Always Worth Saying’s Question Time Review

Question Time 21st October 2021

The Panel:

Andrew Bowie (Conservative)
Anas Sarwar (Labour)
Kate Forbes (SNP)
Heather McGregor (Edinburgh Business School)
Brian Cox (Actor)

Venue: Glasgow

More restrictions to prevent a winter wave of Covid?

Andrew Bowie (Conservative) wanted more vaccine rollout and more normal living. Tell your friends to go out and get the vaccine. They can’t get it, responded Bruce (chair). That’s changed Andrew assured us. And wear a mask. “In Parliament?” smirked Bruce. Oh, yes, Andrew had been watching television and more of his colleagues were now wearing masks in the House of Commons.

“I think it’s a mess, an absolute mess,” said Brian Cox (actor), coughing theatrically. We have to get vaccinated. Scotland was better than England. In the south, there was a lot of “headless chicken activity.” Brian had coronavirus and for him it hadn’t been too bad. Committed socialist and working-class hero comrade Brian Cox is a New York resident with a second home in London’s exclusive Holland Park. From where, in the interests of equality, he sent his children to the exclusive £40,000 a year St Paul’s School.

Capitalism hasn’t been too bad for him either!

Anas Sarwar (Labour) noted Scotland’s earlier back to school spike. He wanted Scotland to do better than being a bit better than Boris Johnson and the English. Quizzed on his plan B, he preferred plan A but with more than just wearing a mask.

A lady in the audience said people with Covid were phoning 111 and having a long wait. It wasn’t fit for purpose. Thirty thousand people descending on Glasgow for cop26, is that a good idea? Asked a gentleman. Bruce moved rapidly on.

Heather McGregor (Edinburgh Business School) wanted fewer restrictions. Educational restrictions were stricter for her than for colleagues in England. It was bad for business. People were coming from all over the world to study in Scotland and weren’t getting value for money.

A gentleman in the audience criticised Anas Sarwar just for the sake of it. Hmm.

The universities are a rip off said a young lady in the audience without actually using the phrase ‘rip off.’

Ingrid asked about spiking of young women on nights out, sometimes with needles. Ingrid had never felt so unsafe as a woman going out and about. It’s very rude to comment on a lady’s size but the word ‘harpoon’ sprang to at least one viewer’s mind.

Heather has an app. When you’re drugged and unconscious you press a button (24/7) and help comes looking for you. Kate Forbes (SNP) wanted a change in culture. She has a lot of men in her life. The quiet ones are the worst! She wanted men to change.

Public school girl Kate was educated at an International School in India and graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge. She is presently the SNP MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch.

The accessibility of the drug was what concerned Brian. “No one is looking at that element.” Where do they get it from? No one is talking about what the drug is and how accessible it is.

Culture, said Anas, sexual misogyny wasn’t in the recent Scottish hate crime bill and that was a mistake.

Gender-based violence doesn’t just affect women, said a lady in the audience. Men get jabbed and their drinks spiked too, she said. And occasionally hit over the head with a rolling pin, your humble author recalls.

Andrew Bowie was ashamed. He admitted he had no idea. We know that Andrew, you’re an MP.

As cop26 approaches would you put the economy or the environment first?

There was an Acorn project, said Kate. A mere billion pounds of English taxpayer’s money would have gone to the North of Scotland to capture and store carbon. It had been turned down. Kate said this was “jaw-dropping.”

But, replied Andrew, the Greens who keep Kate’s SNP in power in Scotland are against carbon capture. Ahhhh!

Do Puffins think Scotland should pay the rest of us reparations for the warming caused by North Sea oil and gas? I don’t believe in global warming but I will take their money off them anyway which, let’s face it, might as well be the motto of 90% of the attendees at cop26.

Brian got himself all bothered. It’s not a party political issue. Deep shit, he said. We have to make sacrifices, howled the millionaire regular transatlantic flier with homes on two continents. Think about the planet, he wailed.

Somebody said, “Now!” Silly tart.

Climate change doesn’t recognise borders, mused Anas. Save the planet but not by making the same mistakes as with the demise of the coal mining industry. Change rhetoric into actual action. The trains and bins in Glasga are going on strike during cop26. Same mistake as in the coal mines after all.

The next question wondered about further protection for politicians after last week’s terrible events in Leigh-on-Sea.

Anas has had threats. He played the race card. Unlike the rest of us, he’d been punched as a teenager. His mother had been threatened when his father had been about to be elected as the first Muslim MP in Scotland. How could anyone dislike the Sarwars? Hmm.

Privately educated comrade Anas Sarwar (£12,000 a year Hutcheson’s Grammar School) led the Scottish Labour Party to its worst-ever Scottish parliamentary election results in May 2021. The Labour Party only received 20% of the vote and Mr Sawar lost the seat he was contesting but was elected anyway via a regional party list. Although Puffins might suspect Anas to be one of the Clackmannanshire Sarwars, the clan originate from Pakistan.

Three important things to note about that place:

It is one of the most corrupt countries on earth.
It is a Muslim country.
Primary loyalty is to the extended family – a clan structure made more intense by generations of forced first cousin marriage.

The unpleasant tale of the Sawar clan in the West of Scotland is told in a QT Review biography here.

