Question Time 3rd April 2025
The Panel:
Sir Chris Bryant (Labour)
Mims Davies (Conservative)
Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru)
Emily Sheffield (Columnist & Broadcaster)
Shavanah Taj (Trade Unionist)
Venue: Cardiff
We just keep on winning – another mighty victory for Brexit. Donald Trump’s tariffs are twice as high for the European Union as for us. With import taxes set at twenty percent for the EU and ten percent for the UK, our exporters to the US now have a competitive advantage over their competitors from EU countries.
The resulting flood of Remainer tears threatens to drown us. Can we export them? Is there a tariff? As the Trump Derangement Syndrome rose beyond the high-water mark, Ben on Wednesday’s BBC Newsnight declared, “A very, very significant moment in world history.” What a clown. Meanwhile, the President was getting a hold of the Remainers and the European Union and putting them to “the back of the queue.” Guffaw.
Chris Bryant is the Labour MP for Rhondda and Ogmore and has been since 2001. Now serving as the Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms, the champagne socialist is the son of a Chrysler Corporation executive and a BBC employee. Educated at the exclusive Cheltenham College, the 63-year-old is a graduate of Mansfield College, Oxford. After a spell as an ordained vicar, Chris worked for Common Purpose and the BBC before entering Westminster politics.
An expenses thief, Mr Bryant claimed over £80,000 on a London penthouse, which he rented out for £3,000 a month while living elsewhere. According to his current Parliamentary Register of Interests, available via They Work for You, Bryant received payment of £50,000 for the 80 hours needed to write a book. If you think that’s quick money, on March 25th, 2024, he took £2,871 from the BBC for zero hours’ work.
Mims Davies (not her real name, Miriam Jane Alice Davies) is the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and MP for East Grinstead and Uckfield. A full 120 miles from the principality, Ms Davies’ South of England constituency is closer to Caen than to Cardiff and closer to St Helier than to Swansea.
In her defence, Davies claims a Welsh husband but they divorced in 2017. This news came to light when social media noticed her declared shareholding in a company called New River Retail. A big outfit, in 2024, NRR had revenues of over £65 million and owned 33 shopping centres, 25 warehouses, 14 high street units and over 700 public houses.
While still married, other-half Mark was both finance director of the company and a shareholder while NRR donated to his wife. Hmm. Social media claimed that Ms Davies also held shares when the donations were made. Miriam disputed this, claiming her submission regarded only her spouse’s interest. Hmmm. However, three years later, and after her divorce, a shareholding of over £70,000 was still appearing in her register of interests. Hmmmm.
Also noticeable are sums donated to her from secretive dining clubs such as the Westminster Dining Club and the McMillan Club. With memberships being private, these ‘clubs’ are used to disguise the identities of the actual donors. Whilst on the page, I couldn’t help but spot her most recent declaration is of £420 from a Mr Ibrahim Dogus for a ticket to the British Kebab Awards.
Another Corporation-type, Rhun ap Iorwerth joined BBC Wales in 1994 and rose to become the channel’s Chief Political Correspondent. The 52-year-old entered the Welsh Synod in 2013 as the Plaid Cymru representative for Anglesey (Ynys Mon) and is the current leader of the party. Not his real name, Rhun Jones is a practitioner in the cringingly embarrassing fringes-of-the-British-Isles fad of Celticising your name. In the interests of ethnic-based inverted snobbery, from now on I’m Allwees Wurth Saying. Begorra.
Although it’s rarely mentioned, columnist and broadcaster Emily Sheffield is the sister of Samantha Cameron, wife of ex-prime minister Dave. The girls are the daughters of Scunthorpe man of the soil, Farmer Reg. Also known as Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet, his North Lincolnshire pile runs to several thousand acres.
Educated as a boarder at the exclusive Marlborough College, Emily was born in the Lindo Wing of Paddington’s St Mary’s Hospital – the Royal Family’s maternity ward of choice – and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia. As well as being a descendant of Charles II, the 51-year-old mother of two is a hereditary journalist, her great-grandfather having chaired Reuters.
