Question Time 30th September 2021
The Panel:
George Eustace (Conservative)
Wes Streeting (Labour)
Amy Hart (Influencer)
Lord Bilimoria (CBI)
Ella Whelan (Journalist)
Venue: Birmingham
Post-Brexit petrol shortage, lorry drivers!
We were warned, said Wesley Streeting (Labour). Up-skill our own people while encouraging immigration. George should apologise.
Turbulence in the supply chain, said George Eustace (Conservative) un-apologetically. As for HGV drivers, they’re in their fifties. They’ve been locked down and they’d rather stay there with their families. Improve working conditions and tease them back.
Chair Fiona Bruce intervened, there aren’t shortages in other countries. There’s been a surge in petrol sales, AKA panic buying, responded George.
George Eustace is the Conservative MP for Camborne and Redruth and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Public school boy George was educated at Truro Cathedral School before attending Cornwall College and working on the family farm. A former member of Ukip, George stood unsuccessfully for the party in the 1999 European elections before becoming a campaign director of the anti-Euro ‘No’ campaign.
By 2005 he was a member of Conservative Party leader Michael Howard’s press office. After which he became David Cameron’s press secretary and then a PR guru with Portland Communications. George was elected to Parliament in 2010. His wife and former secretary Katy Taylor-Richards is also a PR wallah having graduated from the London School of Economics and worked for the Daily Express and the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange where she was Head of Press.
An Irish woman in the audience gave us a quick audit of the alarming shortages in other EU countries before blaming it all on Brexit anyway. A chap with a beard said they won’t come from the continent as we made them so uncomfortable when we voted Leave.
Queues of cars panic buying at midnight in London made Lord Bilimora (CBI) sick. It was the Government’s fault for not listening to Lord Bilimoria, he concluded.
Ella Whelan (journalist), the voice of experience, is an expert in such things as one of her friends drove a lorry for years. The conditions are awful. The pay is low.
No, it isn’t. Advertised around here, four days on four days off – £900 plus.
George had a truck load of initiatives, such as speeding up testing of new HGV drivers and short term visas for foreigners. He mentioned the turkey sector. Thus far, bit of a silver lining for the turkey community one might have thought.
Bruce blamed it all on Brexit and observed that all of the carefully chosen audience did too. Another Irish chap in the tiny and socially distanced gathering suggested shorter more localised supply chains. I’m not going into that, snapped Bruce, moving rapidly on to the next question.
How can women trust the police? A reference to the case of Sarah Everard whose murderer was sentenced today.
Ella Whelan pointed out other allegations against the convicted man which had been ignored. Having said that, it was important not to exaggerate the threat that women face. Women’s liberation suggested women shouldn’t be afraid to be on the streets.
Wes Streeting hoped Cressida Dick was listening. He seemed to blame the culture within the police service as well as the actions of an individual. Another expert, his sister used to be a special constable.
A man in the audience blamed the police. They have got away with so much for so long, he claimed. Other policemen know what’s going on but cover it up.
99% of the police are good and are there for the right reason said a lady in glasses.
Amy Hart (influencer) wanted more psychological tests and police officers to go around in twos. We shouldn’t be scared but at the end of the day ……
Amy is a former contestant on Love Island and the second most famous media personality to hail from Worthing in Sussex. According to a friend, her Love Island experience consisted of entering on day one and ‘coupling’ with Anton. On days 2, 5,14 and 22 the 28-year-old coupled with Curtis. On day 37 she walked, although possibly no longer still able to do so in a straight line.
Previously an air hostess and subsequently an entrepreneur and influencer, funeral director’s daughter Amy has had her life chronicled by the publication of record that is the Worthing Herald. A Worthing girl through and through, the Herald trumpets her dizzy rise from Thomas A’Becket to Worthing High to Worthing College, Pizza Hut, Muldoons, Limings, the Worthing Musical Comedy Society, British Airways, Love Island and now Question Time.
Muldoons is a cafe, Limings a Mexican restaurant.
