Why is Have I Got News for You so left wing? Ian Hislop has been swatting that charge away for 30 years
If you've watched an episode recently and come away feeling the jokes lean one way, you're far from alone — complaints about the BBC panel show's politics are nearly as old as the show itself, which has run since 1990. What's changed over the decades is mostly who's doing the complaining.
Here's the charge, and how team captain Ian Hislop answers it.
Why people say it's left wing
The perception has plenty of fuel. The show drew sustained complaints during the Conservative years over its jokes about the government and Brexit. A June 2024 episode — with Hislop, Paul Merton, guest host Alex Horne, Carol Vorderman, and Jack Dee — sparked a fresh bias row over a lengthy pile-on about Nigel Farage with no opposing voice on the panel.
And back in 2020, it was reported that incoming BBC director-general Tim Davie was weighing up axing comedy shows over perceived one-sidedness.
Hislop's standard defence
Hislop, who has captained opposite Merton since the very first episode, addressed the criticism head-on at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2020. He said critics had come to see the panel as a bunch of Momentum-inspired lefty lunatics, and offered his stock riposte — that his jokes about Boris Johnson often just quoted the Daily Telegraph:
"Just how right-wing you would like us to be?" Hislop asked at Cheltenham in 2020.
He returned to the theme in a 2024 Guardian interview, saying successive governments have leant on the BBC claiming the show is "appallingly leftwing or appallingly rightwing, depending which government it is" — with each administration discovering enormous bias against itself, specifically, while in office.
The cross-party record
Whatever you make of the jokes, the guest chair has never been a closed shop. Politicians who've actually hosted the show include:
- Boris Johnson — multiple stints in the chair, appearances widely credited with building his public profile.
- William Hague and Ann Widdecombe — Conservative regulars-turned-hosts, with Widdecombe doing it twice.
- Ed Balls, Nick Clegg, and John Prescott — Labour and Lib Dem heavyweights taking their turn.
Hislop also edits Private Eye, a magazine with a decades-long record of going after governments of every colour — and a legal bill to match.
So which is it?
That's for you to judge. The Farage episode happened; so did the decades of Labour-era complaints Hislop describes. What's beyond dispute is that the show has now spent 35 years and more than 70 series being accused of bias by somebody — and its December 2025 special, Have I Got 2025 for You, rolled on regardless.
The one consistent target, Hislop maintains, is whoever's in charge.