Question Time 4th December 2025
The Panel:
Mike Tapp (Labour)
Kieran Mullan (Conservative)
Daisy Cooper (LibDem)
Zia Yusuf (Reform UK)
Zack Polanski (Green Party)
Venue: Dover
Let’s play multicultural cricket. It’s been a while. Raven-haired (single) and dark skinned (6) Zia (single) Yusuf (2), not his real name, Muhammad (6) Ziauddin (2) Yusuf (6) was educated privately (big appeal) at London’s £30,000 per annum Hampton School. The family hails from Sri Lanka (4). He is a former Conservative Party member and now a senior and influential figure in Reform UK. Out! Dismissed for 28.
Blonde-haired and blue-eyed Daisy Cooper represents the party of Gladstone, who made his money from slavery, and Lloyd George, who worshipped Hitler … bat broken before the game: Duck.
Kieran Mullan is gay (6), sounds a bit Irish (4) and is the Conservative MP for … Howzat! Out for 10.
Zac (2) Polanski (6), not his real name, David Pullen (swing and a miss), is gay (4), Jewish (4), a vegan (2), and his grandparents came from Poland (single). Prior to a life in Green politics, he was a hypnotist who once boasted to a Sun reporter of being able to enlarge ladies’ breasts through hypnosis for £220 an hour (smashes up own wicket with bat). Out for 19.
As Mike Tapp approaches the crease, there is 28 to beat. Not his real name, Mike Taap (single) was born in South Africa (a controversial 4), and visited Palestine (6) as a member of Labour Friends of Israel (How is he! Umpire shakes his head, but only after a pause). The son of an apartheid-era police officer … (escorted to the pavilion, his runs erased from the scorecard).
Or is he?
Tapp is said to be both irritated by internet speculation while being sparse with his biography. What we do know is that he left school, joined the Army, entered the Intelligence Corps and served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then moved on to the Serious Crime Agency and the Ministry of Defence, where he specialised in counter terrorism.
We suspect he attended a state school in Hitchin and his father was a police officer. We know that he is married to Linda, an Estonian (bounces to the boundary – just). Having put his previous life more interesting of crawling across deserts with a dagger between his teeth while putting pins in maps behind him, he is now a director of Monki Dog Care Ltd – Linda’s doggy daycare business.
In 2020, he entered politics, first as an assistant before becoming the Labour candidate for Dover and Deal.
With the Conservative party burning their own pavilion down in that particular constituency (Charlie Elphicke was their Tory member jailed for sexual assault, his wife, Natalie, replaced him but crossed the floor of the House), Mr Tapp won the 2024 vote with a majority of 7,585.
Incidentally, although a gentleman signs the Official Secrets Act, I shall tell you this. On the wall at QT Review HQ, for the encouragement of les autres, we have our own cabinet de curiosités.
Amongst the bits of atom bomb, false moustaches, Pakistani railway officials’ name badges and a signed first pressing of a single by Hedda Sterne’s niece, is a tankard inscribed with a valued member of the team’s record in intelligence. Beneath a representation of a corps’ crest, it reads: ‘Worth Saying. Yes, Ma’am. Fail. Yes, Ma’am.’ Make of that what you will. Taps nose.
Away from the gentle thud of willow upon leather, Mr Tapp is, appropriate to tonight’s stop the boats special, not only the MP for Dover but also Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Citizenship.
Speaking of borders of the open variety (and other ‘Green’ obsessions), although my Yiddish is rusty and my German underused, I was able to decipher the following regarding Zac Polanski (not his real name). In a 2019 interview with Daniel Zylbersztajn (Glibertstein?) of the Juedische Allgemeine (Jewish General?) Polanski is revealed as being a follower of Tikkum Olam, the idea of ‘repairing the world’ – but in a particular direction.
The Temp informs me this has its origins in rabbinic literature, where it justified legal enactments for social order. The modern interpretation includes a wide range of activities like charity, environmental stewardship, human rights, and interfaith work. All a bit sinister.
As for the others, Daisy Cooper is the LibDem MP for St Albans, the party’s deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson. Daisy attended the private Framlington College, where other former pupils include Ed Sheeran. Following a law degree from Leeds and another from the University of Nottingham, Daisy did nothing other than quango land before entering the House in 2019.
Also from the 2019 intake, Dr Keiran Mullen is a qualified medical doctor and MP for Bexhill and Battle, having been parachuted in from his old seat in unwinnable Crewe and Nantwich for the 2024 General Election.
Along with the rest of parliament, Dr Mullan is compromised by party donors, in his case the interesting Yerolemou family. The sorry tale can be read here in a previous edition of QT Review.
***
La Bruce began by addressing the camera on the Channel shoreline before the White Cliffs, and wondered, as if Canute, how to turn a troublesome tide, this time of illegal immigrants.
Back in the hall, and appropriately in a marine blue blazer, she continued by describing a spectral immigration arms race running from a world without borders (the Greens) to deporting them by the hundreds of thousands (Reform UK).
Opening the issue to the audience:
“Fausands of ‘em, while pensioners and low-paid go without.”
“It’s not safe, I have two daughters.”
“Allow them to work? Pay their way?”
