Question Time 12th June 2025
The Panel:
Darren Jones (Labour)
Simon Clarke (Conservative)
Zia Yusuf (Reform UK)
Sarah Olney (LibDem)
Venue: Fleetwood
A Question Time guest as recently as March, Labour MP Darren Jones’ wife is the interesting Lucy Symons-Jones, the Net Zero Director of Lexica. A member of the WSP Group — a Canadian consultancy specialising in design, engineering and construction — Lexica is a leading specialist consultancy that supports international and UK-based health and life sciences. If you’re wondering why Darren is keen on Net Zero and on tipping money into the floundering NHS, it’s not for your benefit; it’s because his wife’s snout is in the trough.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren has been a Bristol MP since 2017 and is a graduate in Human Bioscience from the University of Plymouth and one time president of their students’ union. The 39-year-old later read Law at the University of the West of England and the University of Law in Bristol, before becoming a solicitor specialising in technology.
Simon Clarke was to appear on Question Time on 28th October 2021 but didn’t turn up. He was replaced by Lucy Frazer — the now former MP for South East Cambridgeshire, having been thrown out by the voters in July 2024. Not to worry — Lucy is now an honorary fellow of Cambridge Judge Business School and is cashing in on her Westminster contacts with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm that provides to corporations, governments and other organisations.
Once the Red Wall MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, Mr Clarke lost his seat in the 2024 general election. Not to worry. Knighted and elevated to the Privy Council despite being in Parliament for only seven years, Darren — although not announced as such in the guff that accompanies QT — has since become a director of Onward. Who they?
Onward is a centre-right think tank whose mission is to develop bold and practical ideas to boost economic opportunity, build national resilience, and strengthen communities across all parts of the United Kingdom. Their vision is to address the needs of the whole country: young and old, urban and rural, for all communities across the UK — particularly places that have often felt neglected or ignored by Westminster.
All well and good, but a quick look through their material shows the usual mental commitment to carbon nonsense, with their Getting to Zero campaign being ‘supported’ by the European Climate Foundation.
As for Mr Clarke’s fellow directors, Sir Mick Davis is the Chairman of MacSteel and the former Chief Executive and Treasurer of the Conservative Party. Prior to this, he was Chief Executive of Xstrata and Executive Director of Billiton. In the past, he has been a (((leadership council))) president. Hmm. Also on the board is Sir David Meller CBE, a businessman and Chairman of the Meller Group, described in the newspapers as a (((philanthropist))). Hmmmm.
As for Nick Faith, perhaps ironically, I don’t know how many parentheses to use, but I do know what school he went to. My assistant, Miss A.I. Chatt, is summoned to the fray. However, not going to lie, I could have phrased my enquiry better. In a sniffy response, Ms Chatt replied, ‘It’s not accurate to say that Merchant Taylors’ is “full of you-know-whos”. While the school, like many schools, has a diverse student body, it is not dominated by any single religious group. Merchant Taylors’ School is a highly selective school that welcomes students from various backgrounds.’
Oh well.
The important point being that these ‘think tanks’ are lobbyists promoting their senior people’s interests rather than the concerns of the ‘neglected and ignored by Westminster’. They have influence upon Parliament through connections with serving and former MPs, and influence upon mainstream media content through the undeclared voice of the likes of the 6’7” tall Mr Clarke.
As such people are in the news, QT Review feels obliged to point out that, with a vacant expression spread across a moon-shaped face, Sarah Olney looks as though she might have strayed from a Romanian itinerants camp. If further evidence is required, everytime she smiles she reminds all of her cousins of grand-papu’s favourite Gypsy Cob, affectionatly christened at birth as Ivory Munchers.
Surrey-born Ms Olney is a King’s College London graduate in English Literature and Language. A qualified chartered accountant, the 48-year-old worked at a variety of blue-chip, third-sector, and government organisations before first entering Parliament in 2016 as the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park. After losing the seat at the 2017 general election, she returned to parliament two years later.
If Ms Olney appears keen on blowing your money on Net Zero (particularly the nuclear element) and public transport, it is because husband Benjamin, a planning and consents wallah, makes a living in those sectors.
Also with the whiff of the travelling life about him is dark-skinned, raven-haired Zia Yusuf, not his real name; Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf. The type of tinker more likely to go carriage riding with Prince Philip than to sell rolls of carpet from the back of a van, Mr Yusuf attended London’s £30,000 per annum Hampton School and is a London School of Economics graduate.
A degree in International Relations opened doors at Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, before he made his fortune developing an app called Velocity Black. Saving a lot of haggling and spitting on hands, Velocity Black connects cash-rich, time-poor clients with providers of luxury services and products via an app, while taking a hefty commission. When selling the business, Mr Yusuf’s share of the winnings is said to have been a cool £31 million, kept as a giant roll bulging behind the top pocket of a padded body warmer.
Only last June, and when still a member of the Conservative Party, the doctor’s son began donating to Reform UK. Within weeks he rose to become party chairman. Twelve months on, he resigned his position following a tiff regarding the burka, only to return to a senior but undefined position two days later following a change of heart.
***
Question one, following Rachel Reeves’ spending review, are tax increases inevitable?
