Question Time 3rd March 2022
The Panel:
Penny Mordaunt (Conservative)
Peter Kyle (Labour)
Konstantin Kisin (Commentator)
Bridget Kendall (Journalist)
Kirsten Oswald (SNP)
Gary Neville (Pundit)
Venue: Norwich
What can be done about Ukraine, short of a war that nobody wants, was the first question. Putin does want it and we don’t, is the uncomfortable answer, especially for Ukrainians.
Laughably, Penny Mordaunt’s only suggestion was to close the eyes, rub the ears and expect the Russian military to mutiny.
Like most QT panellists, Ms Mordaunt has never had a job. After graduating in Philosophy at the University of Reading, she became a communications wallah and was a Conservative Party press officer for 14 years before being elected to the House of Commons.
In a previous edition of QT Review, we discovered that Penny says she is named after HMS Penelope and has a naval officer’s uniform hanging in her wardrobe.
Is she a Walt? Many years ago, while he was pinning a medal on my chest in Port Staveley on North Falkland island, I quizzed Task Force Commander General Sandy Woodhead on the subject. He replied that Penny is in the Royal Naval Reserve and has an honorary rank of captain for having been Minister of Defence for three months in 2019.
Having a navy link will be politically useful to Ms Mordant as she is MP for Portsmouth.
Also many years ago, I really did know a civil servant, with prospects and a young family, who realised in order to further his political ambitions within the Labour Party it would be a big help if he worked on the railway. He gave up his good job to become a guard (sorry, senior train manager). The politics were soon forgotten about, or rather replaced by capitalism, as he rose through the grades, being last spotted as something quite senior in a private sector rail franchise.
There is a moral to this story. These days, only the dregs are in parliamnet. Anybody with anything about them does something else as soon as they’ve grown out of their schoolboy or schoolgirl politics.
Bridget Kendall (Journalist) is a cardboard cut-out public school and Oxbridge BBC lifer with links to Russia. She thought a nice cup of tea and a call home from Russian PoW’s would sow a war-ending seed of doubt within the Russian public. She congratulated the international boycott which thus far has made no difference to anything.
Two loons spoke from the audience. The second suggested we listen to Putin.
Konstantine Kasin (commentator) said he was ashamed of his country (Russia). He said the West could do nothing militarily without starting World War Three. The only solution is for a negotiation brought about by a stout Ukrainian defence forcing Putin to agree to terms.
He squashed the idea that the goodness of men might cause Putin to step back. Putin’s been in power for 22 years and has complete control of the country.
Konstantin Kisin is a Russian comedian and podcaster who also writes for Andrew Neil’s Ghislaine Maxwell supporting Spectator. His wife is Alina Kisina, a Ukrainian born photographer, artist, teacher, mentor and speaker. According to herself via her website:
“[My] work is concerned with finding harmony in chaos through those universal, timeless human qualities that reach beyond location, gender and social background.”
Reaching beyond location, she has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and is the official photographer of the Kilkenny County Council summer comedy festival which, as every Puffin knows, features Nghia Mai and Colm O’Regan. To celebrate her recent birthday she posted to her blog,
“Like an animal keen to stay alive on this planet I grow new gills, wings, thumbs or whatever needed to keep riding that wave of personal evolution that leaves you no choice.”
God makes them and pairs them.
Her husband, Konstantine, sprung to prominence after being invited to sign the following contract before performing his comedy act at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Not heeding North Country raconteur and wit Bernard Manning’s advice to ‘never take a joke seriously’ the SAOC insisted,
“This contract has been written to ensure an environment where joy, love and acceptance is reciprocated by all. By signing this contract, you are agreeing to our tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism. All topics must be presented in a way that is respectful and kind.”
Having refused to put pen to paper and subsequently being non-personed, the resulting publicity launched his career as a stand-up comedian, panellist and pundit.
Born on Christmas Day 1982, in interview with the Daily Mail Konstantine claimed that he was born in Russia came to the UK when a young boy to live with his grandfather who had fled from the Communist regime.
However, in his IMDb profile, the funnyman says he came to the UK with his grandfather aged 13. This will have been in 1995, 5 years after the end of the Cold War and 4 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Of course, this could be his other grandfather. Or could it? Elsewhere he claims that his grandfather (the third?) died in the Holocaust while also claiming (a fourth?) died fighting the Nazis.
It might be churlish to force a distinction between dying in the Holocaust and dying fighting the Nazis but there are other instances that cause QT Review to doubt Mr Kisin’s veracity. The blurb promoting his forthcoming book says,
“Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities.”
QT Review doubts this. On social media, his wife has posted photographs of her childhood holidays in Bulgaria’s exclusive Golden Sands resorts. Obviously, he doesn’t have to be as well off as his wife’s family but all the same QT Review wonders if his book will relay his full story.
Something that amuses QT Review HQ is that media-political bubble dwellers omit to remove their old data when they become famous. That’s how I find out about their previous non-jobs and naff educations. Likewise with Mr Konstantine whose previous life as a law, finance and business translator is still findable.
