Question Time 9th November 2023
The Panel:
David TC Davis (Conservative)
Chris Bryant (Labour)
Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cyrmu)
Anne McElvoy (Journalist)
Camilla Kerslake (Entertainer)
Venue: Llandudno
The interesting members of the family stay at home while the dullard is put on Question Time. The proof of the pudding being London-born Elizabeth Saville Roberts the Plaid Cymru MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. Liz studied languages at Aberystwyth University before becoming a teacher. An occupation she defines as having worked in Welsh-medium higher education.
Liz’s mother, Nancy, was a scientist holding a doctorate in organic chemistry who taught herself Russian and Welsh. Cousin Jenny, a Royal Academician, is an Oxfordshire-based degenerate artist. Ominously, her depictions of the God-given beauty of the naked female form are described by critics as ‘new’ and ‘challenging.’ Not quite the sophisticate you may assume him to be, your humble reviewer isn’t quite sure what’s going on here or here.
However, he does understand what’s happening in this self-portrait but feels obliged to add a trigger warning for Puffins not anticipating the great artist at half-mast.
Chris Bryant has represented the Welsh constituency of Rhondda on behalf of the Labour Party since 2001 – despite previously being a member of the Conservative Party. He presently serves as the Shadow Minister for Creative Industries and Digital.
Cardiff-born Comrade Chris is the son of a Chrysler Corporation executive and a BBC employee and spent part of his childhood in Spain before being educated privately at the exclusive £47,000 per annum Cheltenham College. A graduate of Mansfield College, Oxford, the sixty-two-year-old trained to be a priest at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, and was ordained in 1987.
Four years later he left the ministry and followed a career in politics which has included employment with Puffin’s favourites Common Purpose and the BBC where he held the position of Head of European Affairs.
Mr Bryant survived the housing crisis by claiming £84,350 in Parliamentary expenses on a London penthouse in which he lived while renting out (for £3,000 a month) another London property that he owned. Subsequently, man of the people Chris sold the penthouse for £1.1 million, more than twice what he paid for it.
Mr Bryant’s commitment to peace in the Middle East includes membership of both Labour Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. Besides jollies to the Holy Land, Mr Bryant has enjoyed freebies to Barcelona, Madrid and Moscow.
According to his declared parliamentary interests, Mr Bryant survives the cost of living crisis by being paid to write articles. Hmm. Only last month, he was paid £500 for an article in the Daily Mirror (hmm) and a further £400 for a review!!! HMMM!!!
As for the likely going rate for an accompanying pod-cast (with or without an Alan Bennet or Harold Wilson impersonation), on August 14th 2023 Mr Bryant was paid £20,800 as an advance for the recording of an audiobook.
So far this year Mr Bryant has received £1,100 for three articles and a review published in The Guardian. However, since the hours of work declared are as low as 30 minutes per article, one suspects Mr Bryant merely talks money-for-nothing gibberish into an audio file with a long-suffering member of the International Brotherhood of Reviewers of B*llocks having to turn it into reading and writing.
One sympathises.
David TC Davies (just about his real name, David Thomas Charles Davies) is Secretary of State for Wales and Conservative MP for Monmouth. Before politics, he worked in his family’s lorry company, the rather grandly titled Burrow Heath Shipping.
An amateur boxer, the 53-year-old was also previously a special constable and a member of the Territorial Army. Despite being anointed by The Guardian newspaper as one of the dimmest people in parliament, Mr Davies is sound on Brexit, voted against ‘Gay’ ‘marriage’ and has been booed by the National Black Police Officers Association.
In the interests of equality of opportunity, Hungarian wife Aliz Harnisfoger is paid by you to be Mr Davies’s office manager. Mr Davies’s commitment to peace in the Middle East has included accepting hospitality from President Assad of Syria and voting down military action against Assad during the early stages of the Syrian civil war.
A German and Philosophy graduate of Wadham College, Oxford, Anne McElvoy (not her real name, Anne Ivens), is a London media bubble lifer who has contributed to The Times, The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, Tatler, The Independent, the Evening Standard, the BBC (radio and television), Politico and The Economist.
Keeping it in the family, husband and fellow Oxford graduate Martin Ivens is a former editor of The Times and present-day editor of The Times Literary Supplement. During a previous Question Time appearance, we sneered at Anne’s book ‘The Saddled Cow: East Germany’s Life and Legacy.’ This time we shall eavesdrop upon her mighty tome, ‘Man Without A Face: The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster.’
This is the story of a legendary spymaster who has emerged from the shadows to reveal his remarkable life of secrets, lies, and betrayals as head of the world’s most formidable and effective foreign service ever. True to its subject, it lies concealed on the Amazon best seller list, 51,863 places behind the Marquis de Sade’s ‘120 Days of Sodom.’
Camilla Kerslake is a distinguished classical crossover singer. She was notably the first artist to be signed to Gary Barlow’s record label and released her debut album in 2009. Her career has seen her performing at various events and collaborating with eminent artists like Andrea Bocelli and Il Divo.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Ms Kerslake claimed her family were so hard up when she was a child that they couldn’t afford food. She recalled the ‘mortified look on her mother’s face as they stood at the supermarket checkout and had to put some groceries back.’
