Question Time 13th March 2025
The Panel:
Emma Reynolds (Labour)
Luke Evans (Conservative)
Wendy Chamberlain (LibDem)
Faiza Shaheen (Economist & Activist)
Konstantin Kisin (Podcaster & author)
Venue: Wolverhampton
Is there a method to Trump’s madness in Ukraine? Emma Reynolds preferred to describe the recent progress toward a ceasefire as a “new dynamic,” while positioning her party leader, Keir Starmer, to take some credit through his conferences and coalition of the willing.
Posh Emma is the Labour MP for Wycombe and a previous Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton North East. A private school master’s daughter, the 45-year-old is a graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, from Wadham College, Oxford.
Puffins will be unsurprised to read that the solicitor’s wife has never had a job and between leaving university and entering the Commons Ms Reynolds pursued lobbying, political advisory and ‘commercial public affairs.’
A successor to Puffin’s favourite, Honest Tulip Siddiq, Emma’s present role is as Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
Dressed in Air Force blue, La Bruce wondered, given this wasn’t happening under the previous US administration, was Trump right all along? She was baffled that the huge criticism Trump receives on QT every week hasn’t scuppered his foreign policy efforts.
Luke didn’t know. The proof would be in the eating of the pudding. The ingredients of which were being disrupted by Trump’s other, thus far less fruitful policy of imposing tariffs.
Nobody mentioned the previous president (and his son’s) inertia inducing compromising financial relationship with Ukraine.
Luke Evans is the MP for Hinckley and Bosworth and has been since 2019. A Tory party whip, prior to a political career, Mr Evans was a GP, as is his spouse. The 42-year-old’s parents were a doctor and a nurse.
Konstantin didn’t want people to get carried away. Putin is going through the minimum. We promised the Ukrainians we would help them to win, but didn’t do enough. The conflict became a meat grinder. Trump means well but we are a long way from peace.
A black lady in the audience would give Trump no credit, not on account of what is happening but because of the way in which he is going about it.
Faiza thought Trump had strengthened Russia’s hand. She was worried for the Ukrainians who are going to lose out and going to lose territory. Trump has unintentionally brought Europe together. However, she didn’t want to see defence spending raised and would prefer to focus on energy security. In doing so, she confused the consequences of Net Zero with the consequences of interruption to the supply of Russian hydrocarbons.
Not her real name, Faiza Shaheen is Dr Faiza Gazi, her other half being actor Akin Gazi who, ominously, is listed in IMDb as ‘appearing’ in things rather than ‘starring’ in them.
Puffins will be unsurprised to discover his wife has never starred in a proper occupation but appears in research and charadee non-jobs.
Faiza’s mighty work, ‘Know Your Place’ found its place all of 178,201 positions below the Marquis de Sade’s ‘120 days of Sodom’ on the Amazon best sellers list.
As for the great author, her place is as a posh girl from posh London. Another PPE graduate, after Oxford, the 42-year-old continued her studies at the University of Manchester where she completed an MA in Statistics. At the London School of Economics, she earned a PhD. Her doctoral thesis being entitled ‘Identifying ‘at-risk’ neighbourhoods: Exploring the scope for an Index of Area Vulnerability.’ Oh.
In yet another example of the Biblical truism ‘physician heal thyself’, it emerges Faiza has her own area of vulnerability in that most at-risk of neighbourhoods known as social media.
In the guff that comes with Question Time, Ms Shaheen is described as having stood as an independent in the 2024 election. This is disingenuous on the part of the BBC. In reality, Faiza was de-selected as a Labour candidate in Conservative Ian Duncan-Smith’s Chingford constituency following an ‘exploration of the scope’ of her Twitter feed.
In a series of messages, re-tweets and likes, Ms Shaheen compared Israel to apartheid South Africa and urged a boycott of Jewish, oops, Israeli, businesses. She also supported Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of support for the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s critical report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which resulted in the former party leader having the whip removed and being suspended.
Furthermore, she agreed ‘hysterical people’ ‘mobilised by professional organisations’ are part of an ‘Israeli lobby’ who assail those even mildly critical of Israel.
In the identity politics tangle that minorities-leaning Labour creates for itself, these views were taken by their National Executive Committee as evidence of ancient tropes suggesting undue influence from you know who. Hmm.
Wailing about the resultant inquiry in a BBC interview, Faiza overshared medically on the Newsnight sofa – as she overshares politically on Twitter – blaming her sore boobs (breast feeding mastisis) for her unconvincing defence before the NEC.
No matter what the state of her troublesome puppies, or the harm or otherwise caused by her views on the Holy Land, Ms Shaheen gave the NEC the excuse they were looking for and replaced her with a Starmer ally. Hmmm.
Her successor was Shama Tatler, a councillor in the London Borough of Brent and member of the Jewish Labour Movement. Hmmmmmm.
