Question Time 9th March 2023
The Panel:
Robert Jenrick (Conservative)
Sarah Jones (Labour)
Ken Clarke (Former Home Secretary)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Journalist)
Richard Madeley (Broadcaster)
Venue: London
Hereditary journalist Richard Madeley was born in Romford, Essex in 1956. His father was journalist Christopher Madeley.
Richard left school aged 16 and followed his father into journalism. By age 19, he had risen to be an assistant editor on his local rag and had moved on to the BBC, stationed on the edge of the world with your humble author’s very own BBC Radio Carlisle.
Perhaps surprisingly, maybe because he’d never been to sixth form or university, Richard struggled to keep up with the rapier-sharp intellectual rigour of the Great Border City’s glittering media elite. In a 2008 interview with Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian Richard confessed,
“But I was terrified. Totally different breed of people. I’d sit with them at lunchtime with a pint in the Hilltop Heights hotel and I felt so diminished. I used to make an excuse and go and sit on the loo. I just couldn’t hold my own.”
Determined to better himself, Richard’s next steps forward were two steps backwards. Not only did he head south to Manchester but even lowered himself to a position at Granada Reports. The rest, as they say, is history. Mr Madeley is now the London Media bubble’s Mr Morning Television having replaced Puffin’s favourite Penis Moron as a host on Good Morning Britain.
As recently as Wednesday gone, Mr Madeley’s career hit another high as he gawped helplessly while feeding African cosplay fake charity proprietor Ngozi Fulani (NHRN: Marlene Headley) easy race card questions. Puffins are better informed.
Regarding Carlisle’s Hilltop Heights hotel, no longer the Athens of the extreme far north, it houses illegal immigrants who don’t want to be there. After one of the more recent riots, spokesman Ismail, an escapee from war-torn Iraq, told the local rag,
“We want the government to send us to another city. It doesn’t matter what city it is, just anywhere else. We have all just got so much depression and anxiety from staying here [Carlisle]. The living conditions are really bad. We just want to be sent to another place.”
Oh. Trapped in a Cumberland snug bar, unable to summarise Kierkedgare like a local, perhaps we should kick illegal immigrant Ismail and his pals back to where they came from?
Before we go any further, Richard’s toupe scores an impressive 8.67 on QT Review’s ‘real hair but not his’ scale.
Mr Madeley’s embarrassments we don’t have room for this week’s review include being charged with shoplifting wine from the supermarket and doing an Ali G blackface.
Question one was about the forthcoming illegal immigration bill, especially regarding how effective a deterrent it might be. Robert Jenrick blamed the people smugglers. Enough is enough. The simple principle is that if you come here illegally there won’t be a pathway for you to remain. You will be sent back to your own country or to Rwanda. Robert wondered about new legal positions required to align this bill with, in effect, European law. Yasmin tut-tutted.
Robert Jernrick was only on the programme three weeks ago. Poor sod. What did he do to deserve this? Perhaps living in a manor house in Herefordshire while representing a constituency in Nottinghamshire and charging you through the expenses system for all the travel?
Sarah Jones (Labour) was concerned about the masses of clock-watching civil servants who live in her Croydon constituency – many of them processing asylum. She asked Robert to apologise for an email which must have referenced layabout civil servants kiboshing government policy. Robert refused.
Sarah continued by saying she would vote against the bill and seemed to claim they’d be fewer illegal immigrants if more was spent on her over-paid over-pensioned public sector constituents. She blamed ‘the gangs’ for the problem.
A gentleman in the audience captured the zeitgeist of the Islington audience. Yes, Islington, at the home of the London Symphony Orchestra. He claimed, to applause, the focus is on the victims not the criminals. The criminals should be arrested and sent to the Ukraine. He didn’t seem to realise, and neither did those clapping like seals, that the illegal immigrants are criminals too.
Ken Clarke hedged his bets by hoping the bill would be effective but suspecting it wouldn’t. He added that the Labour Party were all at sea too. We have record net legal immigration anyway. There isn’t an answer. Around the world, tens of millions are displaced, not least by war and economic breakdown. He hoped the bill would work but… He wondered of safe countries that could take all these people? Here’s a solution for you Ken – send them straight back to France.
