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British Current Affairs debate show, running from 1979 to the present.Each week, in different locations around the UK (and sometimes outside it) a group of five or six panelists answer unseen questions from a studio audience (who also comment on the issues) on matters of current affairs. The panel usually consists of three members from the three biggest UK parties and two other public figures. There usually is a government minister present. If the show is coming from Scotland, the SNP will have a panellist, with Plaid Cymru turning up for Welsh editions. When the show goes to Northern Ireland, the four main NI parties are represented and the big three (who don't really run in the province) aren't present.Sometimes called "Iraq Time" these days, due to the frequency of the topic turning up in a question. More recently, the expenses scandal is sure to turn up with tiresome regularity, often in the form of a failed attempt at humour by the questioner.Spoofed in the Thursday Next series as "Avoid the Question Time", presented as a gameshow in which politicians win points for how skilfully they avoid answering the audience's questions and twist them into non sequiturish attacks on the other parties present. Which is painfully close to the real thing. Was also the subject of a parody by Not the Nine O'Clock News, where the programme is supposedly being recorded shortly after the Soviets had launched nuclear missiles at the UK, and besides one Only Sane Man panellist, they spend their time bickering about which party's period in government is to blame for the crisis.Commonly referenced is the fact that presenter David Dimbleby will refer to audience members asking questions as, e.g. "You, sir, in the orange shirt with the grey hair," and amusingly frequently gets the gender wrong.
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