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"Order! Order!

Today marks the climax of our Speaker Week on PM. You heard the manifestos, you thrilled to the debate (maybe) and then you voted (we hope). Thank you to all those of you who emailed in and wrote on the blog- what follows is an attempt to answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

1. Why do an alternative speaker competition at all? Why not just hear from the actual candidates for the actual post?
Yes, and, as the managers say... We did cover the Hansard Society hustings- the only public forum (so far- more coverage of today's hustings in the house on PM tonight) where the actual candidates for Speaker set out their stalls- quite extensively on Monday's PM, hearing from each of the candidates. But given that MPs defenestrated Michael Martin as part of their response to the crisis of trust arising from the expenses scandal, we thought there was more than enough room to hear from people in public life with ideas about how to change things.

2. Why did you choose the candidates you did?
My original brief to our excellent producer, Manveen, was simply to find people who make you want to turn the radio up when they start speaking. I'm sure with that in mind almost everyone will disagree with our selection for at least one of our four speakers. We approached all kinds of figures across a range of areas- in particular we tried to persuade some prominent business types to take part, without success. In the end, I was very pleased with our line up- Tim Collins, AL Kennedy, Greg Dyke and Lord Carey. Surely the ideas of an inspirational army colonel, a prize winning novelist, a former DG of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and a former Archbishop of Canterbury are of interest to anyone thinking about trust in the institutions of the nation?

3. What came out of it?
I think it was inevitable that we had a quart-into-pint-pot difficulty, and I wish we'd had even more time to continue the debate on Friday's PM. But over the week, we devoted 45 minutes to a debate that mentioned Lords reform, the kind of people who become MPs, what happens to them when they make it to Parliament, how to keep MPs in touch with the concerns of their constituents, parliamentary reform, whether it's the answer to the expenses question- and much else besides.

4. Why did we need a phone vote?
We were very keen to gauge to what degree our candidates were finding favour with the audience, and we thought an independently- verified phone vote was the most robust, inclusive and straightforward way to do this. Several correspondents to the PM blog asked if we (the ´óÏó´«Ã½) were making any money from the competition- the short answer is no. The competition was conducted in accordance with the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s own guidance on competitions.

In short- undoubtedly not a perfect, nor scientific debate, but hopefully an entertaining and thought provoking one. How SW1 compares we'll find out very soon..."

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