Question Time 29th September 2022
The Panel:
Paul Scully (Conservative)
Bridget Phillipson (Labour)
Karan Bilimoria (Businessman)
Anne McElvoy (The Economist)
Richard Bacon (Broadcaster)
Venue: Manchester
Keep calm and carry on. Bigly triggered by the show of national unity and patriotism surrounding the Queen’s death, the enemies of our country are now ranting like foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics. The media bubble’s response to last week’s mini-budget has been as mad as the summer’s ‘worst drought for 500 years’ hysteria, during which it never stopped raining. Between now and the next election, no good news will be reported. Bad news will be amplified or made up altogether. For example, on the stock markets this year, New York’s Dow Jones Index has fallen by 19%. The Dax in Frankfurt is down 25%. Outperforming them all is London’s FTSE, down only 2%. Not a murmur from the fake news organisations. Expect more such dissembling from tonight’s QT panel and carefully selected audience.
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The first question bashed Mrs Truss and compared her unfavourably to Mr Sunak. La Bruce interrupted Conservative Paul Scully’s reponse to allow him more time to listen to the booing from the biased audience. Ominously, Ms Bruce at the top of this series of QT pointed out that the audience is chosen, in part, based on opinion polls. At the moment the polls, which are always wrong, helpfully for the BBC show Labour well ahead. Bridget Phillipson fluffed her lines but got a round of applause all the same.
Richard Bacon claimed Mrs Truss had done more damage to the British economy than the pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine, and all since last Friday. He asked the audience to raise their hands if they felt more worried about their bills following the mini-budget. “Absurd, isn’t it, isn’t it?” Asked Richard trying hard to disguise a smug California accent.
Richard Bacon was born in Mansfield and Educated privately at £12,000 a year Wellow House prep school and £30,000 a year Worksop College boarding school. After dropping out of Trent Polytechnic Nottingham Trent University, Richard pursued a career in media, rising to be sacked from Blue Peter for drug abuse.
An uber-Remainer, Mr Bacon lives in California, a heartbreaking 5,600 miles from Brussels. There, he has recently ‘inked a deal’ with Universal to ‘produce and develop unscripted television content’. In the interests of equality, his home is a $5.3 million Los Angeles mansion in the exclusive Bird Streets neighbourhood of the Southern California metropolis, tucked into the Holywood Hills and overlooking Sunset Strip. More of a compound than a house, man of the people Richard resides in a ‘1930s Mediterranean-style throwback’ complete with a swimming pool, guesthouse, a private terrace and a third of an acre of gardens. From here, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, he ponders the plight of the British working man and woman.
While you look around his home via this link, bear in mind the Calfornia based public school boy, married to multi-millionaire’s daughter, knows more about the minimum wage, the NHS, your mortgage payments and the housing crisis than you do.
In order to help the environment, Richard fly-commutes across the Atlantic doing TV work in both Britain and America. Also in the interests of equality, Mrs Bacon is Rebecca McFarlane, daughter of former Barclays Bank chairman, John. A Doonhamer, John McFarlane was a non-executive director of the Royal Bank of Scotland at the time of its controversial and illegal rights issue in 2008. Presently, 75-year-old John is the Non-Executive Independent Chairman of the Board of Westpac Banking, a position that attracts an annual salary of $503,087.
Mr Scully kept fighting back and pointed out the higher inflation in Germany. La Bruce asked if all of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for the Tory’s recent financial statement. Yes, Fiona, there is upward pressure on interest rates because of high inflation and higher interest rates in the USA than here.
Paul Scully is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam. Privately educated at £37,000 a year Bedford School, Paul is sound on Brexit and often seen on GB News. Mr Scully is a graduate of Reading University and ran a number of small businesses before becoming an MP in 2015.
Mr Scully has previously got himself into a tangle with one of them: Nudge Factory, an advocacy company set up by himself whose clients included property companies with a financial interest in developments in and around his own constituency. His then-wife, Emma, was also involved in Nudge and is currently their Company Secretary and Finance Director.
A Trussite, Paul is presently a Minister at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The biggest word is ‘uncertainty’ declared Lord Bilimoria. He praised the government for their £400 billion of unfunded support during the pandemic. He was all for the tax cuts. These measures mentioned on Friday were good, but there wasn’t enough for business. He suggested never-ending pandemic-style free money.
An old friend of Question Time Review, the guff than comes with QT modestly describes The Right Honourable The Lord Bilimoria CBE DL FCA, Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and President of the CBI, as ‘Karan Bilimoria, businessman’.
Although occasionally tempted to claim modest roots, His Lordship’s immediate ancestors were high-ranking military types. His father was Lt. Gen. Faridoon Noshir Bilimoria. His mother was a squadron leader’s daughter.
