Question Time 15th May 2025
The Panel:
Peter Kyle (Labour)
Nigel Huddleston (Conservative)
Alex Depledge (Tech entrepreneur)
Sonia Sodha (Columnist and broadcaster)
Venue: Aldershot
Controversy broke out after last week’s edition of Question Time. During the show, Richard Tice (Reform UK) claimed that about 3% or 4% of the carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is as a result of human activity. La Bruce contradicted him, saying that, according to NASA, the figure is around a third.
After the programme, Tice persisted, claiming that the BBC/NASA figure was incorrect. He was told that the statistic came via BBC Verify. Tice countered that BBC Verify should really be called BBC Guesswork.
Tellingly, in the version of the programme broadcast after the 10 o’clock news that evening, the exchange between Fiona Bruce and Tice had been edited out.
It is worth pointing out that, as only 0.04% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, the pair of them were contradicting each other over between 0.013% and 0.0013% of its content.
It’s also worth pointing out that to pass its Albert Sustainable accreditation (required for the programme to be commissioned in the first place), Question Time must actively promote global warming, climate change and net zero. Failure to do so would cost La Bruce her £30,000-an-hour job. This issue was covered last year in the following Going-Postal article, Television’s Albertstein Monster.
As for BBC Verify, this is a journalism unit launched by the BBC in May 2023. Comprising approximately 60 journalists, it claims to specialise in verifying information, countering disinformation, analysing data, and explaining complex stories to enhance transparency and build audience trust. However, it’s difficult to see how hiding behind NASA and then editing that segment from the programme enhances transparency and builds trust.
According to Geneva’s Digital Watch Observatory, the Verify unit employs a range of forensic investigative techniques and open-source intelligence (OSINT) methods, including reverse image searches, metadata analysis, and geolocation tools. BBC Verify’s work is integrated across the BBC’s platforms, including television, radio, and online content.
Hmmm.
Open-source OSINT is the gathering, analysis and rehashing of publicly available information for intelligence purposes. Its siblings include SIGINT (signals intelligence, i.e. intercepts), HUMINT (human intelligence, i.e. human sources) and IMINT/GEOINT (imagery and geospatial data electronically gathered).
Suffice it to say, such things exist not to verify anything but to achieve an intelligence goal. In the case of BBC Verify, that of controlling the plebs under Home Office orders. This was covered in another G-P article last year entitled Citizens Khan and the Home Office Propaganda Effort.
The most famous intelligence officer on the Verify side of things is BBC disinformation correspondent and Puffin’s favourite, Marianna Spring.
Ms Spring famously has bigly links with Russia, lies on her CV and, given her Tottenham Hotspur-supporting persona (careful now), sounds about as current-affairs impartial as the Albert Sustainable-dependent Fiona Bruce.
***
As for tonight’s guests, a keen LGBTQI++ type, Peter Kyle is the Labour MP for Hove and Portslade and the current Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. After graduating from the University of Sussex with a degree in Human Geography, International Development and Environmental Studies, Peter took a doctorate in Community Development before a tour of non-jobs in charities, promotions, advisory etc., before entering Parliament in 2015.
Mr Nigel Huddleston is the Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party and the MP for Droitwich and Evesham. As ever, the idiot in the family is sent to Question Time. Interesting spouse Melissa, an American, is a former marketer with the Walt Disney’s Mighty Ducks professional hockey team and it was she who managed the repositioning of Healthy Choice Soups. On her LinkedIn profile, Melissa packages doing the school run and hoovering behind the fridge as ‘strategic, results-oriented leadership, driving results by creating and managing the best teams on the planet’.
Husband Nigel is a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, with a degree in Politics and Economics. The 54-year-old took further study at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, after which he became a management consultant with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. Elected to Parliament in 2015, at the time he was Google’s Head of Travel.
Appearing third on the list provided by the BBC, presumably Alex Depledge is the Lib Dem, a bald-headed vegan in corduroys who lies awake all night worrying about carbon dioxide. Not so, Alexandra Depledge MBE is a British technology entrepreneur whose MBE was awarded for services to the sharing economy. What? Not sure what that’s supposed to mean other than being the co-founder of a website matching up cleaners with rich people who need a cleaner.
After graduating from the University of Nottingham with a degree in History and American Studies, Ms Depledge completed a master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Chicago. There followed a career in management consultancy with Accenture, after which she became the co-founder of a kind of OnlyFans for people who need the house cleaned.
This, judging by her LinkedIn profile, opened the door to endless gobbledygook non-jobs on committees. One suspects, a bit like the other OnlyFans, Alexandra has been over-appointed because she is nice to look at.