Anas Sarwar’s father, Chaudhry Mohammad, was a Westminster MP who passed the seat onto Anas (who managed to lose it) when he gave up his British passport and returned to Pakistan to become Governor of the Punjab. There, amongst other things, he set up the Sarwar Foundation. Puffins will be pleased to hear a branch of the Sarwar Foundation exists in Glasgow and is happy to take your donation.

According to their website, a donation of £12,000 will build a ‘water filtration plant’. Or will it? On a recent fundraising trip to the United States, a $15,000 donation would drill a well.

In a 2nd June 2021 article in Peshawar’s prestigious Frontier Post entitled “Sarwar Foundation Humiliates Pakistan in America”, Jalil Afridi writes,

Washington DC: Governor Punjab Chaudry Muhammad Sarwar recently visited the United States and did an excellent job of humiliating Pakistan but he made excellent money to the tune of 40 thousand dollars for his NGO Sarwar Foundation. Chaudry Sahib pimps around the country in America [asking] Pakistani American businessmen to write Bank Cheques [to] the name of the governor’s wife.

Quelle surprise! The Frontier Post goes on to allege that a Mr Johnny Bashir, US president of PTI, donated ten thousand dollars while asking Sarwar for help in setting up an e-payment platform in Pakistan.

As well as Washington, there were fundraisers in Texas (where the Sarwars attended a relative’s wedding), Kansas, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Another edition of the Frontier Post notes that the expenditure involved in drilling a well is only $1,000.^[1] Mr Sawar’s spokesman was kind enough to explain the other $14,000 was “the cost of the land” which sounds a lot for a well-sized patch of dust in an arid part of Pakistan. No wonder that other Mohammed has to do all that walking weighed down with buckets!

Although claiming to raise money for ‘Marcus Rashford inspired’ children’s breakfasts across Glasgow^[2] the vast majority of the Sarwar Foundations Scottish raised funds^[3], 88% according to their accounts filed on 21st September 2020, goes on ‘international projects’. i.e. sent to Pakistan. The trustees of the Scottish Sawar Foundation include A Sarwar and P Sarwar. All the trustees have Muslim names, their bankers are the Habib Bank Zurich Plc.

Their independent examiners are DA Accountants of Spiersbridge Business Park, Glasgow. DA being a Mr Dinesh Hallan.^[4]

As for Mr Sawar’s wife, Perveen, she is described on the Scottish charity’s website as,

the driving force behind the Sarwar Foundation. She was born in Pakistan and moved to Scotland at the age of four. She has devoted her life to charitable projects, and returned to Pakistan in 2013. She is passionate about women’s empowerment and established HunarGahs (skill training centres), to enable women to learn skills, go on to start successful businesses and find suitable employment to support their families and make their lives better.

Did somebody mention ‘skill centres’? One of the Sawar Foundation’s partners is NRS International Fzco which ‘manufactures and distributes relief items for humanitarian aid and public health sectors’. It is not a charity but a business, based in Jabel Ali Free Zone in Dubai. According to documents dated 2016 their managing director is Farhaj Sarwar.^[5]

NRS International buy their manufactures from H. Sheikh Noor-ud-Din & Sons (HSNDS) which is a manufacturing facility in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.

According to Dun and Bradstreet Business Directory, HNDNS’s annual revenue is $23 million. They are in the administration of human resources, public administration and the administration of public health sectors^[6]. They are not a charity. They are a business.

Forget about Sheikh Noor-ud-Din and his sons (who were characters in 14th Century Kashmiri mysticism), HNDNS’s Chief Executive Officer is Farhan Sarwar. The directors named by Dun & Broadstreet are Furqan Sarwar, Ahmer Sarwar and Farhaj Sarwar.

The manufacturing plant in Lahore started life in 1966 as clan chief Sheikh Muhammad Sarwar’s textiles and tent business^[7]. More recently, it has expanded into the very profitable humanitarian, foreign aid and healthcare sectors.

As for the sewing machine equipped skill centres, Parveen boasts of 150 such ‘HunarGahs’, many of them in prisons ^[8]. In effect, they feed low paid female textile workers into the Sarwar’s business interests.

A short, direct and profitable line connects the Sawar’s political, ‘charity’ and commercial interests both in Scotland and in Pakistan. All of this is in the public domain. It is disgraceful that the UK mainstream media refuses to cover the issue.

The bread and butter of SNP Kate’s job was meeting people. She has been a victim of online abuse, having been targeted by liberals because of her Christian faith and stout defence of unborn babies and those TBTB might want to euthanise. Speaking of hate, at this point we shall pause to remind Puffins that the SNP was founded by Nazis, bigots and fascists. Founding father Arthur Donaldson was pictured with the Hitler Youth. Another founding father, Arthur Dewar Gibb, hated the Irish and was a self-proclaimed fascist who quoted Hitler in his speeches.

In the shorter term, there will have to be an approach that triages in the same way that doctor’s surgeries do, said Heather, making about as much sense as Steve Bruce but without being as good looking.

Referring to Mr Amess, what comes across is a man who was very ecumenical in his beliefs, he had close relations with our Muslim brethren, Brian said. Erm. Somebody whisper it to him.

The final question asked how embarrassing was it going to be for Gleasa to be on the international stage during cop26?

Anas remembered that the busses were going on strike as well as the trains and bins. Kate mentioned the place is covered in graffiti.

It’s supposed to be about the environment and the place is full of rubbish, an observant lady in the audience observed.

And also full of Glaswegians your humble author felt obliged to add, shaking his head sagely.