Question Time 13th February 2025
The Panel:
Jacqui Smith (Labour)
Danny Kruger (Conservative)
Lisa Smart (LibDem)
George Monbiot (Activist)
Matthew Goodwin (Writer)
Venue: Northwich
On Question Time only a few weeks ago – as the Labour Party refuses to trust its new cadre of brain-dead, lobby-fodder lefties — The Right Honourable Jacqueline Jill Smith, Baroness Smith of Malvern, once again tucks her knees under the QT table. A fuller biography of Jacqueline is available here.
Suffice it to say, she is an expenses scrounger who stole over £100,000 in the infamous parliamentary expenses scandal — most notably by claiming that the spare room of her sister’s house was the main residence of her own family of four.
A PPE graduate of Hertford College, Oxford, Smith had a brief career in teaching before securing a series of political non-jobs. A beneficiary of a sexist all-women shortlist in the 1997 general election, she rose to the position of Home Secretary under Gordon Brown. However, at the 2010 general election, the good people of Redditch removed her from Parliament as a result of the aforementioned scandal.
Another succession of non-jobs followed in media and politics before her ladyship was ennobled in the House of Lords by Keir Starmer following the 2024 election and appointed Minister of State for Skills.
A political scientist known for his research into the extreme, far, ultra-hard right, Matthew Goodwin is a graduate of Politics and Contemporary History from the University of Salford. Alongside an MA in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario, he also holds a PhD from the University of Bath.
Since completing his education, the 43-year-old has continued in, erm, education, holding positions at the University of Nottingham and the University of Kent. He is the author of ‘National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy and Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics’ and a senior visiting fellow at the ‘independent’ policy institute Chatham House.
Rather grandly, in Rachael from Accounts style, Matthew claims to advise governments and organisations globally. However, a closer look suggests this largely consists of assuming that some of them read his Matt Goodwin Substack, where his current job title is cringingly as Writer-in-Chief of his own weblog.
Question one. Is it ever ok to put things on a CV that aren’t true? Another reference to Rachael from Accounts whose LinkedIn profile keeps on having to be changed. La Bruce read out a list of misdemeanours that have had to be altered.
Honest Jacqui said this isn’t a CV, it’s a LinkedIn account maintained by her staff. Jacqui went on to say Rachael is the best-qualified Chancellor of the Exchequer for a long time. Really? You decide. Sunak was at Goldman Sachs and Rachael made the tea at the Halifax.
But she was applying for a job, pointed out Danny, for the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The real test, however, is in her performance, which isn’t great given a flat-lining economy and rising inflation – all because of the Reeves budget.
A lady in the audience complained of appearing over-qualified on her own CV and having to do a reverse Reeves when understating her abilities to get a job at Matalan.
Matthew didn’t bother answering the question but referenced the country’s managed decline of higher taxes, Net Zero, mass immigration et al. Is he a Puffin? None of the politicians are challenging the Westminster consensus. None of the parties are going to provide the radical change needed. Is he a Reformer?!
Lisa ranted about Brexit while suggesting initiating growth by banning a new runway at Heathrow.
‘George?’ wondered La Bruce. It’s not ok, he replied, but it’s a trivial issue. George was dead against growth. He wants you to be poorer. Reeves is removing the protections against the predations of capitalism, he claimed.
A fuller Question Time review biography of George Monbiot — not his real name, George Joshua Richard Monbiot — is available here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, George has lived rather well while expecting you to do without.
Privately educated at Stowe School and Brasenose College, Oxford, his childhood home was the £3.5 million Peppard House near Reading. The 1836 Georgian mansion sits in 1.7 acres and is complete with a paddock, small field, and shelter for a pony. This was the residence of father, Raymond Monbiot CBE, one-time chairman of Campbell’s Soup, and mother Rosalie (née Cooke), an all-round do-gooder and daughter of a Conservative MP.
Keep that in mind while you shiver in the cold and eat raw food.
La Bruce paused to plug a future edition. Next week we’re in London for a special on Ukraine exactly three years since the beginning of the war. The bad news for La Bruce being that it will be taking place after The Donald has shot her fox by bringing peace.
Question two was about the Ukraine. America holds the cards, began Danny. If not in the room then Ukraine should at least be consulted. He corrected La Bruce that the conflict began not three years ago, with the dash for Kiev, but in 2014 with the annexation of the Crimea. Through stalemate on the battlefield, parts of the Ukraine now look to be permanently occupied by the Russians.
Jacqui called Putin’s invasion barbaric and illegal, but it didn’t sound as though she was going to do much about it. She would ‘support the Ukrainian people’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Jacqui was also going ‘to stand beside’ them – but from thousands of miles away rather than from within the meat grinder.
It’s similar to 1940 when they invaded Poland, mentioned a lady in the audience, unaware that Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939 and the Soviet Union (including Ukraine) invaded from the other direction on the 17th of the same month.
Donald wants his minerals, mentioned a chap in the audience.
Matthew noted that people here who’ve recently started wars don’t want this one to stop. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There’s a breakdown in a Liberal international policy. A policy of interventionism that has lasted for decades and has been a disaster. The Americans are sick of Europeans being dependent on America for defence and upon the compromising reliance on Russia for energy.
