Labour’s shadow Home Secretary described her Question Time appearance as a “horrible experience”. It follows on from a statement issued by her spokesman following Thursday’s show, in which he claimed the BBC was “whipping up” a “hostile atmosphere”. Writing in The i newspaper, the Labour MP for Hackney South and Stoke Newington, said: “Fiona Bruce who has taken over from Dimbleby on Question Time does not appear to be well briefed.
“She got the polling for Labour versus Tory wrong. She (or her researcher) appears to have got their figures from a Conservative Central Office handout. Above all, it seems she is not afraid to appear unfair as a presenter.
“I was interrupted more than double the number of times that Tory MP Rory Stewart was interrupted, even though he spoke for a longer period overall.
“I was not allowed to respond to a blatantly abusive remark from the audience.
“I’m also told that she made unpleasant remarks about me to the audience before the programme was actually recorded, although the BBC has denied that 'any of the panel was treated unfairly either before or during the recording’.”
Fiona Bruce and Diane Abbott clashed on Question Time (Image: BBC)
By contrast, BBC journalist Andrew Neill was “supremely well briefed” and has always read “every poll finding, every blog, every newspaper” before programmes, Ms