Question one: Nobody’s listening to the politicians’ catch phrases. What are you really doing? Mike Tapp claimed some progress, 50,000 removed. Less attractive for people to come here. You can say that again, look at last week’s budget! A compassionate country. Yawn. We need to unite.
Zia looked at what the Labour Party has done. 70,000 illegals, 40% higher than under the Tories. He disputed the 50,000 removed as being people leaving of their own will rather than being deported – while Mike Tapp tried to talk over him. What percentage have been deported? The pair of them talked over each other. Gaslighting fake numbers, said Zia.
You’re talking utter rubbish, Mike, said one of his local voters. Posing in a high viz on a boat is all theatrical nonsense.
The only thing that stops the boats is the winter, said another.
The language is demeaning; they’re coming from war zones. France?! Mentioned a third.
Zac agreed with the language issue. Despite his dismissal, he was still playing Going-Postal local rules cricket. His great-grandparents and grandparents had fled from Ukraine and Latvia because of the pogroms. What? The poor, defenceless victims in the Ukraine are a load of racists? As are our NATO partners in Latvia? Truth bomb stops play.
Nazi occupied Poland, Zac continued. What’s the limit, wondered La Bruce, given the Green manifesto is committed to no borders. Eight hundred thousand have come in one year, Zac replied. And what’s the limit, repeated La Bruce. What’s important to know, he waffled. The problems in the Health Service and in social housing are caused, not by 800,000 immigrants a year, but by … 14 Tory years. Some idoits in the audience applauded.
They’re mainly men, mentioned an audience member. La Bruce turned to such a man, Ashramn, from Afghanistan. ‘I wuz a ref-u-geeee,’ he began. Zia didn’t know enough about Ashram’s case, but was puzzled it was always men leaving Afghanistan while the women and children were left behind.
Daisy wanted to be clear, a Reform government would end the indefinite right to remain, which, according to herself, is ‘un-British’. Despite all you may have heard about equality, Daisy informed us that the reason they’re all men is because only men are tough enough to make the journey. La Bruce wondered if we should take from every war zone. Daisy will conjure an ‘international agreement’ out of thin air to spread the burden.
Kieran has a concrete plan. Leaving the ECHR with all its pro-immigration loopholes, plus a parliamentary vote on an immigration cap. Another sanitised small boater spoke from the audience. Leaving the convention affects everyone, not just the immigrants, plus Northern Ireland and the security situation. He was from Iran.
La Bruce asked him if he was going to go back? Oh, he had a four-month-old daughter, who, despite her tender weeks (never mind years), is learning to read and write English. So, he’ll be stopping here, and so will all of his relatives and descendants.
Daisy was triggered when Zia mentioned the early-rising taxpayers who are paying for all of this. She took us back to Brexit. ‘Nigel Farage’, she screamed. More applause. If it’s about Brexit, why are they crossing the Med to land in Italy, interjected Kieran.
Question two. Where are we going to put them? Mike was busy with the stats – from 400 hotels to however many military sites. Somehow this is ‘fair’. Keiran claimed there are more in hotels, not fewer. Small rural areas have these repurposed military bases and are being overrun. Keiran mentioned local Green parties resisting illegal immigrants being placed on their own (not in my) backyard.
Zac set off. There are a million on the council waiting list, so… migrants are welcome here (??). We have to protect nature by building on it, apparently. A mass of self-contradictions.
A beardy in the audience waffled about the poor innocents who break the law by arriving here illegally from countries that hate us.
People are dying out there, said a coast guard. Well, stop encouraging them to make the crossing.
Ashfram was referenced again. Mike reminded us he’d served in Afghanistan, where over 500 of our people were killed by the Afghans, he forgot to mention.
Question three was about legal immigration. The questioner took a very BBC angle by suggesting that without unlimited immigration, waiting lists will be longer. Zia called this nonsense, with the numbers coming in being way out of kilter with any possible improvement in services. A 10% increase in population since 2015 has coexisted with a doubling in money spent on the NHS.
Millions of foreign nationals are registered with GPs. Meanwhile, British doctors and nurses are struggling to get jobs. The premise of the questioner’s question was a lie which had been told over and over again to gaslight the British people.
Net migration came down last year, because British people are leaving Britain, that’s not something to celebrate, said Daisy. These large numbers are coming to work in the NHS and social care. Zia queried her calculation. The numbers are out there, she replied. ‘They work in our NHS and care sector,’ she wailed, ‘and we should welcome those people.’ She wanted to invest in skills. Cutting hair the Turkish way? Growing things under arc lights in the attic? Only 3% of them work in social care and the NHS, Zia responded.
A GP spoke, Zia told him he hadn’t been paying attention, which got an ‘ooooo’ from some of the audience. Mike called this ‘impolite’. Some in the hall clapped, and the (millionaire) GP looked smug.
Next question, how about unity? This questioner claimed to be from immigrant stock and didn’t like it when you and me fly our flag.
Kieran knew a lady who’d lived for a long time in an area now overrun by Pakistanis. We’re all human, we’re all the same, he lied, but there has been a big demographic change. It makes people uncomfortable and is something nobody voted for. That observation comes from a Tory. Not going to lie, I can’t take any more of this nonsense, off to bed.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
