In this special Riddoch Questions recorded in front of an audience at Hillhead Library on 28 May 2009, Lesley chaired an old fashioned hustings meeting. The sponsors, Amnesty International and the Federation of Small Businesses put together a panel of all the main political parties seeking election in the forthcoming European elections. A packed audience posed all the questions and the result is recorded here in a slightly longer than usual format.

Recorded in front of a live audience at a conference organised by the Hansard Society of Scotland, the panel includes Bruce Crawford, MSP and Minister for Parliamentary Business; Iain Gray, MSP and Scottish Labour leader; Sir Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP and ‘Father of the House’ and Joyce McMillan, columnist and chair of the Hansard Society Scotland Working Group.

Derek Bateman stood in for Lesley and guess what ? MPs' expenses was the hot topic.

Joining Lesley on this week’s panel: from Iceland, Halla Tomasdottir, chairman of Audur Capital and the banker through whom Bjork is channelling funds to the Icelandic government. From Ireland, Paul Sweeney, economic advisor for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and author of the book “Ireland’s Economic Success”; and the Scotsman’s business editor Peter Macmahon

 Eric Joyce, Labour MP for Falkirk, Jo Swinson, Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire and Mary Scanlon, Highlands and Islands MSP and the Scottish Conservatives’ spokesperson on health join Lesley to talk about gurkhas, equal pay and MPs' expenses.

Recorded in front of a live audience of social entrepreneurs at the S2S Trade Fair at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh, the panel includes Laurie Russell, Chair of the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition; Andy Kerr, Shadow Finance Minister and Labour spokesman on sustainable growth; Fraser Doherty, creator and owner of SuperJam at the tender age of 14 and now at 20 a top entrepreneur.