This has to be a line in the sand. Europe is going to have to pay to defend itself, with the future US focus will be on places like China and their own southern border. The likes of China, North Korea and Iran only respect strength. We’re the ones who have been making bad decisions and have to change direction.
Matthew was good. Is there a change in the political landscape upon us here, as per what is happening in America?
Lisa wanted us to stand up to both Trump and Putin.
George suggested Trump is either siding with a fellow tyrant or is the world’s worst negotiator. George suspected both and saw this as a move from democracy to despotism with Trump wanting to be like Putin.
La Bruce pointed out Ukraine’s slow-motion losing of the war. George replied that there are Chamberlain’s in every generation. The Trump detente with Putin is direct appeasement of Russian aggression. George wanted the war to continue. Matthew pointed out the futility of continuing a stalemate. A million dead? You the taxpayer sending £13 billion to Ukraine? All you hear from Liberals is that the world is becoming a more horrible place. They offer no solution.
La Bruce had had enough and cut the lot of them off by reminding them QT’s doing a Ukraine special next week.
Question two, without mentioning illegal immigration, was about illegal immigration.
Lisa said the present system isn’t working as two hotels in her constituency are full of ‘asylum seekers’. She suggested ‘legal routes’ and a quicker application process.
As for the government’s new plan of denying citizenship to those arriving here illegally, La Bruce pointed out they don’t need citizenship to stay here indefinitely.
Matthew said the Labour Party are lying.
‘What’s the lie?’ interrupted Jacqui.
‘I’m going to tell you,’ retorted Matthew.
Labour just let them stay. Very few people are sent back and after they’ve been here for five years they can stay forever and bring in all their relatives. Immigration is going to cost us £250bn. There’s no deterrent to not come here and it’s getting worse under labour.
‘Smash the gangs,’ said Jacqui.
‘How’s that going?’ quipped Matthew.
The proceedings became heated. Jacqui called him ‘professor’. Matthew missed a trick, or was too polite, and omitted to call her ‘your ladyship’.
A loon in the audience shilled for the illegal immigrants and then called Danny Kruger a liar for saying coming here illegally is illegal. As well as living in a different world to the rest of us, George Monbiot also lives in a different century. He ranted about the Nazis.
Question Four. Questioner Tracy thought that since Elon Musk and Donald Trump are getting things sorted in America, would we benefit by having more business people in government here? At least Trump gets things done, said Tracy. It takes forever to get things done over here whereas The Donald just writes his executive orders. The establishment in London lives on a different planet to the rest of us.
We need a range of people, began Lisa. She tapped her breast as she added, including those from local government.
Lisa Smart is the Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, elected at the 2024 General Election. Yet another notable native of Lytham St Annes, Lisa graduated from Durham University before earning an MBA from the London Business School.
A nonentity, Ms Smart has held a series of non-jobs, ranging from Deputy Leader of Stockport Council to Chief Executive of an international education development charity.
In true Rachael from Accounts style, Lisa claims to have “managed pension funds” as if she were some bigwig on Wall Street. In reality, she was merely a former trustee of a local authority pension fund, a title presumably dumped on her during her time as a Stockport councillor.
Danny was keener on the idea. He admired business people; the bottom line, the real world. Did he mention he’s never done any of those things himself? Not sure he did.
Not quite a man of the people, Daniel Rayne Kruger was born in Westminster and educated at Eton College, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Oxford. As ever, the dullard of the family is dispatched to Question Time.
Now 50, Danny is the son of author and property developer Rayne Kruger and his wife, Dame Prudence — better known as restaurateur and cookery broadcaster Prue Leith.
Saffers, Mrs Kruger-Leith hails from Cape Town, while her late husband Rayne came from the Eastern Cape. The son of an unmarried 17-year-old daughter of a British Army officer, Rayne’s stepfather was estate agent Victor Kruger. A respected and successful author, Rayne Kruger’s English home was Chastleton Glebe — a rambling stone house set within a 30-acre Gloucestershire garden, complete with a one-acre lake.
Keeping it in the media bubble, Sam Leith, literary editor of The Spectator, is Danny’s cousin. Penny Junor, daughter of Daily Express heavyweight Sir John Junor, is an in-law.
Following his graduation, Danny drifted through a series of political non-jobs before becoming the MP for Devizes in the 2019 general election. He is currently the Shadow Minister for Defence. His wife, Emma, is a former teacher and the director of a prison charity.
Speaking of cookering, I’m reminded of when I worked in the supermarket. My hearing is not great. One evening a lady asked for suction hooks. In all innocence I led her to the cookery books. As I pointed out the Prue Leiths and Bomber Nadias the poor thing stood there yelling, “SUCTION HOOKS!”
The solution isn’t Donald Trump, began George, who is using oligarchs to wage a class war on working people. No he isn’t, interrupted Matthew, he’s challenging the elites. George used USAID as an example of the poorest people in the world losing funding. Really? Somebody tell George recipients of USAID include Micahel Moore, Chelsea Clinton (via the Clinton Foundation) and the BBC.
A chap in the audience got stuck into the politicians. They’re all liars. All just in it for themselves. Matthew explained the phenomenon as the state, rather than existing to help the people, imposes a damaging political project upon them.
He’s not wrong.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
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