Her family live on Hillside Avenue, Broadwater, wedged between Worthing College and a golf course. There, a three-bedroom semi-detached bungalow fetches well over half a million pounds. Sweetheart, forget about exhausting yourself with media work. Sell your house, move to Burnley and keep the difference. There might not be any glass in the windows but at least you’ll be able to retire.
Just prior to her entry on Love Island, father Ian breathlessly told The Herald,
“Amy wants to be a people person. Let’s not dress it up: she will hopefully get some kind of career out of this, but she said from the outset before she stepped onto the plane that she would still support and do as much voluntary work as she could for both Chestnut Tree House and the Ferring Country Centre.”
In their weekly Too Much Information column, Worthing’s thunderer informs us Amy has been for a fertility MOT and is thinking about freezing her eggs, her Anti-Müllerian hormone level being 8.5, well shy of the optimum 20.
A wistful Amy said,
“I would love to meet someone, get married, have kids naturally, fine. That is my dream idea. But if that doesn’t happen, I have got my insurance policy.”
Elsewhere and somewhat forgotten, tragic Amy Winehouse when asked where she’d like to be five years from now, replied married with a couple of children. Likewise, lying neglected in Greta Thunberg’s daft documentaries, the flat-chested Scandinavian temptress says it’s her ambition to go to university and then get married and start a family.
Memo to mainstream and social media. Respect our young women as wives and mothers to be, instead of treating them like prostitutes. Might that even make it safer for them to be on the streets at night?
On the political side, Ms Hart was recently photographed on a bracing seafront with QT Review favourite Anneliese Dodds and Worthing Labour leader Beccy Cooper. The Herald labelled Worthing’s second finest with that ominous moniker – ‘activist.’ During this week’s Labour Party conference she hosted a Q&A with Kier Starmer.
Elsewhere, Miss Hart has been described as a ‘theatre-loving daughter’. Photos of her beauty pageant outfits were aired on Love Island: Aftersun. Amy’s father has also done a bit of filming and was on Pointless with his son Sam. Eagle-eyed Puffins will recall the south coast beauty herself was a member of the Worthing Musical Comedy Society.
Away from desperate attempts at fame, Worthing’s number two has been immortalised by Horace, the seaside resort’s very own Banksyesque graffiti artist.
Horace stalks the streets of the Sussex town by night clutching his brush and leaving his mark in the form of representations of notable Worthingonians (such as Simon Mayo and Gwendoline Christie) on famous buildings. CBBC’s Dave Benson Phillips has appeared on the wall of the New Amsterdam pub, Masterchef winner Kenny Tutt is in Warwick Street.
As can be seen here, Amy received the treatment next to a wheelie bin behind Debenhams in South Street. On hearing the news, she excitedly shared the image with her 1.2 million Instagram followers adding,
“ITS ONLY ME ITS ONLY AMZ! Wow. Just wow. There’s so many messages and I keep trying to reply but then more come through.”
Not much paint having been wasted on clothes, Chairman of The Worthing Society Susan Belton whispered that Horace’s daub ‘had connotations of a lady of the night’ at a planning meeting to decide its fate.
The South Coast town’s number one? Worthing’s most famous media personality? Step forward and take a bow Mr WorthingGooner, an accomplished wordsmith of this very parish.
Lord Bilimoria has two daughters. His expertise extends as far as having had a great uncle as a police commissioner in Bombay. He wanted neighbourhood police officers cycling around, preferably armed.
George was looking at things such as CCTV and designing out crime.
Most of the victims of violence are men, said nobody. Added to which, nobody said bring back capital punishment.
Should we be ending the charitable status of private schools? “George?” asked Fiona Bruce (Haberdashers’ Askes). No, replied George (Truro Cathedral School). Yes, thought Amz, state schools should be as good as the private schools that wouldn’t be her personal choice for her children. Having spent £20,000 on cosmetic surgery before entering the Love Island villa, one presumes Amz can no longer afford the fees. Seven percent of the population are privately educated but they have 39% of the top jobs, Amz reminded us. And 50% representation around tonight’s QT table she forgot to add.
