Question Time 12th October 2023
The Panel:
Victoria Atkins (Conservative)
Yvette Cooper (Labour)
Myleene Klass (Entertainer)
Sonia Sodha (Former Labour Advisor)
Jake Wallis Simons (The Jewish Chronicle)
Piers Morgan (Talk TV)
Venue: London
If the first casualties of war are the truth and the plan, then next comes Mylene Klass who was advertised as a panellist last week but has been replaced as a result of subsequent events.
Regular readers may suspect, given this reviewer’s palpations over Analise Dodds and a strange longing for Layla Moron, he wouldn’t have been able to walk in a straight line when faced with Myleene. Not so. The accomplished pianist, singer, television presenter and recent winner of Mr Anton Dec’s ‘I’m Desperate for Publicity… Get Me Into The Jungle,’ is too stage school for me.
However, partway through my research into Miss Klass’s exotic Austro-Phillipine Great Yarmouth-born genes, a man crush developed. Last time we wondered if panellist Emma Dabiri might be a Puffin. Disqualified, as her interest in railways included quoting distances in kilometres rather than miles and chains, this week we have better luck.
My friends, it becomes my high honour and distinct privilege to introduce to you the Puffin’s Puffin, Oscar Klass RN (retired) also known as Otto – Mylene’s 80-year-old father. Otto served on HMS Starline, HMS Redpole, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Victorious, HMS Kent and with 801 Sqn. Now in retirement and no longer armed with 4-inch guns, depth charge throwers or Buccs, Otto takes aim at our enemies through Twitter.
With an opinion on everything, Mr Klass is sound on Harry and Meghan, the World Health Organisation, illegal immigrants, Blair and Iraq, Brexit, foreign aid, Hong Kong, the dwindling frigate and destroyer fleet, arming merchant ships, Haringey Council, the Yemen, the BBC, Gareth Southgate and Sadiq Khan.
Not to mention striking school teachers (sack the lot, let them beg for their gold-plated jobs back), the mother of all parliament’s ‘backstabbing losers’, the Irish border, blue passports and council fat cats.
Married to Filipina nurse Magdelena ‘Bong’ Klass for 46 years, and a proud father of three, Otto flies the Red Ensign from the roof of an immaculate North London family home – above a magnificent wisteria. Remaining about the garden, Otto and Magdalena grow grapes and have built a colourful tea house close to a koi carp pond whose surrounding rockery is topped by Otto’s old deep diving helmet.
In an interior which was cleansed of coronavirus by the ingenious use of the microwave, there is a well-stocked bar and a dama de noche if anything even more impressive than the wisteria.
After the navy, Otto worked as a salvage man and diver and is a self-published author of derring-do U-boat thrillers. Previously having met the Duke of Edinburgh while on parade at Lossiemouth, Otto describes a day at Kew Gardens as, ‘The British Empire at its best and hayday.’ Three cheers for Oscar Otto Klass.
Piers Morgan, not his real name, was christened Piers Stefan O’Meara and subsequently took his stepfather’s surname to become Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan. Confused? Just call him Penis Moron which, by an amazing coincidence, is close to the name he goes by anyway.
Educated at the £25,000 a year Cumnor House, Sussex, Piers has courted controversy during a long career in the media bubble. From investing in stocks the day before they were tipped by his own newspaper to being sacked by the Daily Mirror for using fake photos of British soldiers ‘torturing Iraqis’.
As a showbiz reporter who knew all the inside gossip, Mr Morgan exposed the notorious Garry Glitter, Ghislaine Maxwell, Rolf Harris, Harvey Weinstein and Max Clifford. Or rather he didn’t, preferring to be photographed smiling with them.
The 58-year-old even stooped to using a Jimmy Saville endorsement to plug his own TV show through a column in the Mail on Sunday’s Night & Day Magazine. More recently Piers has been presenting on Rupert Murdoch’s unwatched and unwatchable TalkTV.
