PIERS MORGAN says Andrew Billen

Parkinson, a good writer but not an educated one, once said of a guest that he had “few equals and no peers”. I’d offer a similar befuddled compliment to my nominee, who is actually called Piers. Although his name will always be prefaced by “disgraced ex-editor”, the thing about Morgan is that he, like Parkinson, is a hack. On You Can’t Fire Me, he proved he still knows what questions to ask. On Britain’s Got Talent he demonstrated a contempt for showbiz platitude yet an easiness with showbiz types. He would not, as his memoirs revealed, be afraid to let us know whom he detested. And his conduct at the Mirrorproved he is unembarrassable. And that would a first for a British chat show host.

KIRSTY YOUNG says Paul Hoggart

All Parky’s rivals have had to define themselves against him, which is why they’re mostly “Look-at-me!” gag-sprinklers who compete with their guests for attention. Parky could be horribly sycophantic, but his USP was that his empathetic fascination with celebs put them at ease and allowed surprisingly direct questions. In fact, he’s always been a bit of big girl’s blouse, and his peculiar virtues might best be found in a female. Personally, I would ram-raid Radio 4 and snatch cheery Mariella Frostrup or, better still, the sultry-voiced Kirsty Young who has really grown into her role on Desert Island Discs.

A BISCUIT TIN AND A COMPUTER says Caitlin Moran

In the early Nineties interview show Star Test, celebrities would sit on a chair in, as I recall, an empty mansion, and pick a number from a multiple-choice computer screen. The “choose five words which best describe you” bit was always good. Most pop stars would choose “sensitive”, even when we all knew they were off their tits on cocaine and having sex with twinks in ball-gags.

Likewise, Smash Hits magazine’s “Biscuit Tin” interview – a tin full of questions, which pop stars randomly picked from – always cut straight to the heart of the matter, from “What have you got in your pockets?” to “What job did your grandfather have?”

RUPERT EVERETT says Alex O’Connell

Last year’s fabulously snarky biography Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins showed that Everett has more friends in high places than a man on a stag night trip to K2. He has the rare ability to reveal bitchily the grottier side of celebrity without getting frozen out of the inner circle. It’s our best chance of getting a proper interview with Madonna (his old mucker) that won’t involve her talking in pure Kabbalah. So he’ll bring in the names and force honesty while running his fingers through his expensively ruffled hair and doing his splendid Rupie pout. And I bet he has important opinions about sofa fabric.

WILL SELF says Helen Rumbelow

All our talk show hosts talk far too much, often drowning out their guests. I am suggesting a whole new approach to filling Parkinson’s shoes by nominating someone who is both silent, and slightly intimidating, thereby embarrassing his celebrity guests into blathering nervously to fill the void. Chat show hosts should be all ice, not hot air: a cross between the Queen and J. D. Salinger. In practice, this means Will Self. And to take this idea further, for budget channels, what about the head of a contemplative order of monks? Or, best of all, someone wearing a mask with “chat show host” written on it in felt-tip?

ED REARDON says Chris Campling

As a Radio 4 comedy creation he is not, strictly speaking, a real human being, but then neither is Parky, is he? Besides giving the world’s most failed writer a regular income (Elgar the cat will be able to enjoy all of his dinner), the gig would enable Reardon to exact revenge on everyone who had been more successful. Which means everyone, 12-year-old literary agents, uncaring librarians, bank managers and his chum Jaz Mulvane, whom Reardon will book for the show – and then cancel at the last minute. Revenge (sound effect: tappity tap tap) is a dish best eaten (tap tappity) clod – damn – cold.

DAVID DIMBLEBY says David Chater

The obvious choice would be David Dimbleby. He’s avuncular, supremely relaxed and capable of dealing with anything that might be thrown at him. Not many aspiring chat show hosts can claim to have interviewed the future King of England. And if there was any danger of his being soft on guests, the audience could always ask their own questions at the end. Trouble is, he may be too grand. There were rumours that he was shortlisted for the chairmanship of BBC, so asking him to slum it in light entertainment would be like asking William Rees-Mogg to mud wrestle. Pity, though.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK says Kevin Maher

The bearded Slovenian philosopher, media pundit, heavy-hitting psycho-analyst and author of such works as Interrogating the Real, can go to places that other hosts only dream of – literally. Unafraid of confrontation (he served in the Yugoslav Army) and with a near limitless grasp of pop symbolism, he will probe fearlessly his guests’ subconscious minds and thus interrogate Ewan McGregor on the nature of human happiness, discuss childhood faecal obsessions with Nicole Kidman, and deftly retrieve from George Clooney the hidden memories of unspoken Oedipal desires towards his mother.

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