One of the Glamorganshire Taj’s, 47-year-old Ms Shavanah Taj is a Muslim from Pakistan and the TUC’s General Secretary for Wales. Shavanah is a graduate of the universities of Glamorgan, the West of England and of the TUC Organising Academy. Since completing her education, Taj has done nothing other than trade union non-jobs.
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Question one. Given recent price increases, who is Rachael Reeves trying to convince when she says people are going to be £500 better off?
It’s tough for the people of Rhondda, began Sir Chris, name-dropping his constituency at the first opportunity. They’ve had their latest bill from mumble Cymru? In the light of what followed, mumble Cymru turned out to be Dŵr Cymru – Welsh Water. On the other hand, Chris continued, the minimum wage has gone up and wages are rising higher than prices.
He suggested water meters for single people to stave off the menace that is Dŵr Cymru. The economy needs to be ‘on the road again’. He took us back to 1997, an irrelevant 28 years ago, and talked us through the various combinations of the state of the economy and public services that previous Tory and Labour governments had left behind or inherited.
Miriam, the Shadow Secretary of State For Wales, in her posh South of England accent, welcomed the audience to ‘awful April’. Council tax, water and energy prices are going up. Prior to the election, in which the Tories lost all 12 of their Welsh seats, the economy had been going in the right direction.
A theme was emerging, bereft of any ideas both Tory and Labour blame each other’s governments or previous governments for everything, with the unlikely selling point being it would be even worse with the other lot.
Fourteen years they were in charge, screeched Shavanah. She had an odd analogy to share with us, as if an over-excited or over-refreshed Valleys chapel preacher making up a parable as he went along. “It’s like your car has broken down and you get into another person’s car and after a few miles you say, ‘I’ll tell you what, I don’t like your driving.'”
What’s that supposed to mean?
Chris rattled through an Employment Bill which hasn’t been enacted yet and then proposed we all feel more prosperous because Labour is standing by, and spending a lot of your money on, The Ukraine.
A 29-year-old disabled doctor spoke from the audience. She was unlikely to have the wealth of her parents. They’re unlikely to have your pay rise or pension, Love! It would be irresponsible for her to bring a child into the world. She hoped to qualify as a GP but there weren’t enough places on GP courses.
She said she was having to compete against doctors from all over the world. A message there about immigration – without anyone on QT saying the word. “Hard work should be rewarded,” she said a few times. Hold on a minute. A sheep dog works hard, as does a cart horse. They don’t roll in money. You have to add more value to what you do relative to what your parents did if you want to be better off than them. Get busy.
Emily pointed out our high-tax, low-pay economy. Where’s the Labour plan? In the Budget, Rachael Reeves put a handbrake on growth. Emily saw Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill as a hammer blow to small and medium-sized businesses. Her husband is in hospitality. He employs 65 people. This month he’s battered by increases to both employer’s National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage.
The feisty exchanges continued with Rhun concentrating upon cuts to welfare. Mim pointed out a very expensive tax-payer-funded job creation scheme to expand the number of politicians in the Synod.
Question Two. How should the UK respond to Trump’s tariffs? Abolish ours and they’ll abolish theirs, said no one. Mim claimed there’d been a US trade deal ready when the Tories left office but the Labour Party had sat on it. She praised Brexit. La Bruce jumped in to contradict her. Our tariff situation may not be better than Costa Rica’s or The Congo’s, but better than the EU’s, responded Miriam.
Rhun wasn’t happy with the idea of a Brexit dividend. Perhaps he wants higher tariffs? He is a proud European and wants to rejoin the EU’s Single Market and the Customs Union. Yes, he does want higher tariffs. The UK is weak and isolated, he said. Then how come we got a better deal from the Americans than the EU? Or China? Or India? Another clown.
What is our vision? asked an audience member. Trump has a vision. Where is the vision here? Wales has become the ultimate nanny state. A debate over whether there should be confectionery in shops? Dropping the speed limit to 20 mph? The gentleman had no confidence in any of the panel and could understand why people are voting for Reform.
Which just about sums it up.
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Our hard-working £110,000 a year representatives in the House of Liars and Thieves now take a well-earned five-week-long Easter Holiday. Question Time Review will return on Friday 9th May. In the meantime, a happy and spiritual Easter to all our readers from the team at QT Review HQ.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
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