Fiona Bruce tried to keep the show steady as the audience refused to follow the usual script, but her stunned pause said more than any answer.

Fiona Bruce’s jaw dropped when she was confronted by how left-wing and anti-war the audience (Image: BBC)

This is the moment when BBC stalwart Fiona Bruce’s jaw dropped when she was confronted by how left-wing and anti-war the audience at a particular British city were.

After a one-sided debate by the Kettering audience on the merits of Trump’s action in Iran, specifically a question on “Why are we being dragged into war without a plan?”, Bruce asked for a show of hands based on whether “This is a war Britain should be getting involved with?”

She was flabbergasted when only around six brave souls put their hands up, out of around one hundred audience members in shot. Bruce was left spluttering: “OK, a handful I would say, not many.”

Bruce quickly turned to Iran expert Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute think tank and asked where he sees the conflict going in terms of regime change.

“The entire leadership has been obliterated, it’s in complete tumult. You saw Trump say we have identified certain successors within the regime and we’ve killed all of them.”

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He continued, “That’s one of the reasons I’m concerned about the lack of thinking and planning about what’s happening next.

“There is a world, I think, in which the change to this regime is positive and good and something sensible emerges out of this. A more democratic Iran.”

Joshi went on to express his desire for such a new regime to emerge in Iran, but outlined the current problems in suitable successors to the raft of officials so far killed in the conflict coming forward.

He expressed his fear that the entire state could “disintegrate” and there “must be a plan to run the country in the months ahead.”

However stark the lack of diversity of opinion in the Kettering Question Time audience would appear, their overall opinion does seem to be backed up by recent data.

Bruce was flabbergasted when only around six brave souls put their hands up (Image: BBC)

Polling carried out by YouGov on 2 March shows the British public opposed the Iran strikes by 49% to 28% in favour.

Party political allegiance significantly affected the likelihood of supporting the attacks, with the majority of Reform voters, 58%, in favour and 49% of Tories. However, Labour were 63% opposed, Lib Dems 64% and Greens 70%.

However, when it comes to the use of British military bases by the US, a survey in February found 58% of Britons opposed, whereas since the initial strikes this opposition has fallen to 50%.

The topic of diplomatic messaging was less clear-cut, with only 21% of the public in favour of condemning the attacks against 12% who believe America should have been praised by the UK and 45% who said the UK should neither condemn nor praise the attacks.

Britons are split on whether regime change will occur in Iran, with 37% believing it is likely, 32% unlikely and 31% don’t know.

A majority of people, 52%, think PM Sir Keir Starmer is handling his relationship with Trump “badly” and just 34% think he has handled the present conflict “well.”

In terms of Britain’s military stance towards the present conflict, the largest group, 46%, believed the UK’s involvement should be “purely defensive, tasked with shooting down drones and defending civilian areas and UK military facilities.”