Live politics with the evasions stripped away.
Cross Question with Iain Dale is a fast panel show built around listener challenges, not tidy speeches. Politicians, commentators, journalists, public figures, and comedians are pressed on live questions ranging from Scottish independence to Trump, Brexit, policing, and prices.
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Cross Question with Iain Dale is a live political panel built around questions from callers, texts, WhatsApp messages, and online viewers. Its energy comes from the room. The format puts politicians beside commentators, journalists, business figures, comedians, and other public voices, then asks them to answer directly. Some questions are blunt. Others are technical, moral, or deliberately provocative. The result is a show that treats politics as an argument to be tested in public rather than a sequence of tidy statements. Scottish politics is a recurring pressure point, especially around Holyrood elections, SNP mandates, Westminster authority, independence referendums, and the practical record of parties in government. UK party politics sits beside it. Labour MPs, Conservative figures, Liberal Democrats, SNP voices, and political journalists are asked to defend policy positions in real time. Brexit and EU trade return as unfinished business, with discussion of the trade and cooperation agreement, food standards, trading relationships, and the suspicion that some voters see closer EU alignment as reversal by stealth. Foreign affairs arrives with sharper edges. Trump, Iran, military action, regime stability, approval ratings, and the domestic politics of war all become fair ground for argument. The show also covers the ordinary stresses of public life: fuel prices, cost of living, policing, shoplifting, knife crime, social media organizing, AI, parents, and city government. It can be serious, but it is not solemn for long. Banter about local food, chocolate, live tech, programme mishaps, and panel chemistry keeps the hour from becoming a seminar. The best moments come when a panelist gives a party line and the questioning immediately tightens around it. The show is direct, impatient, and accessible without flattening the issues. It assumes the audience has been watching the news and wants the argument sharpened. Cross-talk is part of the texture. So are jokes, corrections, side comments, and mild exasperation. It is strongest for listeners who like politics with friction: live questions, mixed panels, competing loyalties, and answers that have to survive contact with the next interruption.
Made for: For news followers who want live political argument, audience questions, and fast panel disagreement rather than scripted commentary. It especially suits listeners tracking UK party politics, Scottish elections, foreign affairs, and public policy rows.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its live question-first structure: callers and viewers set the pressure points, and the panel has to respond in the moment. It blends political seriousness with radio-room banter, so policy detail and sharp interruptions sit in the same exchange.
Iain Dale is joined by a panel of senior politicians and commentators to answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week. Debate, in-depth discussion and laughs all guaranteed!
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Caller questions and changing panels turn current British politics into an accessible, often lively contest of explanations.
Cross Question with Iain Dale turns questions from callers and texters into direct exchanges among a rotating four-person panel. Dale keeps politicians in conversation with commentators, campaigners, think-tank directors and other public figures, giving disagreement enough room…
Four-way political disagreement, with Iain Dale keeping the caller's question alive long enough for you to choose sides.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused Scottish election debate on whether an SNP majority would mandate another independence referendum.
Scotland's parliamentary election is framed as a test of what a mandate really means, as the question of another independence referendum keeps running up against arguments about the NHS and the SNP's record in office.
A brisk panel review of religion, Brexit, EU ties, and a lighter closing turn toward beavers.
Cross Question shapes the evening around friction, moving from religious leaders in politics to a sharper argument over the EU, trade, cooperation, and whether closer ties might reopen Brexit through another door. It then ends on a lighter note with beavers and rewilding.
A brisk panel row that turns live politics into something immediate, argumentative, and worth hearing out.
A sharp panel hour about disorder, policing, and who gets blamed when public life starts to fray. It moves from Iran-linked shipping attacks to London crime, online-organised youth trouble, and the uneasy line between parental authority and the police, so the pace never really…
A brisk panel discussion over Iran, North Sea drilling, and who ends up paying for energy politics.
Cross Question starts with a brisk panel on Iran and energy policy, then keeps moving through North Sea drilling, renewable power, tax revenue, and the cost passed on to households.
A live panel weighs Geneva talks, Starmer's caution and the strategic importance of Diego Garcia.
Cross Question opens on Scott's question of whether representatives from Israel, the United States and Iran should return to negotiations in Geneva, or allow the war to keep widening its bloodshed and fallout.
