Last night on Radio 5 Live's Stephen Nolan Show I took part in a 15 minute discussion on ... wait for it ... whether it is right for Will Young to appear as a guest on Question Time. Question Time had issued an embargoed press release about him appearing on a show in the New Year.
As you know, I have great doubts about celebrities appearing on political programmes - not just Question Time, but also This Week. It sometimes seems as if the producers sit in a huddle and think to themselves: "Well we got Timmy Mallett on last week. How do we go one better? Anyone for Benny from Crossroads?"
However, that doesn't mean I am against non politicians or even celebrities appearing. But only if they have something to say. We can all remember the buttock-clenchingly embarrassing performances from Alex James from Blur, The Sun's Emma Jones and Shane McGowan on This Week (among others).
Will Young is a different case though. He studied politics at university, is eloquent and I reckon he will be able to contribute to the debate as an equal, assuming he is willing to take a position and risk offending some of his fans.
I was on the radio with James Panton from the Manifesto Club, who took a much more fundamentalist view than me on this. He thinks all these programmes should be a politician free zone. We were both accused of being snobs (mainly because I mentioned Jade Goody, I suspect) by an elderly lady who phoned in!
There's nothing snobbish about wanting political programmes to be proper discussion forums. Any Questions has not gone down this celebrity route and remains an oasis of intelligent discussion. Clearly it is right for the BBC to encourage more people to watch its political programmes, but it should also remember that there are at least half a million people out there for whom politics is very important. They need to be catered for too on the mainstream channels - not just BBC Parliament.
