Question Time 8th February 2024
The Panel:
James Daly (Conservative)
Wes Streeting (Labour)
Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat)
Paddy McGuinness (Presenter and Actor)
Inaya Folarin Iman (Writer and Broadcaster)
Venue: Nottingham
Wes Streeting is the Labour MP for Ilford North and the Shadow Secretary of State for Health & Social Care. Never having had a job, after studying history at Selwyn College, he served two terms as President of the National Union of Students before becoming the CEO of the Helena Kennedy Foundation.
The baby-faced 41-year-old then became Head of Education at the vile LGBT NGO Stonewall. After a spell as a councillor and as Deputy Leader of Redbridge Council, Mr Streeting was elected to parliament in 2015. Wes’s partner is Joseph Dancey, a self-employed communications and public affairs adviser.
An Oxford PPE graduate, after finishing his education Joseph joined the advocacy quangoland via the Low Pay Commission. Next, he became a researcher at the Labour Party. From there, he was appointed as a political advisor to Peter Mandelson. At the moment, Joseph is the founder and director of Endeavour Advisory Ltd – his endeavour no doubt benefits from having a partner who may soon be a cabinet minister.
Daisy Cooper is the Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans and has been since the December 2019 general election. Daisy also holds the position of Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care and serves as the Deputy Leader of her party.
The 42-year-old was born in Bury St Edmunds since which she has never had a job. Educated privately at the £34,000 per annum (ex-VAT) Framlingham College – former pupils include Ed Sheeran – horse-toothed Ms Cooper is a graduate in Law from Leeds University and a Public International Law graduate via the University of Nottingham.
Between the end of her education and being elected to parliament, Daisy filled her time campaigning, advocating and volunteering for the likes of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, Voluntary Service Overseas, Hacked Off and woeful Jo Swinson’s successful but doomed LibDem leadership bid.
She is a member of various All Party Parliamentary Groups, including Chalk Streams, Climate Change, Legal Aid, the Night Time Economy and Beer. In her spare time, Cooper enjoys music and plays both the violin and the piano.
Her recent parliamentary entry of members’ interests shows that she is paid by you as a licence fee payer to appear on Question Time. On December 15th 2022 she received £432 for ‘travel associated with appearing’ on QT from Winchester.
Not quite the far side of the moon, within a few minutes this humble reviewer was able to find a London to Winchester rail fare of under £30 or £12.60 by coach. From her St Albans constituency, the rail fare creeps up to £40. This begs the question, what happens to the difference?
On 27th January 2023, you paid her a mighty £517.50 for travel associated with appearing on Radio 4’s Any Questions. Perhaps recorded as far away as Andover? Or even Eastleigh?
One also can’t help but notice Suffolk-born Daisy’s interests include a third share in a Suffolk cottage which the cynical might presume to be an Inheritance Tax dodge.
Interestingly, donations to Ms Cooper include £18,000 from a Pippa Oakeshott. This is the wife of Lord Oakeshott who, even without the benefit of mild autism, Puffins will recall donates to last week’s Labour Party panellist Ian Murray. Lord Oakeshott is a cousin of QT regular Isabell Oakeshott, hottie turned girl bully and presently a grande horizontale on behalf of the Reform Party.
All very strange.
Huddersfield-born James Daley attended Edge Hill University in Ormskirk and the University of Leeds after which he entered the law. Having worked as a criminal defence lawyer, and a partner and head of conveyancing in a local law firm, he became a councillor in Bury and subsequently was elected to parliament as Conservative MP for Bury North in 2019.
Married to Jo with two young children and previously a governor of two schools and the chair of an outstanding nursery school, James understands a thing or two about young people and parenting. In an interview with the i newspaper last December James wisely noted that, “Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents.”
Paddy Joseph McGuinness is a comedian, actor, television personality, and presenter. The 50-year-old became a household name through his role on popular shows such as Take Me Out, Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere, Stars in Their Eyes, Benchmark and Sport Relief. House points for those who’ve heard of, let alone viewed, any of those.
According to the guff, Paddy is passionate about all things northern, his hometown being Bolton and his humble working class abode being a two up two down terrace in Auburn Street.
Really?
At Review University, eager inquirers after the truth are taught to find a spouse’s Instagram account, say what they see and then adjourn to Rightmove.com.
In which case, the real chez McGuinness appears to be a £2.1 million mansion in Cheshire. The property boasts seven bedrooms and features various luxurious amenities, including a gym, a spacious kitchen and a stunning living room with marbled floors and plush furnishings.
Mrs AWS informs me Mrs McGuinness – TV personality and model Christine – enjoys a beautiful bathroom with contemporary fixtures and a ‘flooded marble floor’. Much of the decor is in neutral and cream tones, creating an elegant and serene ambience throughout. Additionally, the property offers an extensive garden with a play area.
Not so grim up North after all!
Inaya Folarin Iman is of Yorbura heritage and was raised in a South London Nigerian single-parent household. A few weeks ago, QT Review noted panellist Hashi Mohammed, rather than being an unaccompanied child refugee, might have been sent to London to live with an aunt and enjoy a free English education while avoiding Kenyan school and university fees.
Likewise, Inaya’s identity buzzword biography gives a false impression. In reality one of the Kent Folarin-Imans, Inaya was educated at the selective Tonbridge Grammar School before attending Leeds University to study Arabic and International Relations. After graduation, Miss Inaya remained in Yorkshire as a Leeds University Intercultural Ambassador, student radio producer and Leeds Loves Ambassador.
Returning to London she became a box-ticking media-type contributing to The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Times, Spiked, GB News and various BBC productions besides Question Time. Despite being only 27, Ms Folarin Iman is also a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.
