Question Time 9th May 2019
Panel:
Anna Soubry (Standing-At-the-Back-Looking-Mad-and-Barking-at-the-Moon Party)
Amber Rudd (Standing-on-Beachy-Head-Contemplating-Jumping-to-EULand Party)
Jonathan Reynolds (Labour Shadow Economics Secretary. Standing-Anywhere-You-Want-Me-To Party)
John Mills (Chair of Labour Leave until last year. Donated £1.65 million to Labour. Standing-At-The-Side-of-the-stage-Sobbing-into-his-Purse Party)
Nigel Farage (Standing-at-the-Front-of-the-Stage-Pissing-on-the-rest-of-Panel Party)
Venue: Northampton
Voted LEAVE 58% vs 42% on a 72% turnout.
Three Remainers vs Two Leavers. So more like even stevens tonight which didn’t stop the nutters on the QT Tweet thread bellowing “Four Leavers vs 1 Remainer!” And “Nigel Farage Again! He’s been on more times than anyone else!” (which would indicate that these people are professional twats seeing as Brucey Babes congratulated Clarke last week on being the panellist with the most appearances).
Anyone who is familiar with the plays/films “Festen” or “August, Ossage County” will know how a family gathering starts out seemingly calm and civilised can quickly crack open and descend into a multi-person brawl. As always, when one is an observer, such cracker barrelled orgies of truth telling can be highly entertaining. So it was with last night’s QT.
The main subject was Brexit. It just had to be with Soubry and NF on the panel. Our Fiona lobbed the first response to Anna who I thought had scrubbed up rather well. Coiffured hair, subtle make-up, absence of bags under the eyes and generally a rather minxy look about her. If one was Leslie Phillips on the prowl you’d see Anna across a crowded room and go “Ding Dong”. And then you’d engage in conversation with her and very quickly think “fuck me, how do I get away from this mad cow?” The audience listened quietly and respectfully to her peroration but when she hit the “People’s vote” button the shouting and heckling began. Ah, dear dear Anna. Whenever someone opposes her opinion out comes the harridan of old. It’s as if she keeps a witch’s hat under the chair and quickly dons it to become a Disney-like bogey woman frightening all the kids – the veritable Wicked Witch of the West. “You see, this is what it has come down to! We cannot have any kind of mature conversation about Brexit without it ending up in a shouting match!” Perhaps it would have been useful at that moment to remind her of that occasion on stage when Lammy was spewing hate against Brexit and Brexiteers where she was to be seen clapping merrily along like a performing seal but we wouldn’t want to spoil her argument would we, boys and girls?
Amber Rudd up next. Unlike Anna, it is impossible to eradicate the school marm from her, as if we, the parents of a wayward child, have been hauled in to be told that little Jimmy has been very naughty. “Now, come on, the headmistress’s agreement is the very best we are going to get so it is in all our interests to make sure every pupil toes the line.” Any dissent from the prepared dialogue is met with a stern “No. No. That won’t do. Come along now. We have to all pull together”. A few more years and she will transform into Margaret Rutherford.
Jonathan Reynolds is a Labour man I hadn’t seen perform before and I can see why. A whipped pussy of an MP, constantly fearing the Momentum dagger in the back, he desperately tried to fashion some kind of “neither one thing or another” or “all things to all men” policy out of the Corbyn stance on Brexit. He too got it in the neck from the audience for his “let’s return it to the people” suggestion. Poor bloke. He knows his time is up in politics and destined to be thrown on the scrap heap come the next GE.
Then, it was NF.
His simple and straightforward message that democracy must be upheld, the WA agreement was a dreadful document and that the three politicians on the panel were conniving together to stop Brexit finally broke open the forced politeness of the evening and had the audience whooping and vigorously clapping. The gloves were off. From that moment on NF held total sway with the audience and Soubry became the screeching, finger pointing harridan that we have come to know and loathe. All the familiar and tired old arguments came tripping out. THE BUS. The poster showing a line of economic migrants heading towards Europe. Funding of the Brexit Party. Every single piece of mud Soubry could pick up she flung at NF but none of it stuck. This audience was seriously woke. Even a couple of angry questioners – “Farage is a racist” and “name me one country that has got a deal under WTO rules” got very short shrift from the majority and NF easily batted them away.
John Mills provided some effective back-up to NF. As a highly successful businessman you’d think the politicians might take more note of what he had to say but these boneheads have become so fixated on staying in the EU that any counter argument is dismissed out of hand. Having watched, “Brexit, Behind the Scenes” immediately before QT it is quite apparent to me that our venerable leaders have been led by the nose, filleted and hung out to dry by Verhofstadt and his Merry Men. The inability of the U.K. to negotiate themselves out of a paper bag let alone out of the EU was never more apparent than was displayed in that programme and the quality of the QT panellists, Rudd, Soubry and Reynolds. And the terrifying thing is 99% of their fellow HoC troughers are of exactly the same poor quality.
Our Fiona is developing an unfortunate habit of trying to crack jokes. She can’t.
That’s all folks. Next week’s venue: Elgin. What chances Blackford and/or Swinson? God help us.
© Roger Ackroyd 2019
Roger’s book.
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
