Question panel get grilling

MPs and political experts got a grilling in a live radio broadcast from a church in the grounds of a Midlands stately home.

BBC Radio Four's Any Questions? was at St John the Baptist Church, in the grounds of Hagley Hall, near Stourbridge, last night.

Topics dealt with, as Jonathan Dimbleby chaired the show, included implications of the inquest verdict on the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and time limits set for postal workers on their rounds. People questionen a panel including Minister of State for Borders and Immigration at the Home Office, Phil Woolas.

Other members were Shadow Security Minister, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones; Liberal Democrats spokesman for Children, Schools and Families, David Laws, and Fraser Nelson, political editor of The Spectator. People were asked to submit questions as they went into the church.

Nine were chosen but a handful were put to the panel over 47-minutes. A warm-up question, not broadcast, was from Hagley Hall's Lord Cobham.

He asked, as they were within miles of sites used by the perpetrators of the gunpowder plot did the panel not think the plotters had been right all along. In keeping with the light-hearted spirit of the question,the panel answered in the negative but said it was important it was remembered.

The first question broadcast was by retired civil servant David Tubb, age 71, of Oak Lane, Hagley. He asked what the implications would be for the Metropolitan Police after the open verdict in the inquest of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Panel members agreed serious mistakes were made and a review of procedures was needed. After the show Mr Tubb said: "As a listener it is always good to see how a programme is actually put together. It has been a really fascinating evening." Oldbury postman Roy Forbes, 50, asked for opinion on claims workers were pressurred to walk at 4mph to complete rounds

He said: "The words greased lighting and the blurs in blue come to mind. Postmen and women already walk at very fast speeds because there is so much for us to do." The panel said postmen should be allowed to walk at their own pace and the amount of time taken depended on the size of the round and number of houses they had to visit.

Henry Morris, 16, of Tenbury Wells, asked: "Given the Germans criticism of "Super Gord" has the Prime Minister really saved the world?"

Baroness Neville-Jones, Mr Laws and Mr Nelson believed he had not. Henry, captain of his school, Heathfield, Wolverley, said he was pleased to be chosen – as he wants to be an MP himself.