Question Time's visit to Rugby fails to trigger memorable debate

There is no guarantee the audience will come from the host town but Fiona Bruce’s choice of speakers from the audience happened to include people from Nuneaton, Coventry and beyond, while those from Rugby seemed to stay under the radar.

The Lib Dems failed to get a voice on the panel despite the party’s presence in local government, as the Tory and Labour politicians – Robert Jenrick and Stephen Kinnock respectively - were joined by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, controversial author and commentator Lionel Shriver and Scottish journalist Ruth Wishart.

The latter choice seemed to put a debate about Scottish independence and Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation to the head of the queue – an important issue but not that caused a great audience reaction.

And what followed then seemed devoid of much excitement or memorable Question Time exchanges.

Ian Hislop can usually be relied upon to stir things up but even he rarely sparkled and had occasional troubles when he crossed his arms over his microphone.

The other topics covered had potential but generally failed to ignite passionate debate – the audience questions covered the need for a working asylum policy in response to the violent protests outside the hotel in Merseyside used for asylum seekers; how councils can expect people to pay the looming council tax increases; and what can be done to tackle knife crime.

If you missed it and want to judge for yourself, the programme, filmed at Rugby School’s Temple Speech Room, is available on iPlayer.