Darren explained that such things are fully funded but according to last year’s budget. Now we have to look forward to the decisions to be made in the next budget. La Bruce disagreed with him, given the approaching increase in Council Tax. Darren called this not an increase but a tax change, one decided upon by local councils. He referenced the money spent on fire and police services, rather than on bureaucrats’ wages and pensions.
Yes, taxes are going up began Simon. The economy shrank last month. The government can’t keep its word and can’t keep living beyond its means. The markets will punish us at some point. As if the first cobble thrown towards a window, an audience member, to applause, mentioned the resources wasted on immigrants in hotels.
Never mind that, what about this week’s girl war? With only two ladies at the table, it was less of a beauty contest and more of a wrestling match. Sarah Olney was the winner in a pin-stripped black business woman’s jacket over a white top accessorised with a pearl necklace.
La Bruce wore thin black and white hoops below a yellow pinney, and was adorned with a multicoloured friendship bracelet around one wrist and a white bangle around the other. Unfortunately for herself, dressed for a soap powder commercial rather than for gypsy girl fight around a camp fire in an early James Bond film.
Sarah felt obliged to blame Liz Truss before plucking out of the air a bespoke EU/UK customs union, which ‘research shows’ would provide £25 bn from nowhere to swell the government’s coffers. Chaj, we voted to leave nine years ago, please move on.
Zia Yusef pointed out that Tories and Labour are a uniparty, with tax increases being inevitable. He listed other price rises; rents and mortgages now higher than under Liz Truss. The nonsense of Net Zero bringing us the highest energy bills in the world.
How can you look British people in the eye and ask them to make sacrifices when there are infinite resources for people coming in small boats, for foreign aid and for the Chagos Islands?
We’re not the same as the Tories, said Darren. He was ‘personally offended’. He spoke too fast, so I can’t list his evidence. The audience began to barrack him.
I’ll tell you what’s offensive, replied Yusuf, insulting the British people by calling the Council Tax increase a tax change. The people are sick of being gaslighted. You constantly prioritise foreigners over the people of this country. More applause and more than a slight whiff of the Ballymenas.
As if the panel were a row of Land Rovers blocking a County Antrim back street, a barrage began from the audience. What the British people are sick of, began a gentleman, is you lot chipping away at each other while never answering the question. To thunderous applause, none of you is addressing the elephant in the room, which is immigration.
Zia Yusuf was also the recipient of fireworks and bottles, as the contributor was going to vote Labour anyway, even though Labour would lose and we’d have a clueless Reform government.
Instead of there being more homes for immigrants, he wanted fewer immigrants in homes. Send them to leisure centres? At which point, La Bruce fired a pastic baton round in the form of a raised hand to try to stop him, but on he went.
She kettled him by changing the subject. Next week’s QT is about growing up in modern Britain. She gave us the guests, which saves me a last-minute rush, but as she moved on to the next question, it unhelpfully took us from Ballymena to Rathcoole or Larne.
With Fleetwood people struggling, should asylum seekers be living rent-free in Blackpool hotels?
They shouldn’t be, began Simon, it’s really important, but turning the dinghies around causes excess deaths. As if allowing the mob to burn down the leisure centre, he continued we need to leave the ECHR as membership means the courts can’t remove people who shouldn’t be here.
Darren saw this as a solvable administration problem, ie lots of rubber stamping with nearly all of the illegals allowed to stay. He then climbed out of the Land Rover, took off his body armour and showed the mob his bleeding heart. The majority of passengers in these dinghies are women and children. No, they aren’t, replied the audience as they pelted him with disdain.
Over 90% of them are adult men, intervened Yusuf. Daren said he was proud to contradict the audience! As if a Chief Constable proudly hanging onto his massive pension, big house, and promise of a knighthood, by blaming ‘racism’ for disorder sparked by immigrant assaults on girls.
There you are, responded Yusuf. I’ve just told you the government prioritises foreign citizens over you – I rest my case. The vast majority coming from France are fighting-age, military age males, not women and children.
Where was Sarah Olney when all this was going on? As we shall see, sharpening her claws.
Darren made the mistake of asking Yusuf to explain what he meant. Never do that, it gives your opponent a free run to say anything. Yusuf set off. He had spent many weeks in Runcan and Helsby, a deprived area. Why did Labour lose that by-election?
Houses of multiple occupancy, with illegal immigrants being dumped in such places. Section 21 eviction notices are being given to British tenants, including veterans, as Serco goldplates illegal immigrants upon landlords.
Sarah Olney played a blinder. With a slight of hand that would have severed a love rival’s carotid in a midnight contest-of-the-heart at a gypsy camp on the outskirts of Istanbul, Sarah blamed an assylum backlog caused by Tories.
Before a settling audience, she then suggested getting the waiting time down for decisions to return those who have to be returned. She even got away with deciding the brain surgeons and rocket scientists arriving from France should be allowed to work here in the meantime, and that we should not demean ourselves by calling these people aliens.
In From Russia With Love, was the hand of the victorious girl offered to James Bond? Different times. These days, the pen is expected to have supremacy over the sword.
Spin, propaganda, gaslighting and perception management have replaced a chap in a sharp suit with a Baretta. In which case, even in these politically correct days, might the victorious and luscious Miss Olney be offered to a blog reviewer? Hope so! Mega would.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
Audio Player
