Who is on the BBC Question Time panel tonight?

Robert Jenrick

Who? Housing, communities and local government secretary

Barely a household name in his own household, Jenrick was a Remain backer during the referendum before changing his mind upon noting the remarkable effect being a committed Brexiteer can have on one’s career. Went as far as voting against an EU extension last March, preferring a no-deal exit. A Johnson loyalist, he insisted in October that the PM would not push Brexit beyond October 31, saying: ‘The prime minister has been very clear that he is not going to extend Article 50.’ The prime minister extended Article 50. When appointed last year, NottinghamshireLive reported ‘Being born in January 1982 means the 37-year-old is the is the first ‘millenial’ to serve in the Cabinet’. Like all millenials, he has been reported to own a ‘manor in Herefordshire’ worth just over £1m, a flat near the Houses of Parliament worth £2.5m and another flat worth more than £1m.

Emily Thornberry

Who? Shadow foreign secretary

A short-lived candidate for the Labour leadership, Thornberry won few plaudits among Remainers for initially saying that Labour would ‘probably’ back Theresa May’s agreement, saying: ‘What’s the nature of the divorce? And I think if past evidence of the last few months is anything to go on, it’s going to be a ‘blah, blah, blah’ divorce.’ Later became a firm backer of a second referendum and Remain, saying Labour would be ‘off our bloody rockers’ not to back it. A constituency neighbour of Jeremy Corbyn, they were close allies and Thornberry was his de facto PMQs deputy until her Brexit stance displeased him and he decided Rebecca Long Bailey/Long-Bailey was his new bestie instead. Probably Parliament’s most accomplished performer of the theatrical eye-roll, she can expect a demotion if, as expected, anthropomorphic Mr Whippy Keir Starmer takes the Labour crown.

Richard Horton

Who? Editor-in-chief of the Lancet

A beneficiary of Question Time’s novel recent trend of booking people who might actually know what they’re talking about, Horton joined the medical journal as an assistant editor a full 30 years ago, moving to New York as North American editor in 1993. Two years later he returned to the UK to become editor-in-chief. An honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, he has been critical of the government’s approach to tackling coronavirus, telling MPs that Wuhan was a ‘red flag’ back in February and saying that they should have taken action sooner. Has had coronavirus himself, saying: ‘I don’t think I knew what to expect, it was like rather bad flu, there was a couple of days when it was really unpleasant.’ Told MPs on the Science and Technology Committee yesterday that current predictions were that the NHS would be able to cope if strict measures continued to be followed.

Humphrey Cobbold

Who? Businessman and CEO of PureGym

CEO of PureGym, the UK’s largest gym operator, Cobbold joined the business in 2015 when there were 84 gyms and has built it up to more than 200 since as gym routines replace football as the thing Britain’s workers most bore their colleagues with. It employs just over 1,500 workers across 265 sites, as well as providing work for 3,500 self-employed personal trainers, and Cobbold has been critical of the government’s financial approach to the crisis, saying: ‘We’re much too large for the new smaller companies’ scheme, but for the larger company scheme you have to have an investment rating to apply. We burn cash at a rate of about £9m-£10m a week, so we have quite a task to drive down that burn rate so we can make our cash and liquidity last as long as we can.’ Describes himself as ‘hands off’, saying: ‘An alarm bell goes off if people say I can make all the difference. If I’m going to make the difference, they’ve got a problem.’

Question Time is on BBC One at 8pm tonight