Always Worth Saying’s Question Time Review

Question Time 3rd October 2024

The Panel:

Ian Murray (Labour)
Andrew Bowie (Conservative)
Wendy Chamberlain (LibDems)
Jenny Gilruth (SNP)
Ian MacWhirter (Author & Coulmnist)

Venue: Dundee

Last time, QT Review HQ introduced Puffins to the Edwards Coefficient of Being a Wrong ‘Un. The contributing factors being; rejection by Oxford University, growing up in stifling provincial hypocrisy, and repressed attraction to men. It would be petty to expect panellists north of the border to traipse to Oxford, added to which nearby Edinburgh provides an even more intense, cliquey bubble.

This being Scotland, the stifling hypocrisy is guaranteed to be off the scale. That leaves being rejected by Edinburgh and a repressed attraction to men. As we shall, three of tonight’s panellists are graduates of Edinburgh University – with one rising to be Lord Rector. Suspicion shifts toward the other two. One joined the navy – make of that what you will – and the other’s natural interest in men is so repressed that she married a woman. Do we have movement on the Edwards Coefficient Wrong ‘Un dial (a rotating bare bottom that points to an increasing number of webcams)? Read on!

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Jenny Gilruth has been the SNP MSP for Mid Fife and Glenrothes since 2016. She is a graduate of Glasgow University and holds a degree in Sociology and Politics. Further studies saw her awarded a postgraduate qualification in Education from the University of Strathclyde, after which she embarked on a career in teaching. Rising to be Principal Teacher of Social Subjects at St. Columba’s Roman Catholic High School, Dunfermline, Jenny boasts on her Wikipedia page of marking exams for the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Forty-year-old Jenny is ‘married’ to a woman – Kezia Dugdale, one-time leader of the Scottish Labour Party. They tied the knot in July 2017 at the Teasses Estate in Ceres.

Andrew Bowie is the Conservative representative for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and has been a Westminster MP since the June 2017 general election.

The thirty-seven-year-old was born in Arbroath and educated at Inverurie Academy. After school, he joined the Navy, rising to sub-lieutenant in the Ceremonial Events Commemoration Team. After failing his navigation exams Andrew was promoted backwards to study history and politics at the University of Aberdeen. After graduation, he worked for the Conservative Party in Scotland before being elected to parliament.

Following the recent Tory general election defeat, Mr Bowie has disembarked from the role of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Nuclear and Networks at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and has been whistled aboard the opposition benches as the much easier-to-say Shadow Minister for Veterans.

Wife Madeleine Clarke is from Stockholm. The happy couple welcomed a daughter, Emily Catherine Jane, in August 2022. Advice to the firstborn’s new father: when mum gives her baby her favourite three names, it means she doesn’t want any more.

Wendy Chamberlain is the Liberal Democrat MP for the North East Fife constituency. This includes St Andrews, Cupar and Leuchars. First elected to parliament in the December 2019 ‘Get Brexit Done’ election, Wendy is the current deputy leader of the Scottish wing of her party.

A graduate of Edinburgh University, shinty playing Wendy is a policeman’s daughter who joined the force herself and served for twelve years with the Lothian and Borders constabulary. There followed a career in lecturing, training and ‘capability management’, latterly with multinational beverages outfit Diageo.

When asked to speak at a Scottish LibDems pride event in 2020, Wendy struggled to tick the LGBTQI++ boxes. Lacking the demographic in her personal history, the best she could do was express disappointment at Michael Ball’s second place in the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest and recall, from when she was on the police, a traffic warden called ‘Jan’ who ‘transitioned later in life.’

The 47-year-old is married to Keith who she met in the police force. They have two daughters plus stepchildren who have also entered police careers.

Upon leaving school at 16, Ian Murray studied Social Policy, Politics, and Law at the University of Edinburgh’s Academy of Government. Following graduation, he worked for Royal Blind, now known as Sight Scotland and once known as The Edinburgh Asylum for the Relief of the Indigent and Industrious Blind. After that stint in pensions management, the 48-year-old pursued his entrepreneurial spirit through a failed dot com start-up called worldart.com and his own now dormant company, 100mph Events Limited. Murray’s political career began in 2003 when he was elected to the City of Edinburgh Council.

In 2010, Ian was elected as the Labour MP for Edinburgh South. At the 2015 general election, he was the only Labour MP returned north of the border, an accolade held until the 2017 election after which he had a battle buddy, Hugh Gaffney of Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. However, Hugh lost his seat at the 2019 vote, leaving Ian marooned once more. Speaking of maroon and loneliness, Ian is a Heart of Midlothian fan. Help was at hand in the 2024 general election with Mr Murray now being one of 37 Scottish Labour MPs. Plus, he has been appointed the Secretary of State for Scotland in Mr Starmer’s cabinet.

