The Question Time presenter, Fiona Bruce, has said she had not anticipated how angry the show’s audiences would be.
Bruce, who replaced the veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby last year, described the “level of toxicity” she had witnessed on the show in the Radio Times.
“I’m all for a passionate debate, and sometimes things can be heated, which is fine, up to a point. As long as we remember that we are human beings,” she said.
“I feel very strongly about that. I hadn’t anticipated that I would spend so much of my time last year saying, ‘we don’t talk to each other like this.’”
Last month the Guardian journalist Owen Jones said “the BBC normalised racism” after an audience member said the number of people “flooding in” to the UK is costing public services too much.
Their comments were uploaded to Twitter, a move Jones said “seemed to imply that this wasn’t racism – it was simply someone’s opinion, for us to agree or disagree with, in much the same way that we might debate the top rate of tax, or whether the railways should be renationalised”.
This was not Question Time’s first audience-related controversy this year. In January the show became entangled in a racism row. The actor and guest panelist Laurence Fox said “we’re the most tolerant, lovely country in Europe”, after the university lecturer and audience member Rachel Boyle claimed Meghan Markle had been the victim of racism.
Fox accused Boyle, who is mixed race, of being racist towards him for stating he had privilege as a white man. He said: “It’s so easy to throw the charge of racism and it’s really getting boring now.”
The regulator Ofcom received more than 250 complaints after Fox’s appearance. Boyle later told the Observer she received a barrage of hateful comments on social media after the show.
Speaking about Fox’s controversial appearance, Bruce said: “I had a briefing about Laurence, and what he might say. But the thing about Question Time is that it’s entirely unpredictable, so people will get into arguments.”
In addition to hosting the show, Bruce also presents the long-running and successful Antiques Roadshow. She said there were similarities with the shows. “Antiques Roadshow is a public service. It reflects the nation back to itself, as does Question Time.”