Did you see that atrocious Question Time? 

So “the producers last year boasted of the programme’s “rigorous background checks” to ensure balance”?

Well, they’re not boasting now. As Bob Monkhouse famously nearly said. 

Without suggesting that there should be a basic IQ test before the public is granted admission, is it too much to expect some sort of crowd control to defuse what Andrew Neil might call expressions of social unrest? Dimbles seems unconcerned. I think he’s lost the will to chair. Would it be proportionate to suggest riot police and live fire but only as a very last resort?

I mean the sheer stupidity of some of the participants on both sides of the border desk beggars belief. I don’t blame Hamas Momentum - I blame Israel the BBC. 

“Will the Israeli government be held accountable for their crimes against Palestine?”

What sort of question is that? What is this “crimes against Palestine”? I was told this edition of Q.T. took place in Kensington, London. But I see a last-minute change of venue meant it was actually from Royston Vasey and - was the questioner, by any chance …Tubbs? It was surely authored by Tubbs. 

“What we saw this week was a massacre!” 

announced the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty. “Britain should review its position on selling arms to the Israelis” he continued, muttering something about internal repression. (Where and by whom he did not specify.) In fact, the contributions from the anti-Israel contingent seem to have everything vaguely accurate; but in reverse.

Dimbles wondered, 'how could the Israelis be held accountable?' and I’d estimate that a disproportionate percentage of the audience would settle for Hamas getting its wish.

The questioner then stated that Israel "keeps kicking out Palestinian families who have lived there for over fifty years". I assume Yolande Knell would be willing to verify that fact.

“Horrific,” said Bernard Hagan-Howe. “The Israeli government should accept an investigation by an impartial body such as the UN,” he quipped with deadpan wit.  

“The border is illegal, first of all” began an assertive lady, “and, um, um, nobody is saying Hamas have the right to kill people. Secondly, the Palestinian people have their... 

(reads from a pre-prepared list) 

“…their poultry, their olive trees, their cattle, their children - there are fourteen-year-old boys that wet themselves at night time, in nappies because they’re frightened that the IDF are going to come in and take them in the middle of the night”.    

“That land is illegal!’” she ended, with a flourish

Odd that. I may be wrong, but understood that Hamas is digging tunnels to facilitate that very thing, And wasn’t kidnapping Israelis one of Hamas’s prescribed ambitions? (Presumably, the ones that hadn’t already had their hearts ripped out.)  We never got to hear what had happened to the poultry, cattle etc.

‘The man at the back there.’ What is he like? Very animated, you can tell, as he barely pauses for breath as he delivers his 'opposite of the truth' rant. 

People say that Israel has a right to defend itself it does but the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves, right? And you talk about selling arms. […] Stop the arms sales to Israel, make sure the aid is going to the children that are being shot and I’m not being funny, there are people being kicked out of their houses, they got no bread and water!! They have to defend themselves, they need bread and water and they keep saying it’s Hamas, it’s this and that.  It’s all Israel, and the first thing Netanyahu tweeted as soon as Trump was in charge - ‘that is it. No two state solution’ - Israel never wanted a two-state solution they want an actual greater Israel project and they want nothing to do with Palestinians they want to clear them all and it’s people like you, that’s a disgrace to the two-state solution. 

But where on God’s dear earth has he and most of the audience (and panel)  got hold of these post-truth facts?

I wonder.