Question Time 1st Oct 2026
The Panel:
Miatta Fahnbulleh (Labour)
Julia Lopez (Conservative)
Suella Braverman (Reform UK)
Oli Dugmore (Journalist & Commentator)
Venue: Tottenham
One of the Garden of England Fahnbulleh’s, posh Miatta was educated at £45,000 per annum Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Not her real name, Dr Miatta Ewen, continued her education at Lincoln College, Oxford, where the Labour member for Peckham graduated in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
A PhD at the London School of Economics followed. The 47-year-old has made numerous Question Time appearances but (as she wasn’t elected to Parliament until July 2024) under a different guise, that of ‘economist’ or being of the ‘New Economic Forum.’
For, after completing her education, Ms Fahnbulleh, eschewing a job in the real world, held a number of consultancy positions, including in her own company, Poleis Ltd, and with the Institute for Public Policy Research. This ‘think tank’ is part-funded by the European Union. As for the New Economics Forum, think ‘globalists’ and ‘Soros’. One yearns for the political transparency of Thai-based crypto billionaires.
Having made private education even more unobtainable for the middle classes by imposing VAT on fees, Miatta educates her three children, erm, privately.
Likewise, as befits Andy Burnham’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Miatta’s husband Graham Ewen makes his money in part from hydrocarbons as an investment professional with North Rock Capital – a subsidiary of US finance giant Lighthouse Partners Asset Management.
And that’s not the half of it. The linked excellent and highly recommended article, entitled Miatta Fahnbulleh, and authored and researched by our colleague DJM, uncovers a murky pedigree of corrupt West African politics, with further unsavoury goings-on in both Westminster and Peckham.
In the incestuous nature of the London media political bubble, Miatta, while still billed as an economist, shared the QT desk on 12th May 2022 with tonight’s fellow panellist, Suella Braverman – then still billed as a Conservative.
Not her real name: Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman, nee Fernandez, is one of the Middlesex Fernandezes, privately educated at the Heathfield School, Pinner, now known as the Northwood College for Girls.
Ms Bravemann graduated from Queens College, Cambridge, before completing a master’s degree in European and French law at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris. She practised law until becoming (Conservative) MP for Fareham. After rising to be Attorney General and Home Secretary, she defected to Reform UK in January this year. Husband is South African businessman and former resident of Israel, Rael Braverman.
Julia Lopez is the Conservative MP for Hornchurch and Upminster and Kemi Badenoch’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.
In the incestuous nature of the London media political bubble, Julia also attended Queen’s College, Cambridge, where she graduated in Social and Political Sciences. The daughter of a business consultant and a primary school teacher, Julia has never had a job; her real-life experiences extend no further than being a parliamentary researcher and local councillor.
According to our friends at TheyWorkForYou, one of Julia’s donors (£14,350) is Neil Record, a prominent British businessman, author and former Bank of England economist. Thai crypto style, he amassed a multi-million-pound fortune after founding Record Currency Management, a ‘specialist asset management firm’ where he served as chairman for 40 years.
Elsewhere in her parliamentary submissions of interest, Julia declares multiple entries for completing surveys for between £60 and £200 a time. Needing between 30 minutes and one hour’s work to complete, there are too many for me to add up. The Temp puts the total ‘earned’ at £4,220.
Oli Dugmore, not his real name, Daniel Oliver Henry Hare Dugmore, is cagey about his early life. We know that Dugmore is a political journalist and editor best known for his work in digital political media, and that after studying politics at the University of Cardiff, he began his career at The Sunday Times, LBC and The Tab before joining JOE Media in 2018.
Online archaeology at The Tab reveals Master D.O.H.H. Dugmore as an old boy of Warwick School, fees £57,000 per annum. In the days before Comrade Oli became reticent about such things, he wrote in The Tab of a ‘quaint town with a castle and a private school… rugby pitches slot around the buildings in a game of elitist Tetris and behind the Combined Cadet Force’s assault course, there is a state school.’
Given the uncommon agnomenics, might proletarian Oli be descended from Henry Hare Dugmore, a missionary, writer, Xhosa translator and early South African settler? And might – given the Reverend’s connection with that particular part of the Eastern Cape – Dugmore Street in KwaMaqoma (formerly Fort Beaufort) be named after the family?
