Question Time 26th February 2026
The Panel:
Lisa Nandy (Labour)
Alicia Kearns (Conservative)
Jess Brown-Fuller (LibDem)
Tom Kerridge (Chef)
Esther Krakue (Journalist)
Venue: Birmingham
Ghanaian Esther Krakue came to Britain with her parents when she was 14. A graduate (Politics and French) of Bristol University, the 30-year-old began her career as a contributor to a Conservative grassroots organisation, Turning Point UK. There, she had her own show on which, according to the guff, she interviewed many famous faces such as Douglas Murray, Peter Hitchens and Brendan O’Neill.
Pleasant on the eye, she appears on The Talk and runs her own YouTube Channel. She has also written for, or appeared on, the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Spike Online, Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan Uncensored, GB News, Talk TV, Sky News, and Sky News Australia.
A bit too easy on the eye, her ‘socials’ are full of nothing other than endless pictures of herself in modelling poses. No sign of a cat, let alone a microphone and Douglas Murray, Peter Hitchens, Brendan O’Neill or Penis Moron – not necessarily a bad thing.
Incidentally, its myself and Mrs AWS’s 30th wedding anniversary this weekend. In a message from the gods, three decades later almost to the precise minute, Rangers play Celtic. All you need to know.
In a rare outbreak of text, on her agent’s website, Ms Krakue confides that moving to Britain allowed her to flourish and freely pursue her passions, not least as a ‘professional opinion haver.’ Besides which, ‘I do many things. I am a writer, a broadcaster, a pole dancer, an above-average kizomba dancer.’ Oh.
Tom Kerridge is a former child actor turned chef turned TV chef. Born in Salisbury, the 52-year-old is yet another country Manchester United supporter. Away from the 400-mile round trip to support his local team, Tom has an interest in five restaurants, some with Michelin Stars.
Tom’s wife, Beth Cullen-Kerridge, is a sculptor and artist. Her esteemed works include Tongue, pictured here. Unfortunately, somebody trod on it. Or did they? It’s difficult to tell with the Modern.
A critique of some of Beth’s other mighty art, plus highlights of her husband’s not-so-carefully sculpted violent social media excesses aimed at ungrateful diners and critics, can be found in this previous edition of QT Review.
Lisa Nandy is a Question Time ever-present. In between times, she is the Labour MP for Wigan and the current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The 46-year-old Newcastle University law graduate has never had a job and is married to a lobbyist.
Granddaughter of a Lord, her father was an Indian public school boy in the race relations industry, her mother and step-father were television producers in Granadaland. Her sister is the brainy one who went to Oxford. A Burnhamite, she has been dispatched by Keith to the QT panel to be asked lots of difficult questions about Mandelson, university loans, etc.
One thing she won’t be asked about, one assumes, is the Gorton and Denton by-election. The polls don’t close until ten and QT is live-streamed at nine. There’s supposed to be a media embargo on such things during the actual voting – hence all the pictures of dogs at polling stations.
Will posh fake non-plumber Hannah Spencer and her rescue greyhound win the seat? By the time you read this, all will be clear – unless a recount or three is needed. At QT Review HQ, we have been weighing the odds and trying to weigh the postal votes, but we can’t decide. Neither can the Temp who puts the Greens, Labour and Reform all within the margin of error of each other. If you just read that, then I didn’t get out of bed early enough on Friday morning to alter my devious wise-after-the-event copy!
What nags at the back of the mind, as if a mangled metal Tongue pressed into the skull, is that Keith visited on Monday. Ordinarily, you would keep a party leader well away from an anticipated defeat, so those on the ground in G&D may be expecting Labour to out-perform the national polls.
Alicia Alexandra Martha Kearns is a posh Cambridgeshire girl born to leftie parents. A graduate of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (Social and Political Sciences), after university, she joined the civil service and worked in various government ministries’ press offices.
In the private sector, she is a former client services director with the global communications consultancy Global Influence and a director of The Great Britain-China Centre, which shares an address with The 48 Group of British Traders with China. Fellows of the 48 Group have included a certain P. Madelson. Alicia is Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford and Shadow Minister for Home Affairs.
Jess Brown-Fuller is the Liberal Democrat MP for Chichester and the party’s spokesman on justice policy. The 34-year-old is a graduate in performing arts from the University of Chichester Department of Theatre.
