Question Time 24th September 2026
The Panel:
Jonathan Reynolds (Labour)
Helen Whately (Conservative)
Josh Barbarinde (LibDem)
Andrew Neil (Journalist)
Ash Sarkar (Political commentator)
Venue: Cambridge
A graduate of the London School of Economics with a degree in Government, Joshua Thomas Aderele Babarinde OBE describes as an entrepreneur. Yet his version of entrepreneurship is not the conventional kind associated with the inventing, making, and selling of things, but rather what might be termed ‘social entrepreneurship’ — a succession of pointless roles in politics and the third sector.
His career, for example, includes roles such as youth intervention worker in Tower Hamlets, policy assistant at the African Health Policy Network, community engagement consultant, social innovation fellow, and Head of Entrepreneurship (Delivery) at the School for Social Entrepreneurship. Well.
His claimed recognitions include numerous accolades, for instance, being an Ashoka Changemaker and holding a Winston Churchill fellowship. Shall I type what you’re all thinking? One feels obliged. Is he an Arday? Yes. His Wikipedia biography entry includes the following:
‘Babarinde has won numerous accolades for his social entrepreneurship achievements, including a Shackleton Award.’
This is misleading. Named after Ernest Shackleton, the 20th-century explorer, there is such a thing as a Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions – an annual cash prize and silver medal given to individuals defending the Arctic and Antarctic.
This year’s winner is Romain Troublé for the Tara Polar Station project – a 400-ton drifting polar laboratory with a crew of 18. Difficult to match from the LSE or Barbarinde’s LibDem Eastbourne constituency. What his biography should say is that he received a Shackleton Foundation award, ie financial support for ‘social entrepreneurs’.
Of modest origins, Andrew Neil attended Paisley Grammar School and the University of Glasgow before embarking on a career in journalism. By the age of 34 he was editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times and went on to become the founding chairman of Murdoch’s Sky TV. From 1995 to 2020, Neil was an accomplished political interviewer at the BBC.
A resident of the south of France, with apartments in New York and London, Neil now talks sense in a Daily Mail column and on Twitter, following a brief and bruising stint at the ill-prepared fledgling GB News.
All well and good, but caveats apply. At the height of the hiding-in-plain-sight infamy, Neil could have put Jimmy Savile on the front page of the Sunday Times – but didn’t. Likewise, Neil appears in the Epstein-Maxwell little black book.
Given his litigious reputation, the most he allows us to say is that he met Ghislaine Maxwell “a few times”. Subsequently, The Spectator — of which Neil was chairman at the time — remained soft on Maxwell for too long during legal proceedings that saw the daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell and Epstein collaborator convicted of trafficking underage girls.
Although it would be churlish to accuse Neil of Lawson-Monckton levels of contact with the Epstein-Maxwells (how have Dominic and Rosa avoided this career-ending scandal?) the suspicion arises that Neil is the council house kid from the provinces, trying too hard to elbow his way into an amoral pan-Atlantic metropolitan media elite. Might he redeem himself on tonight’s QT? We shall see.
Puffin’s favourite Ash ‘The Tache’ Sarkar is billed by Question Time as a ‘political commentator’, but should be more honestly introduced as a company director.
Despite being a Communist, Ash The Tache, not her real name, Asna Shimin Sarkar, is a director of Thousand Hands Limited, parent company of ultra-hard extreme far-left outlet Novara Media. Their recent accounts show in excess of a mighty half million pounds in cash in hand, or at the bank.
Where does the money come from? Much from overseas foundations – including George Soros’s OpenDemocracy – to whose media platform Novara founder Arron Bastani (not his real name, Aaron Peters) contributes. Keep this in mind when Ash The Tache bashes Farage regarding overseas donors.
The daughter of a surgeon and a physician, Helen Olivia Bicknel Whatley attended the private Wodingham and Westminster schools. The latter’s former pupils include more Puffin’s favourites such as Sir Nicholas Clegg and Adam ‘Bunter’ Boulton – as well as the aforementioned Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson.
From Westminster, Helen attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she studied PPE. A career in management consultancy followed, including a spell advising the health sector while with the accountants Pricewaterhouse. Helen passes this off as working for the NHS. Does this make her an Arday-Barbarinde? Yes it does!
Husband Richard Marcus Whatley, known as Marcus, is a businessman who, in brief, makes his pennies via the Net Zero scam of which his wife is an influential enthusiast. A fuller QT Review enquiry into Marcus’s business interests can be found here.
Jonathan Reynolds is the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, President of The Board of Trade and Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde. Born in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, the 46-year-old left the North East at the first opportunity to study politics and modern history at the University of Manchester.
After training as a solicitor, he specialised in public policy while serving as a councillor in Tameside, Greater Manchester. Despite being absent from the North East all his adult life, Jonathan speaks in what computational linguistic language engineers call ‘Bridget Phillipson fake’.
