Question Time 20th June 2024
The Panel:
Rishi Sunak (Conservative)
Sir Keir Starmer (Labour)
Sir Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat)
John Swinney (Scottish National Party)
Venue: York
With our ignored articles and unread comments, Puffins have built the house, and, as expected, der Mann ist gekommen. However, the BBC won’t let him in. Despite Reform being second or equal second in more than one opinion poll, Question Time’s definition of the Big Four party leaders excludes Nigel Farage. Instead, another leader’s special will be broadcast on Friday, June 28th. Mr Farage will be present and the Greens – in the shape of the dippy but attractive Carla Denyer – are invited to attend.
Expect Nigel to be barraged with claims about his candidates. Ms Bruce will be armed with extreme-hard-far-ultra Right-wing social media artefacts exhumed by the Home Office’s propaganda warfare contractors – which you pay for. G-P readers learned of such things here.
As for tonight’s programme, the candidate for Clacton-on-Sea may benefit in his absence as the four panellists make fools of themselves. Too many TV events take place. They are over-repetitive. The ratings are not high. On these pages and elsewhere, candidates are overexposed. One runs out of things to say about them, except perhaps for Ed Davey…
Sir Edward Jonathan Davey FRSA was born in Nottinghamshire and educated at the fee-paying Nottingham High School before graduating in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Jesus College, Oxford. The solicitor’s son worked as a researcher for the Liberal Democrat Party in London before a five-year stint in management consultancy with Omega Partners.
The 58-year-old entered parliament in 1997 as MP for Surbiton and rose to be a cabinet minister in the 2010 coalition government. His responsibilities included ‘postal affairs’ and, as such, attracts intense criticism regarding sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses wronged by the Post Office Horizon scandal. Sir Edward invokes the Vennell’s Defence: pretend ignorance.
In 2012, Davey became Minister for Energy and Climate Change, during which time he approved the construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. After losing his seat in 2015, Sir Edward took up a number of appointments. These included a consultancy with MHP Communications. By coincidence, MHP handled the PR account of EDF, part of a £18bn Franco-Chinese consortium building Hinkley Point. The cost of completing the power station is now put at between £31 billion and £34 billion.
In the same trade deal, The Shanghai Nord Engine Capital Asset Management Group promised to invest £250m in British small and medium-sized enterprises. At the time, Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg expressed his reservations. He spoke of, “Very large scale abuse of human rights that still continues [in China].” To handle the £250m fund, Shanghai Nord set up a subsidiary in London called Nord Engine Capital, with concerned Mr Clegg’s LibDem colleague Ed Davey on the board.
Following the adverse publicity surrounding his role in Horizon, the LibDems have tried to portray Sir Edward as if a kindly uncle or harmless dad. His disabled son is mentioned. Davey Senior is photographed falling off wind boards, running around fun-day assault courses and slipping down water slides.
Mrs Davey is Emily Gasson, a serial failed LibDem electoral candidate who, after many setbacks, found herself elevated to Kingston Upon Thames Council in 2018. This isn’t a nice thing to say about a gal. One hesitates. But don’t they look alike? Sir Edward. Lady Emily.
As you realise, Mr Sunak is the Southampton-born son of a GP and a pharmacist. An old boy of Winchester College, the 45-year-old took a First in PPE at Lincoln College, Oxford, before moving to the global investment bank Goldman Sachs. From here, his career progressed via involvement in foreign and tax haven-based hedge funds.
Mr Sunak undertook further studies at Stanford University in San Francisco, gaining an MBA and a wife. Akshata Murthy is the daughter of N R N Murthy, a Bangalore billionaire and founder of IT multinational Infosys.
The Sunaks are wealthy beyond avarice and have their primary residence in a $5 million apartment at the Waverley development in California’s Santa Monica. One would assume the prime minister to be on a well-rewarded Globalist trajectory, but given his catastrophic leadership of the Conservative Party, culminating in the election campaign from Hell, perhaps not.
If this were a Bond film, Rishi would be Spectre’s bumbling representative from Bangalore, strapped to a chair in the basement of a Geneva mansion as George Soros pulls a giant red lever. In real life, and no less agonising, the hapless Mr Sunak provides free target practice before a Nicola Sturgeon-style career void.
Edinburgh-born John Swinney attended Forrester High School and the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a degree in politics. As a management consultant, the garage manager’s son became a strategic planning principal with Scottish Amicable Life Assurance before winning Tayside North for the SNP at the 1997 Westminster election.
Elected as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North Tayside in 1999 and later for Perthshire North following boundary changes, Swinney held numerous roles in the Scottish Government, including SNP leader from 2000 to 2004. The 60-year-old is married with three children and describes himself as having a deep Christian faith. Keeping it in the media-political bubble, his wife, Elizabeth Quigley, is a journalist and former BBC reporter.
Sir Keir Starmer is the son of a successful Surrey businessman. Privately educated at Reigate Grammar, after studying law at Leeds and St Edmund’s, Oxford, Starmer became the editor of an extreme left-wing Trotysist publication. In which – amongst other things ignored by propaganda warfare wallahs – he supported terrorism and praised our Cold War enemies in the Soviet Union. Fuller details here. [linky to starmergeddon]
Upon being called to the bar in 1987, Starmer joined the Middle Temple Chambers and, among other trendy leftie causes, represented Liberty, the one-time National Council of Civil Liberties.
In 1990, Kier was a joint founder of Doughty Street Chambers and joined a new generation of leftie QC royalty. While a QC, Starmer remained soft on terrorism. He acted for Islamic cleric Abu Qatada and as an advisor to Phil Shiner, who chased ambulances on behalf of Iraqi terrorists following Gulf War II and was later struck off.