***
Or so I thought. Wrong again. Tonight’s programme was advertised as a 9 pm stream, but then appeared on X as being a 22:40 start, i.e., after the ten o’clock news and after the polling stations in Gorton and Denton have closed. Which means a late night for me. Grrrr. But it’s not about the sleepy heads at QT Review HQ, it’s about Jake, who, via Question One, wondered of integration or the lack of it.
The programme had started in a different format than usual, with a Second City backdrop (somehow managing to miss out two years of uncollected rubbish) over which La Bruce heaved the Overton Window towards Birmingham being a ‘great’, ‘diverse’, ‘young’, and ‘coming-out-of-bankruptcy’ city.
Esther mentioned Urdu canvasing in Gorton and Denton; she didn’t believe in multiculturalism but in multiple ethnicities under one culture. People are being divided for a political party’s (the Greens’) advantage. She wanted forced integration through housing policy like in Denmark or, better still, Mr Lee’s Singapore.
La Bruce disagreed and said that although 90% of Birmingham’s Hansworth are black, many of them will have been British for many generations. No, Fiona, they’re black and will remain so for many generations.
Litha profoundly disagreed. She grew up in Manchester and was demonised. She lied about her family – see above. She blamed the Tories for stretched resources, rather than mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration. Why is bankrupt Birmingham, where Jews are banned from football matches, so successful? she wondered (to applause from the carefully selected BBC audience) – because of multiculturalism.
A 12-year-old in the audience ‘unfortunately’ couldn’t speak Punjabi. His grandmother, who is Indian, has never learned English as she isn’t allowed to leave the house. All this is the fault of whitey.
Esther spoke clearly, but made the mistake of seeing mass immigration as an opportunity for integration, rather than a straightforward evil.
Alicia doesn’t judge people by their skin colour. She was worried by the Green Party’s triggering of Pakistanis by showing clips of Indian Prime Minister Mr Modi with Keith. Her constituency is close to Leicester. Perhaps too close, as she went on to remind us the Pakistanis and Indians in that place kick seven bells out of each other from time to time. Likewise, Labour in the Batley and Spen by-election, with their photos of Boris with Modi.
Tom talked word soup multi-culti nonsense, best ignored. ‘Social infrastructure’, ‘incredibly connected’, ‘drive the vision’, ‘culturally rich’. Like the kind of gobbeldy gook on one of his menus where, no doubt, it takes 150 words to say Fish.And.Chips.
We all benefit from racial and religious segregation, began Jess. Any shortcomings are due to ‘cuts’. The charideee sector do amazing work building communities. Poor deluded soul.
Question Two: Is it time to review hospitality business rates? The questioner, a local publican, noted he was being taxed to death. His son was supposed to be taking over the family business but it’s become a poisoned chalice.
From Tom’s perspective, his position as a restaurateur was equally difficult, but he acknowledged a secondary income from TV work. La Bruce explained the problem as a revaluation of business rates simultaneous with an end to covid-era discounts. Tom went through the increases: ingredients, utilities, the minimum wage, National Insurance payments. He suggested a cut in VAT and rhymed off the lower VAT rates in other countries.
Litha ‘recognised’ what they were saying. She ‘got it’. Inflation is coming down. The minimum wage going up means people on £12 an hour will have more to spend in the finest restaurants.
Tom sighed.
Girl fight! Ester interupted, and Litha took the bait. Esther thought the politicians in Westminster are totally divorced from people in the country, and Litha’s attempts at explaining economic cause and effect are plain wrong. ‘Will you show some manners?’ interupted Litha. ‘Absolute nonsense from start to finish,’ continued well-mannered Litha as she disagreed with Esther. ‘A quite long and quite rude monologue from you,’ she said.
The girls are fighting! The girls are fighting!
The whole industry is on its knees, retorted Tom.
A large gentleman in the audience with ruddy cheeks said he didn’t work in pubs, but supported them. Jess was triggered too. Politicians don’t live in a Westminster bubble; there aren’t bunk beds there. We go back to our constituencies and live our lives. She’d started work in a tea room at thirteen for £3 an hour.
Instead of taxing hospitality to death, she would tax financial services to death. Nobody suggested the government spend less. £30,000 an hour La Bruce even wondered if April’s 60p an hour increase in the minimum wage might be ‘unhelpful’. And on that divisive note, it was time for bed.
© Always Worth Saying 2026
The Goodnight Vienna Audio file