His clients included the oligarchs at Mines to Mines and more oligarchs at scandal-hit oil and gas company YUKOS (and their oligarch litigants). His advertised services included Russian ‘banking reports, statements, loan agreements, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development documentation, World Bank reports, contracts and deals, news and financial analysis, business to business correspondence, insurance, investment banking, tender documentation, risk management, macro-economic reports and analysis.’
No longer pretending to be impoverished, he charged a minimum of £100 per 1000 words. For proofreading and editing, he charged £40 an hour. If Puffins hear a deafening bang accompanied by a blinding streak of light rising across the skies, it may be a life-changing Mother Of All Invoices being launched from my own Debatable Lands.
Perhaps sinisterly, Konstantin’s bio claims he has extensive training in the ‘psychology of communication and human behaviour’. Another of Konstantin’s missions is to ‘assist freelancers the world over in relationships with clients, making more money, working less.’
On the subject of money, his online training sessions are entitled:
- Making more money
- Making more money: Present yourself professionally to attract clients
- Making more money: Negotiation and communication skills
- Making more money: Translate more, more easily
- Making more money: Build win-win relationships with clients
We get the message.
Kirsten Oswald (SNP) stated the bleeding obvious to the point that Bruce reminded her the question was what should be done. Kirsten suggested speeding up the sanctions regime and making life more difficult for people at the top in Russia.
As deputy leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party in the House of Commons, Kirsten is under Ian Blackford. She is also MP for East Renfrewshire. While death, destruction and totalitarianism are in the news, let us remind ourselves that the SNP has its origins in Nazism, fascism, racism and sectarian bigotry. SNP founding father Arthur Donaldson associated with the Hitler Youth. Another founding father, Alexander Dewar Gibb, was a self-confessed fascist who quoted Hitler in his speeches and expressed a visceral hatred of the Irish.
Before entering politics, Ms Oswald had done nothing other than human resources at Motherwell and East Kilbride colleges.
A Latvian whose been in the UK for 12 years was worried about his native country.
Peter Kyle wanted to support the Ukrainians with aid and arms and help for refugees. He called Putin and his cronies ‘gangsters’. Peter wanted to take them on one by one through their investments in London. He pointed out oligarchs had 18-months to declare their assets, during which time there is much scope for jiggery-pokery.
Konstantine called those comments out as party politics. Peter retaliated by saying the people in Russia would like a bit of party politics instead of dictatorship. Konstantine said that what is said on QT makes no difference. The Russian people are being told that NATO were preparing to annex Ukraine and station nuclear weapons there. They were also being told that the fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk over the last 8 years has been a genocide against the Russian minority in Ukraine.
Bridget contradicted him, pointing out a generation gap as younger people are more internet and social media inclined. A drip, drip of information will find its way into the mainstream.
Peter Kyle (Labour) is the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and MP for Hove. Too brainy for Medicine, Latin or Particle Physics, Peter has a doctorate in Community Development. For his thesis, he authored Building capacity for community economic development: the case of the Kat River Valley, South Africa.
Following Mr Kyle’s life-changing conclusions, the rivers of the Kat Valley now flow with milk and honey. Well, not quite.
And that’s just the part of town the Street View van isn’t frightened to go to.
As Mr Kyle’s thesis doesn’t appear on Amazon it is difficult to compare it with the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, unlike Mr Kyle who is openly ‘gay’ and presents the prizes at Brighton’s Gay Oscars. Known as the Golden Handbags, here he is pictured congratulating a ‘Miss’ Jason and Mr Gay England.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall during a previous East-West crisis, “Please, Mr Putin, drop that bomb.”
Peter has an interest in young people having been a governor of Brighton Aldridge Community College and chief executive of the Working for Youth charity. He has also campaigned for the age to be lowered. Behave yourselves. The voting age to be lowered to 16.
The second question was about visa-free travel for Ukrainians. Peter was in favour of mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration with a ‘check’ when they get here.
Penny said there wasn’t a cap on numbers but she was expecting 200,000.
Kirsten was also in favour of mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration, safe in the knowledge not many of them will want go to East Renfrewshire.
A nutter in the audience wanted to ban holidays and fill the resulting empty caravan parks with Ukrainians.
Bridget raised the virtue signalling a notch higher. We are lucky to have mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration from the Ukraine and we could do with even more.
The fact of the matter is Ukrainians are safe in countries neighbouring Ukraine. Like the dinghy immigrants, as far as Britain is concerned they are not refugees.
Somebody said ‘hard-working people’ and added that mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration would help the health service crisis. Dear God.
Someone else asked about the plan to house and integrate them.
There isn’t one. They’ll be dumped somewhere that doesn’t want them and can’t cope with them, as with the Afghans.
The conversation drifted towards nuclear war. Bridget thought the goodness of mankind will prevail in Russia. Konstantin reminded us that the moral framework is different there. Life is cheaper. 27,000,000 of them died in the war (according to Wiki). They do not care about casualties, hence Grozny, Allepo and now Ukraine.
Kisten and the SNP are going to abolish nuclear weapons which Kirsten said made her feel safer when faced by an aggressive and expansionist nuclear-armed Russia in the iron grip of someone who’s behaving like a mad man.
Clown world.
© Always Worth Saying 2022
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