Yvette Cooper has been serving as a Member of Parliament since 1997 and currently represents the constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford on behalf of the Labour Party. Ms Cooper graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, before undertaking further study at the London School of Economics.
Puffins will be unsurprised to read that the 44-year-old has never had a job beyond a one-year stint as a journalist at the un-read Independent, sandwiched between policy roles with the Labour Party and Clinton’s Democrats.
Currently the Shadow Home Secretary, Cooper’s husband is Going-Postal favourite Ed Balls with whom she was humiliated when it was revealed in the parliamentary expenses scandal that the couple claimed £44,000 for a ‘second home’ in London despite their children living there too and attending a nearby school.
These days woman-of-the-people Yvette copes with the cost of living crisis by accepting donations. Earlier this year she took two donations totalling £32,000 from MPM Connect a little-known company that is one of Westminster’s biggest donors. Further investigation shows that MPM Connect is a vehicle for holding shares in international recruitment companies owned by a Mr John Hearn.
Hearn’s half-hidden donations fade into insignificance compared to those of a Mr Gary Lubner. This summer the South-African born businessman donated £210,000 to Mrs Cooper. According to the Financial Times, this is part of donations totalling £5 million that the auto-repair multi-millionaire plans to give to the Labour Party between now and the general election.
My curiosity raised, this humble reviewer was part-way through typing ‘Might Mr Lubner possibly by any chance be a little bit …’ into Google when the ‘Careful Now’ klaxon sounded over QT Review HQ and I headed through rubble-strewn streets looking to hide in the ‘Now-Might-Not-Be-The-Right-Time’ shelter.
Sonia Sodha is a columnist and author who has contributed to The Guardian, The Observer and the BBC. The privately educated 42-year-old also graduated from Oxford (St Hilda’s College), also with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and also hasn’t had a job beyond policy and journalism. The former took half-Hindu/half-Sikh Sonia to, amongst many other places, the Race Equality Unit, Which?, the Dartington Social Research Unit, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the office of Ed Miliband.
Victoria Mary Atkins is the MP for Louth and Horncastle and is Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In the interests of diversity and equality of opportunity, Victoria’s father, Sir Robert Atkins, is a former Conservative MP, MEP and local councillor. Victoria was privately educated at the Arnold School, Blackpool. The 47-year-old graduated in Law from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a barrister in 1998. Specialising in fraud, Victoria was drawn to politics and entered the House of Commons in 2017.
Ms Atkins’ husband is businessman Paul Kenward, managing director of British Sugar. His other directorships have included Pride Oils PLC, Westmill Foods, BE International Foods, Seedcote Systems Ltd., Germain’s (UK) Ltd., the Wereham Gravel Company, ABF Grain Products, Mitra Sugar and Davjon Food.
Jake Wallis Simons is a journalist and novelist, currently employed as the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He is renowned for his exclusive stories about Mossad, including significant events like the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and sabotage operations in Iran. Jake has a broad reporting portfolio, covering foreign news from regions such as Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America during which time he has been kidnapped by Venezuelan bandits and severely injured in a Syrian car crash.
Grammar School Boy Jake’s (Menorah Grammar, Edgware) investigative work also includes political exposés, notably Jeremy Corbyn’s comments on British Zionists. In addition to his journalism career, Jake is a respected novelist and the author of ‘Israelophobia’ and ‘The Exiled Time of a Tibetan Jew’. His academic credentials include a First in English from St Peter’s College, Oxford, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Jake has also lectured at Oxford, is a commentator for Sky News and a broadcaster for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service.
***
Last week we asked our own question of Question Time. Is Fiona Bruce allowed to call an audience member ‘the black guy’? The answer is ‘no’ with poor Fiona having to apologise and the offending line being edited from the iPlayer.
As for the actual programme, given the absence of truth, a plan and Myleene Klass, QT Review HQ shall summon its inner Otto: ’tis towards glory we steer.
