Reform UK’s Richard Tice has slammed the BBC in a furious post.
Question Time came under fire (Image: BBC)
BBC Question Time host Fiona Bruce confirmed that migrants had been invited on the show on Thursday (December 4), and asked those who were in the audience about their specific experience. Bruce had told one man who arrived in the UK from Iran and welcomed a baby daughter in the UK that she had welcomed him onto the show because “everyone is talking about people like you”.
The news sparked uproar from viewers at home and multiple MPs, but Reform MP Richard Tice was one who spotted some headphones on one audience member and questioned what they were. Taking to X, Tice wrote: “Did BBC QT give headset and coaching to this Channel illegal migrant? He then has the cheek to tell us, British taxpayers, that we must not leave the ECHR… could not make it up.” Others had also spotted the headphones and questioned whether it was a headset, with one user calling it “sad propaganda”.
Another wrote: “I say, well spotted.” While a third added: “If this is accurate and QT audience members were wired up to lecture taxpayers on the ECHR, then any pretence of BBC impartiality is finished.” Others claimed it looked “rehearsed”.
However, some viewers disagreed on what was in his ear, with one user writing: “This will age very badly when it’s identified as an ALLD or similar.” While another wrote: “Those are Shokz Richard – bone conduction headphones.”
One user asked Grok, X’s AI tool, to explain what it thought the device was, to which it responded: “The ear device in the photo looks like a small black earpiece hooked over the ear, with a thin wire or tube extending downward. It resembles standard equipment used for simultaneous translation in TV debates, often provided to non-native speakers.”
Daily Express has contacted BBC for comment.
Later in the show, Bruce said to the migrant in the audience: “You came from Iran. I just wonder what you think of this idea, because one thing the government is talking about is if countries become safe once you have left them, in your case Iran, would you be then happy to go back?”
He responded: “There are two points we need to take care about. Physically, the regime changed in Iran, it’s safe for people like me to return to Iran.
“But the second thing we need to take care about here is, for me, I have a four-month-old daughter, she was born here. She’s growing up here, learning English. She won’t know how to read and write Farsi, or even speak it.”
The full episode is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
