Simon Schama destroyed Rod Liddle over the refugee crisis on Question Time last night

In case you missed it, BBC1’s Question Time featured a panel teed up for controversy last night, and delivered on its promise.

During a debate about the appropriate response to the refugee crisis, Rod Liddle advocated dispassionate action and the prevention of further migration to the UK, calling the current climate of argument in the UK a ‘Dianification’.

Simon Schama strongly objected to this view, and countered:

What’s really contemptible, Rod, is saying emotion should have no part in how we respond...

Liddle cut Schama off, saying that he was interested “in outcomes, not in your emotion".

I’m interested in what is good for those people [migrants] and what is good for this country, not in how you feel about yourself.

Schama replied:

There’s nothing to be ashamed about having an emotional response to the suffering of four million Syrian refugees.

Do not presume to lecture me about the inadequacy of an emotional response to mass human suffering. Go back to your journalistic hackery and talk about outcomes, and turn your suburban face away from the plight of the miserable.

To watch the exchange in full, see below:

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