Leaders special – snap verdict

BBC Question Time is one of the most difficult gigs for any politician, and on Friday night Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson all had half an hour in front of what is normally the most abrasive audience in current affairs TV. Sturgeon probably had the best night. Corbyn had a much rougher ride inside the studio than he did outside (where there was a huge crowd of students cheering him), but he grabbed the headlines with an announcement that he would stay neutral in a second Brexit referendum. Johnson struggled to win over the audience, and he faced particular criticism for racist and homophobic comments in his journalism, but this was a rehash of arguments that have been rehearsed before and it is hard to imagine anyone recalibrating their view of him on the basis of what they heard. The real loser was Swinson, who struggled very, very badly.

Jeremy Corbyn – summary

Often the best way to seize the initiative on this kind of programme is to make news, and that’s what Jeremy Corbyn did. He gave us a story, confirming for the first time that he would be neutral in a second Brexit referendum. The Tories will criticise him for this but at least now Corbyn will not have to put up with headlines like the ones he faced on Saturday, when he was criticised for refusing to say nine times what he would do in such a referendum. On Friday, his answer seemed to close down some of the criticism he was getting from the audience over Brexit.

Otherwise he faced quite a lot of hostility, which he handled reasonably well. The most aggressive questioning came from the man who asked about Corbyn’s failure to intervene at a press conference to protect the Labour MP Ruth Smeeth from a heckler. Corbyn’s resort to a stock answer was not impressive, but the anger of the questioner sounded contrived (even by the standards of this programme) and of the two men in the exchange, Corbyn sounded the more reasonable.

Nicola Sturgeon – summary

Nicola Sturgeon was the longest serving party leader on the programme, and before she became Scotland’s first minister in 2014 she had had a long apprentice as deputy first minister, and it showed. She came over as confident and assured. She said the SNP would not put the Tories into office, but she confirmed that she would expect Jeremy Corbyn to agree to a second independence referendum in return for SNP support.

Sturgeon also said the SNP would not expect to vote on English-only matters. Under EVEL (English votes for English laws – new parliamentary rules introduced by David Cameron), the SNP would not vote on these matters anyway.

Jo Swinson – summary

She had a dismal half hour - undoubtedly her worst of the campaign.

Boris Johnson – summary

For Boris Johnson that was an awkward and uncomfortable half-hour that highlighted his arrogance and the extent to which he is perceived as untrustworthy, but none of it was terminal, and the main consolation is that it could have been worse. The opening question, about Johnson’s relationship with the truth, could have turned very ugly, but it was from a WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigner and Johnson quickly digressed into talking about pensions. Towards the end, as he faced a series of harsh questions about NHS underfunding, he was very much on the back foot, but none of those questions were steel-tipped. The one that most fitted this category was about Johnson’s use of racist language in his journalism, to which Johnson blithely responded by citing free speech.

Overall, it was a defensive performance. Johnson did not say anything particularly unexpected, he did not have anything new or pertinent to say about his opponents and he did not even say much about Brexit. The subject he kept returning to was his time as London mayor – with the result that it sounded like a rerun of his campaign for the Tory leadership in the summer. It did not feel as if he had made any progress here, but he can take some comfort from knowing that by this time next week this encounter will mostly have been forgotten.

Meanwhile

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