucy. Keir Starmer is keen to learn the lessons from the Iraq war, the legal basis or otherwise and the presence, or otherwise, of a post-war plan. She wanted the war to come to an end as soon as possible.
Fraser referenced his growing up in Cyprus, and the humiliation to Britain of the island having to rely upon the French, Italians and Greeks for its defence.
Harriett thought this campaign was justified to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons, which they are prevented from developing anyway due to the damage caused by last year’s 12 Day War. She wanted to help Trump. Did she want Britain to bomb Iran, as her party leader had hinted? wondered La Bruce. No, she hesitated, in a roundabout way, British action should just be defensive.
An audience member wanted us to stand by our ally, the US. Another referenced deaths caused by the ayatollahs in Iran. Nobody mentioned Israel. Very strange.
Sian, to applause, called this an illegal war. 60% of the public are against it. This conflict is of no help to the people of Iran. Trump will lose interest, and the Iranians will be stuck.
Nelson tried a trick question, asking the panellists whether they wanted the regime to continue or not.
La Bruce was unclear about the Greens’ policy on NATO. Sian had a ‘well-worked-out pragmatic policy’ which boiled down to coming out of NATO while staying in it.
What’s it got to do with NATO? And, still nobody mentioned Israel.
A pro-war black man in the audience was allowed to monologue. He concluded by asking, what’s the alternative to war? Peace?
Ever the pro, Kay began by complimenting the audience before quoting a defence contact of hers who summarised the US’s three war aims as follows. Degrade Iran’s missile capability, stop them from getting a nuclear weapon, and change the regime. She thought the first two were achievable, but the third simply isn’t.
A cynic might add that part of the reason Iran’s missile stocks are reducing is because they’re firing them into nearby and not-so-nearby territories to blow things up.
The Iranian opposition is fragmented, and armed Kurds would be massacred. Therefore, there is a long haul that Britain is reluctant to become a part of. A long shadow casts back to 2003 (the invasion of Iraq) and a former prime minister (unindicted war criminal Anthony Charles Lyton Blair) would do well to keep that in mind before briefing off the record.
As a cub reporter, she had covered terrified Wigan families whose family members had been sent to the Falklands. Don’t send sons to end wars that politicians started, she concluded. Ouch.
Well done Kay, those months at poly sitting at the back and making notes while hiding behind her fringe were well worth it.
All that needs to be added is: still no mention of Israel and, secondly, if you give a vote to the Iranians, they will, as per the elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza, Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon et al, vote to kill the Jews. Still at square one.
© Always Worth Saying 2026
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