Ken Clarke, not his real name – The Right Honourable and Learned Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of West Bridgford in the County of Nottinghamshire CH, PC, KC – is sound on steam engines but nothing else. An unhinged Remainer, privately educated Kenneth (£16,000 per annum Nottingham High School) graduated in law from Cambridge’s Gonville and Caius College and was subsequently called to the bar.
Elected as Tory MP for Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire in 1970, the 83-year-old remained an MP until 2019. However, he sat as an independent for the last three months of his tenure. No longer able to control his Brexiotphobia, Clarke voted against Boris Johnson’s government on September 3rd 2019. Expelled from the party and disqualified from being a Conservative candidate, Clarke stood down at the December 2019 general election.
During his time in parliament, Clarke made his money from Blue Chip directorships. Between 1998 and 2007 he was deputy chairman of British American Tobacco. No respecter of laws or borders, he was caught out in 2005 when litigation in the United States led to legal advice given to BAT being put into the public domain. The documents showed that while Clarke was their deputy chairman, BAT had been involved in a lucrative and secretive tobacco smuggling operation based on the Caribbean island of Aruba. Hundreds of millions of Dollars a year were forwarded from there to the firm’s control centre in Switzerland.
BAT was increasing its market share in countries such as Colombia and Argentina by illegally importing cigarettes and avoiding paying duties. Briefing notes and advice to Clarke written by City lawyers Lovells showed that Clarke was fully aware of the scam and therefore lied to an investigating House of Commons committee.
The Guardian’s summary of the scandal, and subsequent Department of Trade and Industry cover-up, can be read here.
More recently, Clarke has been involved in another scandal. As a health minister between 1982 and 1985 and health secretary between 1988 to 1990, Clarke was called to give evidence to the Infected Blood Inquiry. His prevarication under questioning led to admonishment from the chair of the enquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff. Additionally, the Factor 8 non-profit organisation that represents the victims of contaminated blood transfusions during Clarke’s watch, labelled his Lordship ‘disgraceful’.
Another scandal revolved around allegations that he groped a young man, Ben Fellowes, during a visit to the Commons. Although Mr Clarke was never charged, his alleged victim was. The jury disbelieved Mr Clarke’s evidence and cleared Fellowes of perverting the course of justice.
Yasmin wanted to speak and was astonished. These are human beings! She was ‘choking’ which one assumes is something similar to fumin. You are trashing the reputation of … given Linekar’s Twitter comments about the thirties we were all expecting her to say Hitler, but no … Winston Churchill. The seal clappers resorted to whooping. Yasmin was ashamed. We take fewer refugees. Uganda takes more than us. By an astonishing coincidence, Fiona had a relevant graphic. However Robert pointed out, itemised per head of population rather than the total number arriving, and also showing only asylum seekers and not other kinds of immigrants. Ken joined in on Robert’s side. Bruce wasn’t happy her fake news had been exposed. Immigrants aren’t immigrants unless they’re asylum seekers Bruce claimed. Yasmin became over-excited. She told us she a displaced Ugandan Asian – which is a lie.
Despite many promises to leave the county, including after the Leave vote, Boris becoming Prime Minister and Boris winning a working majority, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is still with us. Mrs Alibhai-Brown was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1949. One of the Gujarati Damji’s, Yasmin’s family were Ugandan Asians living in East Africa under the Idi Amin regime. After graduating from the exclusive Makerere University (alma mater of QT Review favourite George the Poet’s mother) she left Uganda but, despite the impression she sometimes gives, before her fellow Ugandan Asians had been expelled by Amin.
A Master of Philosophy with a degree in literature from Linacre College, University of Oxford, Yasmin is married to Colin Brown, a quango-land wallah and former chairman of the Consumer Services Panel of the Financial Services Authority. A London leftie media bubble lifer, Ms Alibia-Brown has made a career out of selectively laying the race card, with some ethnicities (careful now) being less well protected by her than others.
