There was a time when I'd never miss Question Time on the BBC - it was must-watch television featuring top politicians in real cut and thrust.

Robin Day and then David Dimbleby handled their A-list guests superbly and the programme was both informative and entertaining.

Now, though, it's become a must-miss hour of tedium populated by junior ministers who trot out whatever line their spin-doctors have given them and journalists who you are left wondering whether they would be recognised in their own newsrooms!

Last Thursday's programme from Ipswich also managed to demonstrate its total ignorance of the big issue of the day by coming from a building affected by the post-Grenfell safety scandal but totally ignoring the elephant in the room and apparently banning any mention of it!

I didn't watch the programme live - I was on holiday and it was clear that staying up until 11.30pm to watch a bunch of nonentities discuss what the BBC wanted to hear discussed was beyond me.

But I've caught up with it since and even in the cold light of day it's difficult to imagine who thought this would make compelling television.

It's my job to be on top of politics. But on this "political" programme there was only one guest I recognised, and with all due respect to her I wouldn't actually put Thangnam Debbonnaire as a Labour "A-lister!"

She was very good at putting across the Labour Party views Rishi Sunak's Net Zero U-turn but really her points could quite easily have been made during a news programme.

I'd heard of Kevin Hollinrake as a junior minister but had no idea what he looked or sounded like.

And while I'd heard of sports writer Matthew Syed I really didn't think either he or online journalist Ella Whelan, a totally new name to me, said anything that really mattered.

What a contrast to the old days of the programme! I remember being in the audience in 2006 when the programme came to the Corn Exchange in Ipswich and the guests included Tony Benn and a new MP called Boris Johnson.

Okay, so Johnson wasn't as well-known then as he is now - but the knockabout between those two made compelling viewing!

To be honest it seems now as if senior politicians are afraid of going on Question Time, and the makers are afraid of introducing topics that aren't at the top of their news agenda.

Given the location of the programme - in Dance East studio at the bottom of a building where residents are facing a real crisis in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy - to ignore such an important local issue seems incredibly insensitive.

If the programme makers aren't going to pay any attention to the place they're visiting, what's the point of taking the programme around the country in the first place?

I know it gives local people the chance to sound off on a subject that the BBC, or at least the production company making the programme, chooses - but if you get the same points being made whether you're in Ipswich, Inverness or Aberystwyth why not leave the show permanently plonked in Broadcasting House?

Come to think of it, why not find another way of promoting political debate that isn't as tired, sterile and dominated by junior ministers that their constituents would struggle to recognise?

Perhaps its time to pension off Question Time altogether except during actual election campaigns - then we might actually find some senior politicians are prepared to lock horns in meaningful debate if their future depends on it!