Predictably, Messrs Talter and Shaheen split the Labour vote (Faiza coming a close third to Shama) with the seat being retained by the half-decent but fully-dim, Ian Duncan-Smith.
Not to worry. More of a Dr Faiza from the Economics Department than a Rachael from Accounts, Shaheen returned to the London School of Economics where she is both a visiting professor in practice and a distinguished policy fellow.
The Trump derangement needle, already starting to twitch, lurched further from the horizontal as Wendy Chamberlain spoke. Trump is bringing peace to the world to take the credit. He’s doing this by materially weakening an ally. Avoiding ‘relationship fracturing’ appeared to be more important to her than saving tens of thousands of lives.
Wendy Chamberlain is the LibDem representative in the House of Commons for North East Fife. A graduate of Edinburgh University, the 48-year-old is a policeman’s daughter who herself served for twelve years with the Lothian and Borders constabulary.
The first woman to join the board of shinty’s governing body, the Camanachd Association, husband Keith (not that Keith), who she met in the police force, prefers the larger, inflated round ball game and is an enthusiastic gentleman follower of Heart of Midlothian. Or, as Wendy puts it, ‘a big Jambo.’
A gentleman who’d served in the forces and had served a year in Cold War West Germany spoke. There, he had experienced twelve months of ‘the scariest thing’. But peace can’t come at any cost, you have to show strength to stop them from coming over the border. He referenced the short life expectancy in those days (40 minutes if I remember rightly) of those nearest the Iron Curtain should war break out.
Konsatntin was relaxed about a gold-plated statue of Trump being erected – on condition the president came up with a proper peace settlement. He was also relaxed about any loss of territory but insisted upon permanent security based upon a physical barrier (meaning a serious peace keeping force part-supplied by us) to be established between the Ukraine and Russia.
A comprehensive QT Review biography of Konstantin Kisin can be found here.
Suffice it to say, the 42-year-old isn’t quite who he says he is, with his self-described impoverished Ukraine/Russia/USSR-centric background being somewhat contradictory to the verifiable. A public school boy (Clifton College, Bristol, £54,000 per annum) who left the University of Edinburgh to take advantage of other opportunities, Konstantin comes across as an opportunist whose values shift according to career expediency.
Is this a bad thing? No! In the troubled times approaching, I’ll book a place next to him in the trenches while the rest of you squat beside economists, PPE graduates and a Liberal Democrat.
Speaking of territory in the far south occupied by foreigners and resembling a meat grinder, La Bruce announced next week’s programme will come from Reading.
Question two. Will the abolition of NHS England be a help?
Former GP Luke Evans said he didn’t know. The good news is Health Secretary Wes Streeting will hold direct responsibility, but on the other hand, the decisions made may well be political rather than clinical. He told some personal anecdotes of the over-manned bureaucracy that medical staff face.
There’s been a big duplication of effort, began Emma, but she wouldn’t say how much money would be saved by the forthcoming change.
La Bruce raised the issue of several thousand job losses. Emma said what was important was bringing down waiting times.
The system isn’t working in Scotland either, said Wendy. She blamed the SNP in the same way Labour scapegoat the legacy received from the Tories. The big issue is social care. If this isn’t solved, other issues can’t be challenged.
What nobody mentioned was that the money freed-up isn’t going to the NHS or any other public service; it’s savings that have to be made because of Rachael Reeves’ slow motion crash of the economy.
Faiza thought there was no fat left to trim from the Civil Service after 14 years of disastrous Tory austerity. Really? Faiza had been reading QT Review and regurgitated QT Review HQ’s prep showing the amount of donations that West Streeting takes from those with a financial interest in private health care. We should be aware of that when the NHS budget is exercised more directly by ministers.
The public sector is massively bloated and has too much control over both citizens and politicians, began Konstantin. He was relaxed about Civil Service job cuts, as the redundant could find work in the productive part of the economy. If there’s been austerity, then how come the national debt keeps on rising and is now 100% of GDP?
Never mind that. Back to the Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s TDS dial-twitching destiny in its next phase. If I may bore the reader, many years ago I took an evening train from Albuquerque. To cut a longish story short, over supper in the dining car I sat opposite a couple of a certain age who fell over themselves to let me know they were from Independence, Missouri.
Yes, I’ve heard of Independence, Missouri, but I can’t quite recall why. Over my fried chicken special, it came back to me. Trueman. Truman was from Independence, Missouri. Indeed. The couple were delighted and took further pleasure in telling me they had known the great man.
What else do I remember about Truman? He dropped the atom bomb. ‘He ended the war’. Killed non-combatants by the tens of thousands? ‘He ended the war.’ Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t military targets. ‘He ended the war.’ I’m not judging in any way, just, with the easy naivety of the midshipman, obliged to gently play devil’s advocate when one degree of separation from Truman.
‘He ended the war,’ they beamed in unison.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
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