A feisty panel that turns a foreign-policy opening into a sharper debate over religion, cohesion and political language.
Cross Question opens on a caller from the Straits of Hormuz and quickly settles into a sharp discussion about religion, integration, and the language used around national cohesion.
A brisk Westminster panel on Labour, migration, and the cost of losing your own side.
This panel episode keeps its focus on Labour under pressure, with Angela Rayner warning about survival, Kemi Badenoch pressing Starmer to go, and the argument over whether migration policy or economic security is the bigger fault line.
A brisk panel on Labour pressure, foreign policy, and the politics of making change feel real.
Cross Question works best when the argument feels live, and this panel gets there quickly. The opening on Joe Kent and Iran opens into Labour's huge majority, the pressure for change, and the complaint that the government still does not look ready to get on and do things.
Astead Herndon reports the 2024 campaign trail, from Iowa evangelicals to America's non-voters
LBC's Cross Question with Iain Dale hosts a Scottish parliamentary elections special panel featuring SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, Labour MP Melanie Ward, Conservative Shadow Scotland Secretary Andrew Bowie, and stand-up comedian Susie McCabe, recorded ahead of the May 7 Holyrood election.
Cross Question with Iain Dale puts Colin Seymour, David Simmonds, Poppy Coburn, and Luke Akehurst on the same panel for a live phone-in on religion, politics, Brexit, the Southport inquiry, and net zero.
This episode analyzes the immediate political and international impacts of a recent event involving Trump, focusing on its effects on global stability, the Iranian regime, and domestic U.S.
A panel discussion on LBC's Cross-Question explores Donald Trump's character and political impact, featuring guests including a former British diplomat, a business leader, and London political figures.
Greg Hans, Stella Tsantekidou, David Wooding, and Ava Vidal spend much of Cross Question on LBC arguing over Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and whether the UK should take any military role after the Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper hosted a summit of more than 40 nations.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of female politicians and commentators to answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators to answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on current political issues, starting with a question about government inaction on fuel prices.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators discussing listener questions on UK politics and defence issues.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators who debate listener questions on Trump's strategy and UK foreign policy.
Ian Dale opens Tuesday's Cross Question with Fatima Ibrahim, John Trickett, Wendy Morton, and Spencer Owen, and makes clear that callers and texts will shape the discussion.
Cross Question with Iain Dale on LBC convenes Conservative MP Simon Hoare, Labour MP Joe Powell, writer and broadcaster Emma Trimble, and former Labour advisor James Mathieson to debate the Iran crisis, UK defence planning, and Keir Starmer's leadership.
The panel opens on the Straits of Hormuz.
A live panel opens the hour.
Ian Dale opens the panel with Kiki McDonagh, Lord Maurice Glassman, Dr Ellie Chowns, and James Ball.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators to answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week, starting with a question about Reform UK's new frontbench.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and journalists to answer listener questions on the biggest UK political stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on UK politics.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
A political debate show where a panel of politicians and commentators answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a political debate panel with two Conservative and two Labour guests, answering listener questions on current UK political issues.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
A political panel debate show where host Iain Dale and guests answer listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
A panel of US and UK political commentators debate listener questions on American politics, including ICE and foreign policy.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators debating listener questions on the week's biggest stories, starting with Trump's Iran policy.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators to answer listener questions, beginning with a discussion on International Holocaust Memorial Day.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and journalists answering listener questions on UK political news.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on the biggest stories of the week.
Iain Dale hosts a panel of politicians and commentators answering listener questions on the week's biggest political stories.
A political panel discusses whether Amendment 25 should be invoked to remove Donald Trump from the presidency, comparing his actions to Joe Biden's.
A political panel discussion on LBC's Cross-Question explores whether the current Conservative Party situation is analogous to Labour's split with the SDP in the 1980s, focusing on electoral strategy and centrist politics.
A political panel discussion on LBC's Cross-Question addresses a listener's question about whether the Chief Constable of West Midlands should resign following a critical report and the Home Secretary's loss of confidence.
A panel discussion on LBC's Cross-Question explores whether Western nations should exercise caution regarding involvement in Iran and the Middle East, considering historical interventions and current geopolitical dynamics.
A panel of UK political figures and experts takes a call from an Iranian listener in the UK who describes the dire economic and social conditions in Iran under sanctions and asks when the international community will intervene.