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 There's no amount of money for which I would go through those two recording hours again. At one stage I nearly walked out." The following week, Will Self appeared as a guest. Self, one of the most frequent guests on "HIGNFY", said that he would not appear on the show again either. He said, "I'm afraid that without the reality element, the programme has become just like any other pseudo-panel contest, where funny fellows sit behind desks cracking jokes. Moreover, in the post-Hutton Inquiry era, the BBC seems to have lost its bottle so far as edgy satire is concerned: