Question Time 8th May 2025
The Panel:
James Murray (Labour)
Graham Stuart (Conservative)
Richard Tice (Reform UK)
Calum Miller (LibDem)
Jo Grady (University and College Union)
Venue: Hull
Well. One feels like the director of an East European light bulb factory during the Cold War. Let me explain. The aforementioned facility was the The Red Spark Works, and it stood on Szénbányai Út (Coal Mine Road) in Munkástelep, a harmless industrial town in rural Hungary. In the 1970s, the RSW was not so much the municipality’s main employer as its only employer.
Successive generations blew glass and bent filaments on production lines below tin roofs. Rain dripped between corrugated panels. The occasional chicken or goat wandered by. This being the Warsaw Pact command economy, all production targets were met. In a rare deviation contrary to the norms of the place and times, met in practice as well as in theory.
The problem was, the light bulbs were crap. Therefore, even at five fillér a dozen, comrade customers wouldn’t have them. Storerooms filled with unwanted wares. So did the warehouse and the railway siding. Artisans ate in the open in all weathers as the workers’ canteen packed from stained lino to cracked ceiling with little boxes of unusable, poorly designed and badly assembled unworking light bulbs.
In desperation, Red Spark Head Comrade in Charge of Works, Commissar László Kovács, ordered the bulbs be piled in the street on the other side of the factory wall. Disaster struck, not so much for the good people of Munkástelep, who were able to help themselves under cover of darkness to free stuff, but for Kovács.
This is why, it is rumoured, the broken man was found barefoot and rambling beside the mighty river and had to be confined to the most secure asylum upon the Great Plain. For during the night-time pilfering, the Munkástelepi helped themselves to the useful little cardboard boxes the light bulbs came in and left Commissar Kovács’s beloved Red Spark brand bulbs to roll about on the rain-soaked cobbles.
One sympathises.
At QT Review HQ, we have access to that precious thing called data. A press of a button reveals graphs and charts. Those who concern themselves with such things as reach and engagement might pore over them for hours. Obviously, as nobody reads the articles or the comments, G-P staff ignore it.
However, more recently, one couldn’t help but notice a blip in the Matrix. While La Bruce and our hard-working £110,000-a-year representatives from the House of Liars and Thieves enjoyed a five-week-long Easter and early May bank holiday recess, Railway Review fillers took the place of Question Time Review.
Interestingly, rural Albania, a mineral railway in Brazil and the streetcars of Paramaribo did rather better in the flux of such things than the BBC and this humble reviewer’s very own flagship.
Hmm.
Commissar Comrade László Miklós Kovács, last known address, The Basement, People’s Peaceful Asylum Number 47, Somewhere on the Great Plain, I am your brother.
***
Question one: which party should be more worried about Reform — the Tories, the Labour or, wait for it, the electorate! Nobody laughed.
James Murray (Labour) blamed something for the humiliating result for Labour: the state of the country, which was the Tories’ fault. Labour is going to put money in people’s pockets. La Bruce interrupted to mention that the abolition of winter fuel payments took money out of pockets. This was the fault of the Tories too, according to James, because of the mess Labour had inherited.
They didn’t trust you so they voted for us, interrupted Richard Tice (Reform). The voters are furious at you for not ‘smashing the gangs’ and their bills going up – not least because of net stupid zero.
What are you going to do now you’re in local power, wondered La Bruce.
Save money, look at the books, stop councils from going bust, then cut local taxes and improve services.
In a squeaky voice, Jo Grady (University and College Union) said none of the political parties will do anything for the voters, but Nigel Farage and Richard Tice are not the answer. Reform is offering nothing to working people. Then she chanted a long line of other nothings Reform isn’t going to do.
Then why did the voters vote for them, pondered La Bruce?
Working-class communities have to come together and join trade unions to challenge the political class, of which Reform UK are a part, ranted the schoolgirl.
Despite looking twelve, Jo Grady is a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at Sheffield University Management School and has been for the past eight years. For the last six of those, the 41-year-old has also been the General Secretary of the University and College Union.
Perhaps her youthful appearance results from never having had a proper job in the real world?
After school, Ms Grady attended Lancaster University, where she studied Industrial Relations. A Doctor of Philosophy, her PhD examined trade union responses to neoliberal pensions reform. Oh.
After uni, she took a position at the University of Leicester, lecturing in Trades Union Studies before moving on to Sheffield.
Like many a 12-year-old, Ms Grady spends too long on social media. Her recent posts encourage the comrades to resist the Supreme Court ruling pointing out that men are men and women are women. She encourages her followers to organise lunchtime meetings to ‘pass a motion to create a fully trans-inclusive workplace’. Spread the word with trans flags, badges, posters and leaflets. Wear trans badges and stickers, and create a petition or pledge that you can ask your co-workers to sign.
