Whatever political news breaks one thing a healthy democracy needs is good journalism to scrutinise the actions of those responsible.

So I for one will be sorry to see the BBC’s This Week program being axed later this summer due to Andrew Neil’s decision to stand down.

With Question Time you get all the usual lies, hysteria and nonsense from the panel, and even the audience, leaving you no more informed at the end than you were at the beginning.

But straight after there’s a light hearted, good humoured and far more cerebral take on what’s really been going on over the past seven days.

As a viewer I’ve been particularly impressed by the calm and collected wisdom of Michael Portillo, who, without ever needing to get nasty, has demolished the arguments of so many other guests with sound logic and reasoning. I wonder if those who cheered back in 1997 after hearing about the famous ‘Portillo Moment’ look back at the legacy of Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May and now realise that was a moment of real loss for this country?

History will be the ultimate judge of course, but I think he would have made an excellent Prime Minister.

Dr Scott Marmion,

Woodthorpe, York