Since we all know what London looks like, this week’s three deskfront local photographs were all of foreign railway stations. Wait-a-wait, Clutter Buck and Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta. House points if you know where they are without looking them up.
Instead of a question La Bruce began by inviting two panellists to monologue. Jake repeated some of the things that we’ve been told in news broadcasts over the last few days and concluded the ‘hell of war’ has been unleashed. Selima Begum introduced herself as an NGO type with colleagues based in Gaza and Palestine.
Question one, how do we solve the crisis in the Middle East?
A two-state solution said Victoria. One can’t help but observe there already are two states and they’re at war. Victoria stood shoulder to shoulder with one of them – Israel.
Both Palestinians and Israelis are suffering because of this attack, said Yvette. She wanted a two-state solution too. A sovereign Palestine alongside a safe and secure Israel.
Journalist Piers preferred to focus on the language being used and criticised the BBC for not calling Hamas terrorists. In explanation, he repeated much of what we’ve been told over the last few days. In terms of forging peace, he felt you have to get rid of Hamas who, in his view, don’t represent the people of Gaza. He also felt Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has to go. There was much talk of be-headed babies.
A lady in the audience confused Gaza with the West Bank and Fatah with Hamas and all of them with the Palestinian Authority. It is easy to do. To applause, she quoted statistics going back a number of years which show Palestinian casualties to be higher than Israeli. She also referenced newborn babies dying in Gaza due to the power being cut off.
Jake called Hamas terrorists and then connected them to ISIS and Al-Qaida. All Palestinian leaders are letting down the Palestinian people. Black Guy Bruce had been doing some Twitter archaeology. A few days ago Jake had put out an Islamaphobic tweet so vile she couldn’t repeat it, plus it had been deleted. She asked Jake if he still stood by it.
As we know, the internet never forgets. Your humble reviewer got busy and is obliged to ask which one? I found this fake news tweet Jake put out blaming Palestinians for an attack on a church that never happened:
“Palestinian Muslims launch Ramadan attack on Church of the Annunciation in Beit Jala near Bethlehem.”
And this:
“We need to face reality: much of Muslim culture is in the grip of a death cult that sacralises bloodshed. Not all, but many Muslims are brainwashed by it. That is a big part of the problem.”
I suspect Bruce was referring to the latter. While we’re on the subject of Twitter, why the silence from Gary Lineker? Has he been kidnapped? Has his X been cut off? Hope so.
Why can’t you repeat it, asked Jake. Bruce replied it made her feel uncomfortable. It was jumped on, retorted Jake. The tweet was in response to people in the Palestinian areas celebrating recent atrocities.
A tinged gentleman in the audience took issue with Jake. He quoted the above text but Jake mistakenly said that was not what he’d tweeted. The tinged gentleman was persistent and was applauded by the audience but what he said couldn’t be heard.
Eafle-eyed Puffins will have noticed another casualty, Sonia Sohda had been replaced at the last minute by Selima Begum. In doing so spoiling my carefully crafted half-decent elephant not-in-the-room joke about a one-sided panel. I wonder if the BBC thought Sonia was a Muslim rather than a half-Sikh/half-Hindu?
Selima Begum also wanted a two-state solution and a humanitarian corridor to be opened into Gaza. The others kept on saying Hamas don’t represent Gaza. It is seventeen years ago, but Hamas did win the last election there. In the same way that The Muslim Brotherhood won in Egypt, Assad won in Syria and those close to the ayatollahs keep on winning in Iran.
A Jewish gentleman spoke. He was interrupted by the persistent tinged audience member, again to applause, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. At this point, La Bruce waved the white flag and moved on to domestic issues the stupidity of the level of debate of which seemed even more pointless than usual.
***
Alright then. Despite the seriousness of the times, I’ll tell you. ‘The Exiled Time of a Tibetan Jew’ sits a lonely, distant and Israelophobic 1,935,393 places behind the Marquis De Sade’s ‘120 Days of Sodom’ in the Amazon best seller list.
© Always Worth Saying 2023
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