***
Question One: How much control should the state exert over what beneficiaries spend their benefits on? Helen, in her new specs, improved teeth, suspiciously smooth cheeks and new hair colour which (flame-haired) Mrs AWS always describes as merde, said the welfare bill is unaffordable and out of control.
People who could work live on welfare. The Tories’ new policy is for Universal Credit to be reduced after 6 months of claiming, with the reduced amount being put on a card which can only be spent on what Helen approves of. If this is a good idea, why didn’t the Conservatives do it while in power for 14 years, thought everybody.
Ash claimed her time machine works, ‘I’m in the 1980s’. These kinds of things just increase child and in-employment poverty. The crisis is one of opportunity and purpose.
A series of posh young people in the audience spoke, virtue signalling while misunderstanding human nature. Only one hand rose when La Bruce asked if anyone supported the policy. He complained about foreigners claiming benefits – to some applause.
Jonathan pointed out that Tories across the generations have always made such commitments, but nothing happens because there’s no evidence to suggest the poor spend their money on fags and booze. Those of us who work in supermarkets might disagree.
Jonathan’s punch line (easy applause line?) was that the only reason Helen says these things is because she doesn’t like the poor.
However, he was pulled up by Ash, who wondered why there are half as many entry-level vacancies this year compared with last. Rattled, he waffled about magnificent opportunities while Andrew Neil interrupted to remind us youth unemployment is rising.
In principle it’s a good idea, continued Andrew Neil. But how are you going to do it? He wondered who would police it? Andrew reckoned the supermarkets might, as if that were an impossible and bad thing. They already do, Andrew. He wondered about the complexity of extra codes on products. They’re already there. We have our long number, our short number and our barcode – not to mention the mark one eyeball. Dress up as a 15-year-old girl and try to buy plastic nails, Mr Neil. [1]
We have 6.7 million not working. Changes in welfare aren’t punitive; rather the solution to a humanitarian crisis. Labour doesn’t have a programme.
The Conservatives want to bring back the nanny state, began Josh. You get young people into employment by ‘investing in them’, whatever that means. How? Wondered La Bruce. Before he had a chance to say by rejoining the EU, he was talked over by the others.
In the hubbub, nobody was heard to say: cut taxes and red tape, stop shadowing the EU, abandon Net Zero, reduce immigration to zero – and then the problem will solve itself.
Question Two: Should we be more worried about the protesters than by those arriving on the small boats? La Bruce talked us through recent events at Gosport, making sure the Overton Window centred upon Danny Tommo being arrested and the RNLI being threatened.
The questioner was allowed to ramble his pro-illegal immigration suicidal empathy nonsense, which included an unpleasant and unnecessary swipe at his sister-in-law. There’s no row like a family row!
Jonathan said the answer was to solve the problem, which is what the government is doing through a basket of measures.
Helen was interupted by La Bruce having made the mistake of saying ‘illegal immigrant’ rather than migrant. La Bruce claimed the numbers are 40% down. Difficult to believe given 800 crossed on Wednesday alone.
Am I the only Puffin who worries about these politically loaded statistics? Does ‘small boats arriving at Dover’ include those being landed elsewhere? Likewise, does 300 on an inflatable fall into the ‘small’ boat category?
La Bruce, having placed her Overton Window, tried to pin Helen down into condemning that which lay outside it, in the usual and predictable borefest of allocating the ‘refused to condemn’ label. Helen didn’t take the bait.
Ash was triggered. Paramilitary, violent, thuggish, racism, small penis behaviour (from one who doesn’t have one). It’s not just about small boats; it’s about racism and thuggery. She has a point; it’s about broader issues with ‘small boats’ as the lightning conductor.
How about the masked protests regarding Palestine? Wondered a gentleman in the audience? Why are masks only condemned when the issue is British people wanting to protect the borders? Someone else, a gentleman with a shaved head, made the same point and had a real go at Ash The Tashe.
Our volunteer lifeboat crews, began Josh Babarinde (avoiding the issue altogether), by which one assumes he meant the illegal immigrant taxi service. Love our lifeboats. Donate to the RLNI. Easy applause.
Andrew would ban masks. He would also ban uniforms – he really has got it in for those of us who work in supermarkets. He found covered demonstrators intimidating. He hated it with Palestine protests and Black Lives Matter too. As for the subject, the Tories are useless on immigration. They promised less, especially post-Brexit, but delivered far more.
The figures coming in now, under Ms Mahmood, according to Neil, put this year’s net immigration at less than 100,000. The great inquisitor believes official figures. After all these years, he finally loves Big Brother.
Regarding the masks, what none of the panel dares say is that we have no right of assembly or free speech in this country. Which means, in effect, people have to hide their identity to avoid losing their jobs or even being imprisoned because of their publicly stated views. That’s why we must wear masks.
[1] because of the adhesives
© Always Worth Saying 2026
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