Previously QT Review HQ spotted Mr Murray coping with the cost of living crisis by allowing his pockets to be stuffed. Ian accepted financial hospitality from the Council of European Palestinian Relations, the Falkland Islands Government, the Government of The United Arab Emirates. The Republic of China, the USDAW trades union, the Unite Union and the Community Trade Union. A Miss Mary Hughes, Lord Oakeshott, Messrs Gill Donald, Gordon Dalyell and Mark Bathgate (who’s also a Tory donor), Lord William Haughie and the GMB union. Price Waterhouse Copper, ITV, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Charlotte Street Partners.

Given the present situation, you would think cabinet ministers might be beating a track to Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and the Yemen. Not so. Recently Mr Murray preferred £1,500 worth of free fact-finding jolly to Switzerland’s not-so-war-torn Lausanne – accompanied by a ‘political advisor.’

Ian MacWhirter attended George Herriot’s School, an independent day school in Edinburgh whose fees are £17,426 per annum. A graduate of politics at Edinburgh University, the 72-year-old was researching a PhD in regionalism and nationalism when he began to work for the BBC. A career in journalism followed, both with the national broadcaster and The Scotsman, Herald, The Observer, The Spectator, The Times and even the Big Issue and Public Finance magazine. Iain is a former Lord Rector of his old university and an external examiner for Strathclyde University’s post-graduate journalism course.

Despite this, and despite being on sale for 70p, Iain’s mighty work, ‘Road to Referendum’ sits a plebiscite losing 2,189,714th on the Amazon best sellers list, a miserable 2,036,856 places behind the Marquis de Sade’s ‘120 Days of Sodom.’

Not to worry, ever a tight rector, Iain is careful with the 70 pences and uses the old tax-dodging journalistic trick of being paid into his own company (Iain MacWhirter Associates) rather than being on a media corporation payroll.

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Question one, does handing back £6,000 get Mr. Starmer off the hook? A reference to freebie-gate. La Bruce read some of the freebies out. Ian Murray laid the ‘transparent’ and ‘honest’ cards, adding there was no undue influence given in return. Apart perhaps, one suspects, for the occasional peerage and full access to Number 10.

So why is he handing them back, wondered La Bruce? (Not Waheed’s peerage and access to Downing Street – Keith’s Taylor Swift tickets). That’s his judgement, retorted Ian, shifting the blame. The blame bounced back, with Fiona Bruce pointing out Ian himself had accepted hospitality recently at a Liverpool v Bournemouth wendyball fixture. That was to engage with Scottish Salmon, replied Ian. One wonders why this must take place over roast swan in a luxury box at Anfield. Why can’t he stare at the fishes from a muddy lochside in a rain-drenched October?

Iain repeated that he wanted to engage. He had also engaged at the Edinburgh Military Tatoo. He made the point that MPs’ interests are published and available to the public. Which they are. This column makes use of them most weeks. From time to time the newspapers do a bit of an article on someone. Interestingly, two weeks ago, Fiona Bruce herself said Tim Farron receives nothing, whereas upon referencing the member’s list of interests we discovered Tim took hundreds of thousands of pounds in the run-up to the election. Hmm.

Which begs the question, why give the issue such a low profile for many years, or even cover it up altogether, and then make such a huge song and dance about Starmer’s freebies? Perhaps there’s something else on the media radar that we aren’t being told about? Hmmm.

Wendy Chamberlain had free tickets for the British kebab awards but said she’d sent the staff, in much the same way the Queen used to send Princess Margaret after being invited to tour the likes of a black pudding factory. As for Wendy’s free golf at St Andrews, this is because it’s an important tourist attraction in her constituency.

‘Is it transparent? Is it honest?’ began Jenny Gilruth before continuing, ‘Is it right?’ The new government are as bad as the Tories.

Iain MacWhirter wanted to wind it back. Starmers a multi-millionaire and yet he takes all this money off Lord Alli, and free specs and the free clothes. It’s a question of scale. The problem with Labour is while in opposition they have persuaded themselves they are more virtuous than anyone else.

If we look at Lord Alli’s contributions to the Labour Party which, once more, are publicly declared, at £700,000 across a period of time they are minor compared with those made by the trades unions. Added to which, Lord Alli can do what he likes with his own money honestly earned. One wonders what all the fuss is about. Unless of course, there’s something we aren’t being told. Hmmmm.

Question two, diplomacy has failed both in Ukraine and in the Middle East, what can be done to stop this madness? La Bruce pointed to a sense of helplessness in the tone of the questioner. He added the United Nations had been set up at the end of the war to stop further wars and yet seemed helpless. He continued that the conflict in the Middle East had been going on for decades.

Disappointing from a Dundee audience. One would expect more Bible from the banks of the Tay. The Jews and the Persians (modern-day Iranians) were at it in classical antiquity, as chronicled by the Old Testament. As for the Palestinians, they’re mentioned in the hieroglyphics. During the Iron Age, Philistia was a territory south of Canaan – ie modern-day Gaza. And the Left think they can change human nature…

Is there anything we can do, asked La Bruce, except sit back and watch? Not really. Time for bed.
 

© Always Worth Saying 2024
 

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