A public-school Guardian and Observer type, half-Hindu, half-Sikh Indian Sonia Shoda is a graduate of St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford. There, she completed a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, followed by an MPhil in Politics.
The 43-year-old hasn’t had a job beyond policy and journalism, her London bubble career having taken her to the Race Equality Unit, Which?, the Dartington Social Research Unit, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the office of Ed Miliband.
***
The programme began with a girl war. La Bruce was in a yellow jacket above a white top. Sonia Shoda was in emerald green. The winner, Alex Depledge, was in her white lacy undies.
The first question was about immigration: is the government’s position heartfelt or fear of Reform?
Previously, La Bruce pointed out Sir Keir Starmer had said immigration was the best thing ever, whereas in his recent “rivers of strangers” speech, he said it was the worst thing ever.
Peter Kyle (Labour) blamed the Tories, who had allowed immigration to run out of control. He monologued a complete tangle of self-contradictory pro and anti immigration catch phrases.
Nigel Huddleston (Conservative) wouldn’t have a word of it and pointed out that Peter Kyle and Labour had voted against Tory immigration controls hundreds of times.
An audience member mentioned Enoch Powell; La Bruce hurried the discussion on.
Another audience member pointed out that only graduates would be allowed in under Starmer’s new legislation, whereas, for instance, social care and agriculture workers aren’t graduates.
Peter Kyle replied that that wasn’t the case. In other words, the graduate limit is deliberately misleading, hinting that all of Starmer’s bullet points will be watered down to nothing as his white paper progresses through Parliament.
Sonia Sodha has a friend with special needs who had 12 carers – half from abroad and half from the UK. Twelve? There must be an easier way?
Alex found the white paper ‘gradual’ and not culturally judgmental.
A gentleman in the audience didn’t see a difference between legal and illegal immigration, but rather a sheer weight in numbers.
La Bruce returned to Enoch Powell, which Peter Kyle said had nothing to do with Starmer’s white paper. All of a sudden, in the hands of a leftie, complaining about people not being able to speak English is, rather than racism, about vulnerable people trapped in communities and unable to work because they can’t speak English.
Labour doesn’t have a plan for anything, summarised Nigel Huddleston – for example, their fully costed budget, which resulted in broken promises on taxation. What’s changed for Labour is losing the Runcorn by-election to Reform UK.
Question two: is the British government ignoring genocide in Gaza?
Nigel rattled through the (Home Office’s?) list of familiar lines, starting with Israel having a right to defend itself.
What is the best way to stop it, wondered Sonia. This is not a proportional response. International law has something to say about civilian casualties. She blamed it on Netanyahu, who, according to herself, is furthering his political interests by waging the war in a particular way.
An audience member suggested an arms blockade on Israel.
A lady compared the genocide during the Second World War with the genocide in Gaza. La Bruce corrected her.
I’m not sure what Alex was on about. Apparently, if the Orange Man across the ocean hadn’t bowled a curve ball with a Gaza resort… Oh.
The politicians referenced a two-state solution, omitting the fact that there are two states now, and they’re at war with each other.
Question three: the economy has grown more than expected. Is it too early to celebrate?
Alex was thrown. She wasn’t sure. It’s been tough since COVID. Inflation and increased National Insurance contributions are not great. She saw green shoots, which might allow us to dig ourselves out of trouble.
A gentleman in the audience said he was unemployed and struggling to get a job, no matter what the macro figures suggest. He wanted to make a contribution and do something with his life, but was finding it difficult. Tell me about it. I emailed SB a couple of days ago to say I’m back in uniform. Two days later, I’m back out of uniform again. They don’t half mess you about.
What do Puffins think of the quality of management in this country – particularly in recruitment and retention? It could be better, and improving it would help reduce part of the ‘pull’ side of immigration.
Nigel reminded us that everything was marvellous under the Tories and rotten under the new government. He made a more valid point by referencing all the things Labour has done that weren’t in their manifesto.
As a businesswoman, Alex seemed a bit too keen on Labour. Is she touting for a CBE?
A tinged loon who could barely speak English blamed Brexit.
An audience member went off topic and asked, don’t you think the public are sick of these two and are just waiting to vote them out? Good point. I’m certainly sick of them, and I’m off to bed.
Stop press: I’ve just got a msg telling me they want me back again. It’s like one of those Tory leadership elections! Now, how do I get rid of that zero-star review…
© Always Worth Saying 2025
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
Audio Player