No matter, in the modern-day, public school boy colonial Oli is the executive digital editor of the leftie, loss-making New Statesman. A publication bankrolled by Mike Danson, the billionaire founder of Datamonitor and CEO of GlobalData.
One yearns for the more direct and transparent political influence of the Thai-based crypto community. In the incestuous nature of the London media political bubble, D.O.H.H. Dugmore last appeared on Question Time in February of this year, when fellow panellists included the aforementioned Julia Lopez.
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Question one: Is it fair to rob pensioners to fix a broken care system, or is not doing so a betrayal of future generations? i.e. the triple lock question: the policy under which the State Pension increases each year by whichever is highest of inflation, average earnings growth, or 2.5%.
Fiona moved to Miatta. The social care system is broken, she began. The prime minister is being brave. One is reminded of the Yes, Minister programme, where civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby would respond to politician Jim Hacker’s grand proposals with ominous references to being ‘brave’ or ‘courageous ’- Whitehall speak for dangerous, disastrous and politically suicidal.
Her subsequent comments suggested retaining RPI and the 2.5% floor, while removing only the annual-earnings element. Which begs the question: how much money would actually be available for a new social care system — particularly when its own costs would presumably be rising in line with RPI?
She also referred to the policy as a “hope”, rather than a cast-iron commitment. She wanted people to remain in their own homes for longer, rather than move into care homes costing £1,500-plus a week. Reading between the lines, that appears to suggest they would still be expected to pay for much of any residential and nursing care themselves.
Suella Braverman argued that the triple lock should be maintained with any savings needed for social care found elsewhere — for example, from foreign aid, net zero, and cutting benefits paid to the ‘foreign born.’
Oli was ‘bothered’ by the old receiving more attention than the young. He coined the phrase ‘boomer-centric’ before a surprisingly young, carefully selected BBC audience. Younger generations, according to Oli, are disproportionately disadvantaged by leaving the EU, being priced out of the housing market, ‘climate change’, and even by the pandemic.
One doubts public school boy and old colonial D.O.H.H. Dugmore is priced out of the housing market. In passing, let’s not forget that the three causes of the housing crisis, especially in the likes of Tottenham, are immigration, immigration and immigration.
Oli continued that he wasn’t asking for a vote and therefore could be honest, while omitting to mention that his livelihood depends upon a billionaire leftie benefactor.
Julia pointed out that the state pension is only £240 a week, low by European standards, and only 30% of the average wage. Government borrowing is already a flashing red light while the welfare budget is out of control. The triple lock cut won’t pay for free care home accommodation anyway – a point that she claimed Mr Burnham had clarified after his (ad libbed?) conference speech.
Nobody suggested cutting the cost of social care itself — perhaps by challenging the all-too-prevalent overseas private-equity ownership model. Private equity which will be busy lobbying and donating for its own financial self-interest if any National Care System does emerge.
Question two was about immigration. How can we debate the issue without making immigrants feel unwelcome?
It’s about control, said Julia. Immigrants here legally are frustrated by illegal immigration too. We need a functioning immigration policy. People who are here must contribute and not just claim benefits. Plenty of immigrants are in favour of immigration control.
‘We treat them as our fellow human beings; it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that,’ was the best that Oli could manage – to predictable BBC applause. No stabbings, rapes, eye gouging, throat cutting on planet Oli.
A chap in the audience said that London wouldn’t be the city that it is without migration. Quite. Shall we leave it at that? No! He added New York and Montreal to a list of ‘successes’, but it’s ‘more challenging in smaller places’. If there’s a Sir Humphrey not reading this review, could he please translate ‘challenging’ into lived reality and post it in an unread comment?
‘Normally I’d be shouting at my TV right now’, began an audience member. Is he a Puffin? La Bruce invited him to shout into a camera instead. He obliged. The Tory talks about migration and immigration, but under Boris net migration reached record levels. Julia had a ‘cheek’.
A loon thought wanting to stop the boats legitimised racism.
La Bruce moved the debate towards Englishness, as both Mr Sunak and Mrs Barverman have been quoted as saying they are British rather than English. Surely these things are ancestral? Both British and English. End of issue.
As Suella complicated the matter, she managed to slip into the waffle, ‘In my book, released today…’ At which point, given a choice between shouting, or worse, at the telly or going to bed, I migrated up the stairs to my slumber.
© Always Worth Saying 2026
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