Winners and Losers on Question Time

Question Time remains great political theatre, and although last night's edition - in Newcastle, so they could talk about Northern Rock (something you clearly couldn't do in Portsmouth, for example...!) - was not a classic, it had its winners and losers. Foremost amongst the winners was stable, sensible Vince Cable, the highly rated Liberal Treasury spokesman. Fellow panellist and Spectator political editor Fraser Nelson comments on why Cable is on a high in his blog comment here. Nelson himself, lauded as one of the Right's finest young minds of the moment, was visibly less impressive - he is not a good television performer - but his writing remains perceptive. Alan Duncan performed well, but gets so engaged with the issues that he doesn't always know when to apply a bit of superior silence! Ruth Kelly, an intelligent lady, was unable to provide much credible cover for the government - she also has a poor television manner - while the least said about union leader Derek Simpson the better. Most audience members made more articulate comments than he managed.