A Sidney Sussex College Cambridge graduate, his Lordship was also educated at His Exalted Highness Nazin VII’s Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet. During his last appearance on the programme, this reviewer was unable to work out the fees and was reduced to commenting upon the school’s polo team and airfield. I have managed to find a number this time but I’m not sure what it means. The Indians have a bad habit of expressing thousands as two noughts (instead of three) and have their own names for quantities of money, which no white man is meant to understand. Suffice it to say, a top public school in the subcontinent looks suspiciously cheap, cheaper than the school bus over here. Might the solution for financially stressed Puffins be, given the difficult times we live in, to send their wives and kids to live in India? It is currently my plan C.
Speaking of monies abroad for financial benefit, Lord Bilimoria appears in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Offshore Leaks Database as a shareholder and beneficiary of British Virgin Islands jurisdiction based Mullberry Holdings Asset Limited whose corporate headquarters appears to be a post office box in this street in Geneva.
Still offshore, trans-Atlantic Richard Bacon’s heart bled for people who can’t afford shoes while the food banks run out of food. Excuse me while I puke.
Will first time buyers ever be able to afford a property, was the second question. Bridget was really worried, there is a housing crisis caused by unlimited immigration, especially from illegal immigrants crossing the channel. She was going to build a …. Oh, she didn’t say any of that at all, rather growth is going to appear from nowhere and climate change is a big opportunity for green jobs. She didn’t mention housing at all because she couldn’t give a toss and is only interested in scoring party political points in front of the television cameras.
Pannelist Anne McElvoy is a journalist with the uber-Remainer, uber-Globalist, unreadable crackpot publication known as The Economist. Previously, The Economist was good fun, packed with fear, greed and human weakness based in-jokes before a cracking inside back page full of useful stats which, once selectively memorised, made one appear much cleverer and more useful than one really was. No longer the case, having swallowed the otherworldly Environmental, Social and Governance agenda hook, line and sinker, the John Adam Street publication is now a load of crap. Avoid.
Presumably, we will get no sense out of Ms McElvoy, I shall make my supper when she’s on. A London media bubble lifer, Anne is a Wadham College, Oxford, graduate and the wife of Martin Ivens, another journalist and the editor of The Times Literary Supplement and a former editor of The Sunday Times. In the interest of equality, at least with his wife, Hampsted-born Martin also attended Oxford University – St Peter’s College.
A tinged lady in the audience had had her mortgage application withdrawn and replaced with one carrying a 10% rate of interest. The millionaires on the panel pretended to be concerned. But interest rates haven’t risen since last week. The Bank of England’s base rate is still only 2.25%, all else is the result of negative sentiment stoked by hysteria in the media.
A loon in the audience suggested houses would be cheaper if building regulations made £20,000 heat pumps complusary on new builds. Mr Scully joined in the madness by promising to preserve Net Zero.
Bruce moved on to another question. Can Kier Starmer make good on all these Labour party conference promises and who will pay for them?
Bridget mentioned climate change again. She said all of Labour’s commitments are funded, but they aren’t. A puzzled Bruce asked for more details. The audince clapped in sceptical agreement. Bridget said Labour wouldn’t cut Corporation Tax, but Corporation Tax hasn’t been cut and remains at 19%. She would reverse the 45% tax rate cut which would raise £2 billion. Ms Phillipson expects us to believe all of everything the Labour party is promising comes out of £2 billion. This is the equivilant of a 1.4% increase in spending on the NHS. In other words, Labour’s plans are totally unfunded.
If Labour is elected, there will be a wealth tax. The government will take a lump out of your pension and your property, waste it, and then come back for more. Some comrades, however, are better placed than others.
Bridget Phillipson pursues a career answering opinion polls for money. In what spare time remains, she is the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South. Typically, she completes the opinion polls at a pay rate of between £50 – £120 per half hour. Too many to list, Puffins can view the bewildering array of payments here, via her member’s declared interests submissions.
A graduate of Hertford College, Oxford, where she studied Modern History, Ms Phillipson has a dreadful fake northern accent but has never had a job beyond a three-year stint as a manager, in her mother’s £1.85 million a year charity, before being elected to Parliament in 2010.
That mother is Clare Phillipson and the charity is Sunderland-based Wearside Women in Need. Needless to say, the financial relationship between Sunderland’s Labour Council, Labour member Clare Phillipson’s charity and Labour MP Bridget Phillipson has raised eyebrows in the Sunderland area.
Richard Bacon said you don’t want the same party in government all the time. He will be voting for The Donald to replace Biden? Doubt it. He said the Tories have been in power for 12 years, which is untrue, there was a coalition government between 2010 and 2015.
The final question was the ‘comedy question’. Which city should host the Eurovision Song Contest, Glasgow or Liverpool? Lard Balimoria didn’t know what the Eurovison Song Contest was but chose Glasgow, as did Ms Phillipson. Richard Bacon, who doesn’t even live in Europe let alone Liverpool or Glasgow, chose Liverpool.
A large lady in the audience won the programme with, “Glasgow, because if Liverpool win we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Roger Ackroyd / Ralph Spurrier, RIP.
© Always Worth Saying 2022
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