Standing in Leeds North East in the 2019 general election for the Brexit Party, Inaya gained 3.5% of the vote. According to the league table of such things, a decent 3.4% more than Mike Pense’s vote share in the January 2024 New Hampshire Republican Party primary.
She has also set up a number of impressive-sounding organisations including the Equiano Project which has recently become a registered charity with herself as one of the trustees. According to documents lodged with the Charity Commission, Equiano’s charitable objectives contain diversity, equity and inclusion gobbledegook intense even by DEI standards.
One can’t help but suspect the charity exists to allow trustees to be paid to be listened to. Besides Ms Folarin those trustees are the famous headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh CBE, a Mr Oliver Langton Wright and the interesting Dr Marie Kawthar Daouda.
Dr Ms Kawthar is a Stipendiary Lecturer in French at Oriel where she teaches both literature and language. According to herself, Mme Kawthar studied French and English literature at La Sorbonne and at the Universite de Bretagne Occidentale.
Furthermore, she needs to inform her curious audience, “My thesis in French and Comparative Literature entitled ‘L’Anti-Salome, representations de la feminite bienveillante au temps de la Decadence (1850-1920)’ has been published as a monograph and questions the decadent cliche of the femme fatale by studying the presence of benevolent feminine figures in fin-de-siecle novels and by considering the complexities of archetypal figures such as the martyr, the fairy or the prostitute as agents of revival after a time of crisis.”
Sweetheart, before you put another mot to papier, take it from one who has an honorary doctorate from the University of Review, you’re sentences are too long.
***
Question one. Can we believe anything Labour pledges given the ditching of the £28 billion annual green spend commitment? Yes, it means you can trust us even more, assured Wes Streeting, before blaming it all on the Tories. No apology. A long, hard look at the challenges. Can we deliver and can the country afford it? If not, it has to stay out of the manifesto. Every Labour pledge will be kept.
It was a bravado performance delivered with the intense sincerity that only the intensely insincere can perform, but it was met with scattered applause disappointing by BBC audience standards.
Wes claimed energy bills will be cut and the economy will grow without a Labour policy and then he turned into David Brent. It’s not easy, it’s not easy for us politicians to gamble with your taxpayers’ money.
James Daly has spotted 60 Starmer u-turns and 300 mentions committing to the £28 billion. Labour will say anything to get your vote.
Oh, no. An audience member, black at that, wanted the prime minister to apologise to the Gay family. He even pronounced it ‘gay’. La Bruce sprang into action, correcting him to Ghey, pronounced, somehow, ‘j-eye’. Presumably, both of them meant the Spooner family. La Bruce moved quickly on to a gentleman in a sweater before passing the question back to the panel.
‘Am nut ‘ere f’ me grate pol-it-ic-ul braaain,’ began multimillionaire Cheshire stockbroker belt resident Paddy McGuinness, ‘but that didn’t stop Boris Johnson.’ Groan. ‘I think f’ me.’ As well as ‘for’ pronounced ‘f’, he said ‘wuur’ instead of ‘where’ and ‘ernd’ instead of ‘and’. But he did say ‘climate crisis’ properly.
Daisy raised him to a ‘climate and ecological emergency’ which should be above politics. Wasting £28 billion a year on climate transition is an investment, apparently.
Inaya felt Starmer was giving an impression of transformative vision but without any substance. Ahhh!
People are voting Labour because they don’t like the Tories rather than for any better reason, added an audience member.
Another in the audience raised the stakes to ‘climate catastrophe’.
The £28 billion a year was about more than clean power and we can still get there without the £28 billion, explained Wes. £7.3 billion will do the job. Lots of these things appear from nowhere for nothing if you change the planning rules for free. The real David Brent blushed, made an excuse and crept from the hall.
The second question was about dentistry or rather the lack of it. There is a plan according to James Daly which will create 2.5 million more appointments.
This was Labour’s plan according to Wes but there’s more to do. Wes had been to Bristol to see a big queue of non-metropolitans trying to register with an NHS dentist. Wes will solve the problem with his manifesto.
An NHS dentist spoke, he wasn’t taking any more patients as there’s a cap and he doesn’t get paid for anymore. Back to the panel.
‘My dad took ‘is own teeeeth out.’
Rising to the challenge your humble Cumbrian reviewer felt obliged to put Southerner Paddy in his place by yelling at the telly, ‘Teeth to take out? Luxury. When I were a lad, my grandmother didn’t have any teeth to take out, real or false, and chewed on her gums.’ True fact.
While pretending to be thick, Paddy explained the Unit of Dental Activity system whereby dentists have to complete target-based care rather than care-based care. Before you ask, care is pronounced ‘cuuuur’.
Voters want GPs and dentists began Daisy. There are plenty of dentists. We need preventative work instead of pliers and superglue. She has an exciting model in mind. Don’t we all!
The next question was about limiting the usage of smartphones among young people. Fiona Bruce referenced the Brianna Ghey case, not a real name: Brett Spooner.
Daisy doubted a ban would work but is open to ideas. If social media were to go tomorrow, Paddy wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it. But. It’s here to stay. Kids need to be educated about it. Why not require proper identification and verification to join these apps? For paedophiles, it is so easy to contact kids. Parents need to be educated too.
Bruce suggested the genie might be out of the bottle now.
Iyana thought things can already be controlled through filtering rather than banning. An audience member made the point that there is less these days for children to do away from technology.
Other audience members seemed to suggest that such problems can be educated out of existence. One feels obliged to observe that so far they haven’t been.
Wes Streeting didn’t think a ban was workable. He wanted to support young people through a process instead.
The subtext being that the corruption of young people by technology and social media is exactly what politicians and the progressive London bubble want.
© Always Worth Saying 2024
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
