Question Time 25th November 2021
The Panel:
Robert Buckland (Conservative)
Eluned Morgan (Labour)
Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru)
Timandra Harkness (Broadcaster)
Guto Harri (Broadcaster)
Venue: Cardiff
The first question referenced the loss of life near Calais the previous day.
Shock, human tragedy, began Robert Buckland (Conservative). He had a solution. The problem goes wider than the English Channel and the French. He wanted to embrace all of Europe and, I suspect, dump a load of illegal immigrants on them instead of on Dover. He christened this new policy as ‘doing something in a more coordinated way.’
All were human beings, said Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru). She objected to the use of the word ‘migrant’. Without knowing anything about any of them, Liz decided all of them were legitimate refugees. We need proper processing sites in France. She decided all of this was ‘our’ shame.
A gentleman in the audience suggested stopping the logistics; preventing the sale of boats and movement of big inflatables to the coast.
Timandra Harkness (broadcaster) noticed a lack of control. We need to know who’s coming into the country and why. She wanted people to apply for asylum over here, over there.
“An absolute last resort,” said Guto Harri (broadcaster). He was disgusted and objected to the word ‘migrant’ too. Here’s a better one for you Guto, ‘illegal immigrants’. Guto repeated the safe passageways line whose desired destination is mass, uncontrolled, unlimited, illegal immigration.
A covered lady in the audience blamed Brexit. She claimed all the illegal immigrants coming here have lost everything. Have they?
Eluned Morgan (Labour) wanted to focus on who these people are and how desperate they must be. Why are they desperate? They can stay in France. They’re safe in France. She wanted a legitimate channel for uncontrolled immigration.
Eluned Morgan (Labour, not her real name) is Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services, a member of the Senedd and a member of the House of Lords. Properly monikered Mair Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely, she has also been a Member of the European Parliament, being elected for the Labour Party as its youngest Brussels member when aged 27.
Mair Eluned being difficult to spell and pronounce, shall we, in order to avoid offence, call her Kevin? I think we should. According to Wiki, Kevin was educated at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf in Llandaff. After leaving, erm, ah, oh, St Kevin’s Academy, Kevin continued her schooling privately at the rather grandly titled United World College of the Atlantic in nearby Llantwit Major. As such, Comrade Kevin was educated at the same $55,000 (yes, charged in US Dollars) a year exclusive fee-paying school as Comrade Stephen Kinnock’s children.
After the United World College of The Atlantic, Kevin graduated from Hull University with a degree in European Studies.
Before her early elevation to the European Parliament, Kevin had a job. Puffins will be unsurprised to learn it was at the BBC but surprised to hear it was in the ‘Factual’ Programmes Department.
Kevin’s husband is the Rev Dr Rhys Jenkins, a full-time GP and part-time minister of religion. Her father was also a clergyman, the late Reverend Robert Harman Morgan OBE.
How can there be a safe pathway? Wondered Fiona Bruce (chair).
Possibilities in France, said Kevin.
But the French government won’t have that, responded the chair. Why can’t they claim Britsh asylum from France, asked Bruce?
Because they’re safe in France, replied Robert.
Why can’t they apply from Syria? Asked Bruce, increasing the radius for mass immigration by a few thousand miles.
I’ll interrupt this circular argument by reminding the panel and Bruce that you’re not a refugee unless you’re seeking refuge. i.e. you have left your native country. As soon as you reach a safe country you have found refuge and are not a refugee anymore. If you move from the first safe country you reach, you cease to be a refugee and become an illegal immigrant.
Liz Saville Roberts wanted God to help us as climate change will make the French even more incompetent.
London born Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru) is the MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd in North Wales. A graduate of Aberystwyth University, Liz worked in Welsh-medium higher education and was a local councillor from 2004 and an MP since 2015.
Question two. Adrian wanted to know if the PM was OK. Adrian has a two year who is being potty trained. He tries his best but has an accident every day. Potty training is not being helped by a lorry crisis and panic buying. But he is getting better, unlike Boris and the government.
Of Mr Johnson’s recent confused Peppa Pig speech, Guto Harri said the problem was that Boris uses firey effective communication rather than reading what’s actually been written on the sheets of paper for him by civil servants.
We’re fed up with the buffoon act, said Kevin, he’s losing the respect of the people of Britain. He has overpromised and underdelivered. She listed such; levelling up, the north-south divide, universal credit. She blamed Brexit. No food on the shelves, no lorry drivers, nobody to work in care homes.
Shut up you silly mare, you’re talking bollocks, said nobody, unfortunately.
A man in the audience had been counting the mentions of different parts of Britain in the famous non-speech. The north of England, thirty-odd, London twenty-odd, Wales none at all. He was very rude to Guto Harri and suggested he sodded-off back to London.
The place would be duller without Boris, said Robert Buckland. Boris has bad hair days. He is human. He has a plan and a purpose, we should let him get on with it.
Speaking of hair, we’re going to have to revisit our age of hair to age of face co-efficient. Robert’s was perilously close to a matrix busting infinity as his mid-50s face was topped by hair (possibly an early Christmas present?) obviously just out of the wrapper.