If Puffins peer out of their office windows and spot a clueless perpetual student passing a motion in their parking place, it might just be Dr Jo.
In the sad world of academia, where, as Henry Kissinger put it, disputes are vicious because the stakes are so small, Dr Grady thunders of the goings-on beneath the dreaming spires opposite Princess Way Retail Park. In her search for wisdom she asks:
‘Who is in charge at Burnley College? The Principal is absent and College Governors refuse to confirm who is running the institution. What is going on?’
We wish her well in her quest.
On a more serious note, not only has Jo’s itchy Twitter finger accused Israel of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but it has cost her twenty-two grand in damages.
In 2023, Paul Embury, a firefighter, trade union activist and writer, posted a photograph of a group of young women spoiling a train journey. Their language was foul, their behaviour anti-social. They threatened Mr Embury and his young family after he complained to the guard.
Dr Jo responded: “Grow up, Paul, and take a day off bullying women and pretending to be outraged for clicks. It’s pathetic at any age, but especially yours.” She also wrote: “It’s creepy to record young women on the train, share that video, and lie about them on social media for clout.”
Mr Embury sued. A statement read before His Honour Judge Lewis in the High Court stated the General Secretary of the University and College Union, Dr Jo Grady, would pay substantial damages, cover legal costs and not repeat the libel.
QT Review HQ understands that the settlement consisted of £10,000 to Mr Embury and £12,000 to the lawyers.
Perhaps she might recoup the money through publishing? You know what’s coming next. Dr Jo’s mighty work The Continuing Imperialism of Free Trade: Developments, Trends and the Role of Supranational Agents (part of the Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy) – priced at a mighty £108 – sits a lowly 410,828 on the Amazon bestsellers list. A supranational 303,628 places behind the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom.
A tinged woman also ranted. Because of her colour, La Bruce dared not stop her. She went on and on about the Tories and then started on Labour.
She was followed by a tinged man ranting. Trapped in a time warp, he obsessed about Brexit. It’s the biggest con, yawn, we’ve been duped! Zzzzzz Brexit remorsee! Snores. By every single metric, we’re worse off because of Brexit. Excuse me, pal, we’ve left — get over it.
Then he started on the Labour Party because of the winter fuel allowance cut, but not so much about the money, more the Labour Party’s messaging.
A lady in the audience referenced the disability allowances. She had changed her voting opinions, was confused and didn’t trust any of the parties or their policies. Things are talked about, but nothing is delivered.
Graham Stuart (Conservative) sort of proved the point she was making by claiming the Tories had done relatively badly in the local elections because of their relative tremendous success last time around.
He tried to score points by saying he’d given the new government a chance but: stamp duty up, jobs tax, dead farmer tax.
So why don’t they vote for the Tories instead of Labour, asked La Bruce?
A lady in the audience challenged Richard Tice about the new Mayor of Hull, Luke Campbell, who the people of Hull have just elected. She claimed he was uneducated and unsuitable.
At which point, the programme was interrupted by a Dr Mary Hawley being interviewed from a library in Michigan by an anonymous BBC wallah.
She gushed of a shy and humble man, surprisingly hoisted to greatness, who hadn’t put himself forward for high office — a message there for politicians.
However, she spoke not of 22-year-old Olympic boxing gold medallist Luke Campbell, recently elected as Mayor of Hull, but of, according to a banner across the bottom of the screen, Pope Leo XIV.
Cutting back to the QT studio, there was some support from the audience for Mayor Campbell all the same. As if an unexpected Hullovian Pope succeeding a South American net zero Communist — Luke couldn’t be any worse than what came before.
Question two was about the US/UK trade deal. Is it a victory for the government? It’s not a trade deal, according to Graham Stuart, just a lowering of British tariffs while American ones have gone up. No matter what the movement in tariffs, the TDS was rising. Trump is a bully and a con man, etc., etc.
La Bruce pinned down James Murray on beef. It can come in from America, but it still has to meet local health standards. Will British farmers be happy about this, asked the chair rhetorically.
Graham Stuart pointed to the bioethanol industry, which employs hundreds near Hull and won’t survive US competition.
Callum Miller (LibDem) ranted about Brexit. Someone else from the audience joined in the reeeee.
Dr Jo couldn’t rely on Trump. There was a theme emerging. Are these things for the benefit of working people? She joined in the reeeee about Brexit. Love, it was nine years ago, and now everybody’s voting for Reform. How out of touch can these people be?
In Lancashire, following the local elections, Reform are the biggest party on the county council and, in effect, Hamas are the second largest (more of which on Saturday evening!) That’s the country we live in, not a Remainer village in London.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
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