It’s time to axe ‘dreadful’ Question Time — Starkey

AS THE BBC races to find a replacement for its Question Time host David Dimbleby, its most controversial panellist is calling for the ‘dreadful’ flagship show to be axed once and for all. Television historian David Starkey claims Dimbleby, 79, who is stepping down as presenter later this year, has brought the live debate programme on BBC1 to its demise by overindulging the audience.

‘I think Question Time has come to the end of its life. I think it should become something else now,’ says 73-year- old Starkey, who has divided viewers with his forthright opinions and frequent put-downs on the show. ‘I always say about great BBC programmes, like Top Gear, that they get to a point where you would normally say bye-bye, but what happens instead is they become national institutions and continue for ever — however awful they are. And, of course, Dimbleby symbolises that.’

The outspoken Tudor expert, who recently blasted TV bosses for giving presenting jobs to ‘old ugly women’, admits he’s frustrated that he hasn’t appeared on the show since 2015.

‘I shall never be on it again because I’m old, I’m male, I’m pale, I’m Rightwing,’ he tells me ‘They couldn’t possibly have people like me on it.’

Some of the BBC’s top broadcasters, including Desert Island Discs’ Kirsty Young, Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark and the Today programme’s Mishal Husain, are said to be battling it out to replace Dimbleby, who has missed only one episode during his 25-year reign.

‘The great problem with Question Time is the role they have accorded STAGE and screen star Jonathan Pryce discovered an unexpected upside to playing eccentric knight Don Quixote in Terry Gilliam’s longawaited film. ‘I had one of the best times ever,’ Pryce, 71, tells me.

‘There were no rules — I could behave however I wanted. I was mostly on horseback, which was great. I was more comfortable on a horse than standing. When you get to my age, it’s better to be sitting down a lot!’ the audience,’ adds Starkey, who once brusquely told an audience member that if he couldn’t recognise propaganda from fact, he ‘shouldn’t be at a programme like this’.

‘The audience is very long-winded, very vague, very boring to listen to and desperately indulged by Dimbleby, and I think we need to go back to a much sharper debate programme.

‘Get people who really know about things to debate and go head-to-head. Not dilute it with the audience. It’s dreadful, it’s an embarrassment.’