Thatcher: Charles Moore has questions

You'd think that, after his time spent as musical egg Ludwig on children's television, Charles Moore would understand the charts a bit better than he appeared to on last night's Question Time.

Actually, it was something of a surprise to see Moore on Question Time at all, given the fuss he made about not believing he should pay for a TV licence.

The convicted criminal Moore was appearing on a current affairs programme which, rapidly, had changed its location to Thatcher's Finchley and reformatted itself as a Thatcher special; on a channel which on Monday had cleared what felt like seventeen hours of prime time for a soft obituary which nobody watched, and is planning lavish coverage of her funeral. Naturally, then, Moore saw nothing but hate coming from the BBC.

As an example, he referred to the Ding Dong erm, ding dong, which - shortly after saying that vile people were being "bigged up every day" (really) he described this way:

I heard today a ludicrous thing on the PM programme. They're trying to get... basically the BBC is trying to get this Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead um, up to the top of the charts...

Hang about. The BBC are trying to do this? How, exactly?

... by going on and on and on about whether it should be banned and all this nonesense.

He then went into a strange sidebar on how Thatcher is Dorothy.

So, in Moore's view, merely having a debate about if the song should or shouldn't be played if it makes the Top 40 is "trying to get this up to the top of the charts."

On which basis, this will make him furious:

If only Charles Moore knew people at the Telegraph, he could remonstrate with them for trying to get Ding Dong to the top of the charts by going on and on and on about whether it should be banned.

Will Young now writes for the Daily Telegraph

Will Young writes about going on Question Time for the Daily Telegraph. He's pretty honest:

There were also times when I thought I was out of my depth and I didn't really understand what they were talking about – but then I don't have a politician's level of artillery.

Honest, but also proving why he was a bad choice. If I want to hear a debate where participants "don't really understand" what's being discussed, I could tune in to Nicky Campbell's phone-in, couldn't I? Question Time is meant to be informed debate, surely?

Can the panel explain what Will Young is doing there?

Had Will Young's presence on last night's Question Time not been trailed a few weeks earlier, the assumption would have been that Dunstable was so snow-bound, they'd been forced to top-up the panel with anyone who happened to be in the area and in possession of a fairly-famous face.

And had he been parachuted in to fill a snow-created gap, you'd probably praise him for doing a good, making-up-the-numbers sort-of job. Indeed, most of last night's panel - Geoff Hoon, Nigel Farrage, Theresa May - had the air of possessing a good set of snow tyres rather than something anyone would want to hear.

Let's be honest, though: Young didn't really do anything to prove those who feel that simply liking the show isn't enough to justify a position on the panel. It's nice to see someone who doesn't just churn out a prepared response to each question, but it would have been nice if Young had been able to deliver at least a few of his answers to give the impression that he'd spent some time thinking about the subject.

From the start, his inability to really grasp any of the issues beyond the surface level gave a curl to the toes. In response to the question about Carol Thatcher, he started off with a rambling anecdote about a man he had dinner with once who was homophobic. "Should I have gone to his bank and had him sacked?" he pondered, instantly failing to understand the crucial question is whether you consider being at work in the green room, in front of a dozen people, to be a public or a private space. He also tried to insist that Carol Thatcher had apologised - properly apologised - when she hadn't.

Had Young been sat in the audience offering his views, you might have thought he was doing a good job (although Dimbleby would have cut him off a lot more sharply). But he was on the panel. A strange choice, as you'd have thought that to justify an invite you'd at least have to be known for having well-thought-out opinions. Or, at the very least, by the end, you'd be known for having them. Perhaps next time they should try H from Steps.

Will Young offers to bring his experience of, erm, stuff to Question Time

I can just about understand the tendency by Question Time to bring hip young things who appeal to younger audiences onto the panel. I can get why someone might be invited on because they have a unique and expert perspective on subjects of popular debate.

I can't, for the life of me, work out which of these criteria would qualify Will Young for a seat, though.