"The BBC do aim for a diverse audience, but it's surely not unknown for people to lie on their application forms?"

Only lefties, Nigel. As we've discovered over recent weeks and months. Tories never, ever lie about anything. Why, we know that "conservatism" and "integrity" are actual similes!

Don't we, Nigel?

I was actually in a Question Time audience once. Before we were selected we were grilled over the telephone about our circumstances, our views on all sorts and our political affiliations or allegiances. The panel was Shami Chakrabarti, Margaret ******* Hodge, that LibDem MP who had to leave in disgrace over a rent-boy scandal - Mark Oaten, that was him - Liam ******* Fox and some right-wing bellend who once justified waterboarding at Gitmo. My lad, in his early twenties at the time, kept elbowing me in the ribs to stick my hand up. It worked and Bumblebee picked me out. So I made an extremely boring comment during an extremely boring topic about whether the Lords should be elected. Three million people saw me doing it. It's been downhill ever since...