She also claimed that her mother was ‘sixth-generation Swansea Hill Town’ council estate and that Camilla lived in Preston when she was a child.
Hmm.
In fact, posh Camilla was born in London’s posh Dulwich. Her mother was a medical doctor specialising in psychotherapy and her father was a baker. After emigrating to New Zealand the family returned to England and lived in Lancashire but not in earthy-sounding Preston but in the village of Nateby, 10 miles distant. Here a four-bedroom family home sells for about £400,000. Puffins from the south of the country in need of a comparison should note that a 2-bedroom former council flat in Preston can be bought at auction with a credit card.
As for her mother being a sixth-generation council house kid, assuming the good but impoverished Dr Kerslake MD is about my age, the genealogy app suggests the family must have moved to the Town Hill estate almost a century before it was built.
By sixth-form Camilla was back in Surrey, in posh Esher. Her bizarre Wikipedia page then claims Ms Kerslake ‘sought singing lessons, but opted to sing contemporary as she could not afford classical training,’ whereas in reality she studied as a student at the exclusive and world-renowned Academy of Contemporary Music.
Why are these people, or rather the agencies that promote their careers, ashamed of being upper middle class?
Her husband is former England Rugby Union captain and privately educated (£46,000 per annum) Millfiled old boy Chris Robshaw.
***
Question one. In reference to a Times article written by the Home Secretary, in which she criticized political bias in the police, is it time for Suella Braverman to go?
David TC Davies was supportive of his cabinet colleague. He reminded the audience he had been a police officer and it was difficult for the police to get things right all of the time. He noted tonight is the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht and so-called pro-Palestine demonstrations at the Synedd in Cardiff had meant that some assembly members had been advised by the police to avoid certain areas.
He urged the organisers of such demonstrations to distance themselves from extremists. Jewish people find it unsafe to walk the streets.
Chris Bryant thought everyone should feel safe. There’s no place for hate in our streets but also no place for hate in the Home Office, he said delivering a cheesy pre-prepared line. He mentioned Mrs Braverman’s other failings but noted Mr Sunak is too weak to sack her.
A loon in the audience called Mrs Braverman a racist.
The discussion drifted to homelessness and whether or not it’s a lifestyle choice and whether or not it’s increasing.
La Bruce called the panel back to the question and addressed it to Anne McElvoy who picked up on the accusation of racism. After reminding the audience that the race card belongs to rich white people in a media bubble in London, she added Mrs Braverman had overstepped. She pronounced apologist ap-ol-oh-gist when referring to the overlap between being pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas.
Some in the audience agreed with the Home Secretary and represented a silent majority who think this weekend is not a time for protest but for dignified remembrance.
Camilla Kerslake listed some of Mrs Braverman’s weaknesses too and concluded, ‘She should go, yea.’
Liz Saville Roberts, sporting a white poppy as well as a red, thinks the pro-Palestinian march at the weekend is about a ceasefire. Seek the moderate voices, she said, before immoderately calling for Braverman to be dismissed.
An audience member with a suspiciously London accent wondered about the demonstrations in West London that involve racing around in cars waving Palestinian flags and celebrating October 7th. Where are the police there?
Chris Bryant said policing in this country is by consent and all are equal under the law. Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Never mind a foreign railway station, this week’s yokel photos had a train on them. The uninitiated may have thought it a cable-hauled Great Orme tram but connoisseurs of such things will have caught sufficient glimpse of the livery of the Rīgas Satiksme. Although the background was indistinct, one suspects the better end of 11 Novembra Krastmala.
Who watches the watchers wondered Camilla as the discussion drifted towards whether the Home Secretary had broken the ministerial code.
At that point, the programme moved on to Net Zero and the exploration licences promised in the King’s Speech.
It was noticeable there were only two (lightly) tinged people in the audience and they weren’t allowed to comment on Palestine/Israel. Ordinarily, no matter what the local demographics, the BBC sends out search parties looking for the racially diverse. Not this time. A result of the stark naked terror that the BBC feels as a consequence of its own enthusiasm for mass immigration and multiculturalism.
Chris Bryant was against hydro-carbon exploration licences but offered no alternative beyond green jobs. Liz Saville Roberts was going to devolve the Crown Estate for offshore wind power.
A healthcare professional in the audience knew all about electricity generation and climatology.
David TC Davies was in favour. There are 100,000 jobs at stake and billions in revenue. Chris Bryant tried to pin down David on whether there is a climate emergency or not.
A lady in the audience pinned down Chirs, claiming the Labour Party in Wales was making emissions worse with its 20 mph speed limit. This was loudly applauded.
Camilla is a younger person with a two-year-old. She is terrified of the future. Obviously, herself and her husband live in an off-grid tin hut and never fly anywhere. She wanted to generate electricity from sources such as wind and waves which don’t contain enough energy.
Chris Bryant wanted an industrial strategy. There is one Chris. It’s called Net Zero and it’s wrecking our industries. Chris wanted all the wind farms to be made from British steel, which is impossible to do without hydrocarbons.
The stupidity on the QT march was becoming dangerous. In order to prevent a serious public order offence to my telly, it was time to ban Question Time from the front room and go to bed.
© Always Worth Saying 2023
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
