Have I Got News for You Angus Deayton as chairman, with Ian Hislop, the editor of "Private Eye", and comedian Paul Merton as team captains. Each captain was accompanied by a guest, usually a politician, journalist or comedian, or somebody particularly relevant to recent news. Merton took a break from "Have I Got News for You" during the 11th series in 1996, making only one appearance as a guest on Hislop's team. He was variously replaced as opposing team captain by Clive Anderson, Alan Davies and Eddie Izzard (with another two episodes featuring an equal-billing double act as the opponents of Hislop's team). Merton later explained
Have I Got News for You of show business that goes on in putting on a show," continued Merton. "We found very early on that it's worth seeing the questions beforehand so that you can work out your depth of ignorance. If you really don't know, you think, 'Well, I've really got to try and say something here.' It's much better to be doing that for ten or fifteen minutes before the show than be doing it when the cameras are rolling, in front of an audience, going, 'Well, who's he?'" Norman Tebbit wrote an article in "The Mail on Sunday" criticising the whole programme: 'Well,