Bruce mentioned privately educated Comrade Sir Kier Starmer’s speech to the Labour Party (when he was heckled by supporters of privately educated comrade Jeremy Corbyn). The same age as your humble reviewer, Starmer will have attended Reigate Grammar School between 1974 and 1981. It became a fee-paying independent school in 1976. Amz announced Starmer a genuine guy, passionate about change.
Ella focused on quality. Education was not just about preparation for the jobs market but to interest the young in new things. She didn’t care about private education. There needed to be a plan to improve state education. There was too much bureaucracy and much of that was Ofsted driven.
Ella Whelan is a freelance writer, public speaker and columnist in Spiked magazine. She grew up on an inner-city London estate and is of a working-class Irish background. Prior to a career in journalism, she studied English Literature at the University of Sussex. Her speciality is feminism.
Wesley Streeting was the first member of his family to go to university. Proof that education is not about preparation for the jobs market as he’s never had a job. Wesley wanted private education to be redundant as state education should be just as good.
In a comprehensive QT Review biography from his December 2020 appearance, Wesley Paul William Streeting MP comes across as an unpleasant chap, once involved in a nasty corridor spat with Dianne Abbot which left Ms Abbott ‘shellshocked’ and witnesses ‘worried for Ms Abbott’s well being.’
The current Member of Parliament for Ilford North and Shadow Secretary of State for Child Poverty, since graduating from Selwyn College Cambridge, Mr Streeting has never had employment, merely shuffled through non-jobs in politics, political advocacy and a bewildering array of quangos many of them concerning young people. At Stonewall, he was Head of Education. That’s the Stonewall which publishes ‘An Introduction to Supporting LGBT Young People – A Guide for Schools’. Page 17 of the guide encourages children to meet strangers from the internet:
“Meeting strangers from the internet is extremely appealing as it doesn’t share any of the threats that talking to people in your social circle has.”
Mr Streeting’s ‘partner’ is Joseph Dancey yet another ‘communications and public affairs advisor’ and former government special advisor.
Lord Bilimoria (H.E.H. Nazin VII’s Hyderabad Public School) mentioned that not sending your children to state school frees up resources for those who do. He wanted state schools to be better and, in passing, mentioned children should have been kept in school during the lockdowns.
A lady in the audience asked the killer question. Are the panel’s children educated privately? Bruce pounced on George Eustace. “Not initially,” he responded diplomatically. Fiona Bruce (not her real name) has two children, Sam and Mia Sharrocks, and employed the same nanny for twenty years when they were younger. Bruce forgot to ask the other panellists if their children were at private school.
Final question, which politicians would make a good James Bond or a good Bond villain? Priti Patel as a villain suggested Wesley. Is that a bit racist? Andy Burnham should be Bond, said Amz, instead of his present role as Scott Tracy off Thunderbirds. Donald Trump would be a good villain, chuckled Lord Bilimoria to the great amusement of no one except Lord Bilimoria.
A QT Review biography of Karan Fariddon Bilimoria, Barron Bilimoria, CBE, DL, FCA, can be found here. The highlights being his links with loss-making Cobra beer and the company’s associated consultancy fees to Bilimoria & Bilimoria LLP. His financial interest in British Virgin Islands based Mulberry Holdings Asset Limited. And his ‘charity’ which obliged the following immortal line to be included in his accounts:
“The Board acknowledges the ongoing advice of our lawyers Bates Wells that the provision of beer does not in itself constitute a charitable activity.”
His Lordship is President of the CBI and Chancellor of Birmingham University.
As we discovered previously with comrade Lisa Nandy’s Indian Marxist father, calculating the sub-continent’s public school fees can be complex. Lord Bilimoria is an old boy of His Exalted Highness Nazin VII’s Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet. The fees page of their website doesn’t inform of the fees, rather the sliding scale of fines for not paying them on time. Presumably not cheap, the school covers 122 acres and appears to have its own polo team and airfield.
And Boris Bond he added, cackling like a monologuing megalomaniac inside an entirely silent hollowed-out volcano.
© Always Worth Saying 2021
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