A Blair/Brown acolyte, despite never prosecuting a criminal case, in 2008, Starmer became Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service. More controversies followed, including the non-prosecution of Jimmy Savile and Muslim child rape gangs which included senior local Labour Party members.
Elected to parliament in 2015 in London’s safe Labour seat of St Pancras and Holborn, after serving with enthusiasm in the Jeremy Corbyn shadow cabinet, Sir Kier was elected leader of the Labour Party following Corbyn’s 2019 general election defeat.
Or perhaps not. The lever remains un-thrown. Mr Soros smiles as he unbinds the useless Indian and leads him via cellar steps to crystal mid-summer Swiss sunshine. Later, over drinks on a lakeside terrace, the usual conspirators take turns to congratulate Mr Sunak on a job badly done. A more dangerous Globo-Marxist traitor now being assured the keys to Number 10.
***
Rather than a panel, the selected BBC audience questioned the four leaders individually for half an hour each. After drawing lots to decide the order, the shortest straw belonged to the audience, who had to waste the first half of the programme listening to Davey and Swinney before Starmer and Sunak appeared.
In a dark suit, white shirt, red tie, new specs and wearing that gormless look, the first question to Keith was about his support for Jeremy Corbyn. The problem with Corbyn, apparently, wasn’t the anti-Semitism or support for terrorists, but that he wasn’t fully funded – bit like Mrs Truss.
La Bruce persisted, quoting a Starmer claim that Corbyn would be a great prime minister. Sir Kier explained he’d been campaigning for the Labour Party, not the leader or the manifesto. That’s alright then. And anyway, Jeremy would have been a better PM than Boris Johnson.
Question two was about promises to raise public spending without raising ‘mainstream’ taxes. Keith was going to put lots more into the NHS and defence. As he explained that his mum, wife and sister worked for the service, a giggle spread through the audience. Awaiting the statutory reference to his tool-making father, one’s mind drifted towards the sex change clinic.
The NHS is on its knees. Mrs Starmer assures it’s on its back. Kieth is going to put it back on its feet. At no point did he say (or did La Bruce attempt to prompt) how this would be paid for.
Starmer re-told one of his tired stories. He’d been humbled during a visit to Alderhey Children’s Hospital. The biggest problem is rotting teeth. Surely, Keith, a problem with parenting rather than dentistry?
The next question wondered how we are going to have a closer relationship with Europe given they’ve started (returned to?) voting for the Nazis? He didn’t answer that either but preferred to talk about jobs.
A fat nurse, a really fat nurse, spoke. She wanted more. Food? Sugar? Entire roast hogs? No, more pressure taken off nurses. Starmer promised her respect and overtime in the evenings and weekends. ‘Pay, pay,’ she wanted more pay. Agency levels of pay. Stamer had models from the Leeds and London hospitals that would reduce waiting lists over time. When will waiting lists come down? At two million extra appointments a year, waiting lists will be down to zero by the end of one parliament, he promised.
We moved on to tuition fees, a Starmer U-turn. He was going to spend the money on reducing waiting lists rather than abolishing student loans because of ‘damage to the economy’. Mrs Truss’s fault again.
While all this was going on, the BBC director was desperately scouring the audience for ‘nodders’. The good people of York didn’t oblige.
Moving on, why the absence of an immigration target? Because he’s in favour of mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration at any cost. Next!
The most difficult question so far. Back to making tools for the sex change clinic: do women have a cervix? Previously, Keith criticised Rossie Duffield for saying they do. Subsequently, Starmer’s orders have changed, obliging him to repeat Tony Blair’s line from the weekend that women have vaginas and men have penises. This is biological, which isn’t the point. The point is the prime minister made a trans joke when Brett Spooner’s mother was in the public gallery of the House of Commons.
The leader of a party packed with lobbyist election candidates went on to give us a lecture on serving the public. London-centric Keith wanted to bring the country together. He played to Jo Cox card, at which point, in a rare loss of nerve at QT Review HQ, I fast-forwarded to Mr Sunak.
The prime minister was also wearing a dark suit and white shirt but accompanied by a tie in fetching Reform blue.
Question one. Are we an international laughing stock? Are you embarrassed? Mr Sunak answered by thanking Fiona Bruce for inviting him along to be insulted. The next question was about a gambling scandal involving the date of the election and those close to the Tory election campaign. The full weight of the law. Confidential investigations.
How are you going to rebuild trust? You can trust me because my grandparents came from India. Oh. Two generations later, I’m your prime minister. Ah. I’m in this because of what this country has done to my family and to repay that.
He gave an anecdote about the St John’s Ambulance, which inspired him to introduce national service. Had he spoken to the former head of naval staff who thought the idea ‘bonkers’, wondered Bruce? And compulsion? Mr Sunak was all over the place. It was painful.
I’m reminded of a story about Ricard Pryor. The multi-Grammy award-winning comedian’s astonishing spontaneous improvisational style led him to be titled ‘the most brilliant comic in America’. But one night, it went wrong. In front of a live audience, his timing deserted him. Then his delivery. Then his memory. He struggled and stammered through gags he could no longer recall.
Fans began to fidget and cough and then could be seen leaving the theatre in twos and threes. Pryor struggled on, sweating and stuttering. Eventually, he walked to the edge of the stage and, crestfallen before a now silent three-quarters empty auditorium, announced, ‘Well, at least you got to see somebody crucified.’
© Always Worth Saying 2024
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