BBC Question Time’s Fiona Bruce snaps at Nadine Dorries in brutal Prince Andrew row

Question Time host Fiona Bruce brutally shut down ex-Tory politician Nadine Dorries in a gruelling Prince Andrew debate. During Thursday’s instalment (October 23) of the late-night BBC politics show, the 61-year-old welcomed Stephen Kinnock, Tory MP Harriet Baldwin, broadcaster Mairella Frostrup, and Ms Dorries. Tensions rose minutes into the show when the topic turned to the disgraced royal, who relinquished his royal titles last Friday (October 17).

The panel was challenged on what can really be done about Prince Andrew as his explosive scandal with a convicted sex trafficker following the posthumous release of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl. The late victim's book includes a series of new claims about her alleged relations with the senior royal, which has cast the Royal Family into darkness.

It didn’t take long before the new Reform UK politician shared her thoughts on the scandal, urging Prince Andrew to move out of Royal Lodge. It comes after reports he has been occupying the mansion on a “peppercorn rent” for the last two decades, despite public outcry over his alleged associations with the paedophile financier.

She fumed: “If I were Beatrice and Eugenie, I would be sitting him down and saying, ‘Pack your bags, get out, go and live somewhere else, go and live in a different country because it’s over’.

“But the problem is Prince Andrew doesn’t seem to understand that it is over. What he’s done through his relationship with Epstein has been not just unbelievable to but untenable in his position as a member of the Royal Family.”

She insisted: “He has to go, he has to pack his bags, he has to get out of Royal Lodge, he has to lock the doors and he has to go and the sooner he does it, the better. And I think the only people who can make him realise that are his own family and his own daughters because he doesn’t seem to be listening to anybody else.”

It was at this point that Fiona was forced to interrupt the politician to share the royal’s stance on the scandal on the show. She said: “I should point out, of course, given that Prince Andrew’s not here – well, we’ve not asked him to come on the panel, but I’m not sure he would – but he’s not here to defend himself.

“He has vigorously denied the allegations made by Virginia Giuffre that he did have sex with her, that he sexually assaulted her. I have to say that, you know I do.” Determined to get her point across, Dorries interrupted with: “But Fiona, that’s not even the substantive point. The point is -”

But Nadine didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before the presenter brutally shut her down. She fumed: “No, it’s a point of law that I have to point that out, as you know.”