Mr Buckland is the Tory MP for South Swindon, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Robert was privately educated at St Michaels School, Llanelli (£32,400 per year), before Durham University and a career in law and politics.
Timandra didn’t know Boris but suspected he tried too hard to be popular and did too much delegating.
Liz announced we were in Cardiff and that the Tory manifesto promised Wales wouldn’t be worse off. Tragically, she went on to explain, the Welsh had been able to scrounge more off the EU than they’ve been able to subsequently scrounge off the English taxpayer. The horror.
The next question was about the cost of social care. Kevin pointed out the £86,000 payment threshold that all in England have to fund for their social care regardless of the value of their property. She pointed out the English taxpayer funds a more generous scheme for the Welsh. She also wanted the English to pay higher wages to Welsh care workers.
Someone from the care industry spoke from the audience. There wasn’t going to be a care industry in the next ten years. It was all the fault of Brexit.
Timandra wanted poor people charged less for care as they don’t live for as long. As for the loss of EU workers, she thought relying on workers from countries where the cost of living was lower wasn’t progressive. She wanted care workers and lorry drivers to be paid more. She noted non-vaccinated care workers, rather than being valued, had recently been sacked.
The chap in the audience from the care industry was put on the back foot. He said British workers wouldn’t do that sort of work. Pay them more and respect them as professionals in a career, responded Timandra.
I agree with you philosophically, said the care industry shill, but he still wanted to bring in cheap labour from abroad. To maximise his profit margin, he forgot to add.
Free school meals, exclaimed Liz Saville Roberts summoning her inner St Marcus of Rashford to answer a different question.
No, no, no, interrupted Bruce, social care.
The next question was about introducing Covid passports across the whole of the UK, as in Wales and Scotland.
There are still high rates in Wales, said Liz. She agreed with the questioner, saying the virus didn’t respect borders but then contradicted herself by adding the infection rate in her constituency is higher than elsewhere.
Timandra was against the passports, noting the Welsh legislation was passed on a technicality. She had been double vaccinated and that thought all in their mid-30s or older should think seriously about doing likewise. Having said that, you could still catch and spread the illness even if vaccinated. Passports were about forcing people to be vaccinated, rather than stopping the spread of the illness in venues, observed the impressive Ms Harkness. Force made those who were suspicious even more suspicious and becomes counterproductive.
Timandra Harkness is another BBC type. A graduate of Bulsmershe Further Education College in Reading, Ms Harkness writes and produces for media alongside her mother Linda Cotterill. She is also a stand-up comedian whose rib-cracking repertoire includes,
An independent regulator for football? OFSIDE?
Recently, Timandra completed a Bsc in Mathematics and Statistics at the Open University and gives presentations about such things. According to the JLA Agency, she will talk at your conference, or host your award ceremony, for between £3500 and £5000.
Guto agreed and was uncomfortable about how much control the state now has in our lives. Folks should decide for themselves and put the politicians back in their box. However, he was keen on the vaccine and encouraged everyone to get jabbed.
Guto Harri (not his real name) is one of the Worcestershire Pritchard-Jones’, his father being Harri Pritchard-Jones the author and psychiatrist.
West London resident Guto, is a strategic communications consultant with an 18-year career at the BBC under his belt. The Queens College Oxford, Politics, Philosophy and Economics graduate has also had positions at Liberty Global, News Corporation, his own Guto Comms Limited and with Boris Johnston’s press office when the current prime minister was mayor of London.
While at Liberty Global he was a presenter on their GB News channel, unfortunately getting the boot for taking the knee in support of rioters and looters the England team’s Black Lives Matter obsession.
Currently, he is a board member of PR firm Hawthorn Advisors. In his Hawthorn profile, he boasts that he, “Helped Rupert Murdoch rebuild the reputation of NewsUK after the phone-hacking scandal.” If you’ve ever wondered why Rupert Murdoch and all of his publications are universally popular, now you know.
Guto’s wife is Shireen Jilla, founder of the West London Mindfulness Centre. Privately educated at the £19,800 a year Putney High School, Shireen is also a graduate of Politics and Philosophy, albeit from Manchester University. In her own words, Ms Jilla describes herself as,
“An experienced journalist, writer and media advisor with a string of PR successes to her credit.”
Unfortunately, her mighty work, “The Art of Unpacking Your Life” (where Connie invites her university gang on the holiday of a lifetime), isn’t one of them and languishes as the 1,991,913th most popular book on Amazon, a bottom wrenchingly painful 1,960,617 places behind the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom.
Remember the old joke about Max Clifford and Alastair Campbell? Now equally applicable to the whole industry, it runs, “If they’re so good at PR, why does everybody hate them?”
Covid is alive and well, said Kevin. So are lots of other illnesses, interrupted Guto.
Robert said ‘no’. There was no evidence that vaccine passports ‘cut it’. If they don’t cut it then what’s the point of doing it? Passports are a policy to increase the takeup of vaccination amongst young people so that they can visit entertainment venues. Vaccination rates in England amongst the young had been a success without the use of passports.
© Always Worth Saying 2021
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