Richard announced himself as apolitical and agreed with everyone. He claimed that Mrs Braverman’s numbers were exaggerated, likewise Gary Lineker’s. Richard wanted to be in the centre ground. He didn’t think the legislation would be effective. Rwanda is a legal quagmire and the legislation won’t get through the courts. Because of foreign intervention, he forgot to mention. He thought the whole lot was posturing. A lot of hot air, best to calm things down. He then made a massive mistake, claiming that sob stories in the London media will sway public opinion. No, they won’t Richard, you are talking to yourself in a bubble.
Question two. Should Gary Linekar be shown the red card by the BBC? No, it’s called free speech, said Richard. Linekar isn’t a political commentator, he can say what he likes on his personal Twitter feed. If he wants to say something stupid he can. His Germany in the 1930s comments were preposterous and an insult to minorities in German during the war and those who fought against the Germans.
Sarah found the comparisons with 1930s Germany as being ‘unhelpful’. She called Linekar a national treasure. WHAT!!!???
Sarah Jones is the Shadow Minister of State for Police and the Fire Service. Privately educated Comrade Sarah (£18,000 per annum Old Palace of John Whitgift School) is a graduate of Durham University with a degree in History. Apart from that, Ms Jones boasts of having lived her whole life in Croydon, currently residing in the posh, Surrey end of South Croydon, where a three-bedroom rabbit hutch house costs £600,000.
After university, Sarah became a senior civil servant, working for Mo Mowlam in Northern Ireland and for Geraint Davies when he was MP for Croydon Central. She has run campaigns for the housing charity Shelter and for those old friends of Question Time Review, the NHS Confederation. The 50-year-old has also been on the board of Wandle Housing Association and was a communications director for the Government’s 2012 Olympics Executive. Unconvincingly, Ms Jones describes this laundry list of civil service non-jobs and quangoland positions as, “Understanding business as I’ve worked in the private sector.”
Far more interesting is the aforementioned John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1583 and 1604. Rather like a modern-day virtue signalling London media bubble millionaire QT panellist, Whitgift lived rather well. Despite his concern for ‘the poor’ he travelled the land accompanied by a retinue of 800 horses. In the interests of equality he accumulated a mammoth endowment that continues to this day and owns, amongst many other things, the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon.
A loonie in the audience with a sort of bun on his head ranted and was then blanked out. When sound returned, Fiona apologised for the use of the ‘F’ word. France?
Ken thought this out of proportion and too much about personalities. People should tone down what they say, especially regarding immigration. Rather, we need a solution. Ken liked Match of The Day and Linekar. Ludicrous to sack him.
Yasmin wants to control language. Rather than blame Linekar she blamed Braverman and Sunak – brown-skinned people from Africa. She said WH Auden married a refugee from Europe so they could stay here. Isherwood? Don’t think so Yasmin, born on his family estate in Cheshire and went to Repton. What’s she on about? She misquoted a few lines of Auden.
Robert Jenrick agreed that language matters but not Gary Linekar’s as he couldn’t care less what he said but added Linekar’s comments about Germany were unacceptable.
Question three attempted to lighten the mood but this reviewer preferred to ponder upon what had come before.
***
Puffins, including myself, may have been premature in their criticism of Mr Sunak. The good thing about being a billionaire and living in California is that you can’t be bribed and need not give an F about a bubble in London. Free to fly the country by the seat of his pants while making the most of the lolz, Mr Sunak and the Tories might be on to something.
‘Stop The Boats’ has the same kind of feel to it as ‘Get Brexit Done’. Taking control from the European courts resonates with taking back control from the European Union. Most of all, listening to the uncontrolled unlimited illegal immigration lobby bleating is very similar to listening to the Remainers’ never-ending autistic screech.
Mr Sunak and the Tories may well be part-way through turning their political fortunes around. Or they may not. They must be hoping for more from Linekar, Alibiah-Brown and the loonie end of the QT audience spectrum. This weekend the Conservatives can’t believe their luck as the trades unions shoot the Labour Party in the foot the length and breadth of the land with refugees welcome demonstrations.
Might Linekar, the BBC, Bruce, Dimbleby, et al have to swallow yet another turd on general election night? Might Yasim Alibhai-Brown yet leave the country? Interesting times.
© Always Worth Saying 2023
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