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Questionable Time #126

Published February 27, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 126

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to Telford-in-Shropshire and one of the most catastrophically dull editions of Question Time I’ve ever been unlucky enough to witness. Let’s just get this over with and get back to discussing the real issues – for instance, why has Ed Miliband claimed that the above dress is apparently white and gold? It’s clearly blue and black. Typical short-sighted Labour!

Slow-cook economic yam

As Nigel Farage, currently putting his feet up in a posh American hotel, rubs his hands with glee, we come first to a question on rising migration figures. Mark Reckless MP is the purple representative for tonight and blames the government’s incompetence and…recklessness (YEAAAAHHHH.mp3). The solution is obviously to leave the EU in a huff.

Grant Shapps, looking like a smug ten year old grasping his tuck shop purchases with clammy ferocity, parrots the Tory party line like a parrot. A parrot on crack. Also, everything is fine, he says! Hesitant applause for Grantyboy. Meanwhile Rachel Reeves, in a pink cardigan I would like to wear (not her one, that would be creepy, but a different one also probably made by Romanian orphans) is surprisingly decent on this particular issue, and doesn’t go for shock-and-awe tactics. Then again I think Rachel is fundamentally unable to raise her voice any louder than a drone, so getting hysterical about immigration is something that is pretty much closed off to her. Make her Home Secretary at once, the disgusting grey splendour of the Home Office would suit her perfectly.

Our courageous Lib Dem panellist, Tessa Munt, begins by talking about a promise that ‘couldn’t possibly be kept’. Er…good one, Tessa! Maybe immigration isn’t so bad, she says, gazing wistfully into space. Mark Breakfast remains serene, his featureless pink head jutting out from his suit like a placid tortoise. He wants investment to encourage the domestic workforce, and is okay with letting smart people in but not smelly people. That’s the gist of it. Put it on a poster. Or employ me as his election campaign co-ordinator posthaste.

The highlight of this section, however, was everybody laughing at the young Tory plant using the term ‘long-term economic plan’ which nobody, absolutely nobody outside of the Westminster bubble uses. Have you ever been down the launderette or Sainsbury’s or wherever and overheard someone talking about our long-term economic plan? Have you heard our long-term economic plan debated in the living room while eating Chinese takeaway? Have you heard it come up in any situation that doesn’t immediately make you want to fall asleep? Thought not. Also, the above was an interesting glimpse into my day-to-day life.

Camilla Long is here as well. I forgot about her for a minute there.

We just wanna make the world dance, forget about the price tag

Next: should MPs be allowed to have second jobs, comes the warbling cry. Rachel Reeves only gets the word ‘no’ out before she is greeted with rapturous applause. Nonetheless her voice still does not rise above a mumble, and she remains looking like a drugged rabbit about to be run over by Grant, the farmhand who has stolen the farmer’s tractor while cackling all the way. She points to how they do it in those forrin lands, with a percentage cap ‘n’ all. This isn’t good enough for some in the audience who seem to believe that MPs should only be paid in the shortlived 1990s fad Pogs.

DISGRACEFUL cries Tessa, helpfully.

Grant is on the other side of this debate. He’s all for MPs getting lots of lovely experience, and by experience he presumably means moolah. Camilla Long, however, has a groundbreaking solution! If we value our MPs we should give them more money, she says, which is terribly brave of her because airing this view in public is extremely dangerous and could possibly lead to her being attacked by an angry mob. Dimbleby looks concerned, as if to anticipate this.

Aww, heck…less admits that he abstained in the recent vote cos Nige has been too busy flying off to America to tell him what to do. Everyone laughs again. I could get used to this – ending each question with people collectively pointing and guffawing at the panel. Truly bringing the country together.

Next, there’s a brief discussion about those three girls who went to Syria to ‘live in a hole’. Camilla claims that any loser who wants to be crowned Little Miss Isis must already be a terrorist, or maybe just an arse. The panel falls over themselves to tut about how shocking and tragic this sad affair is. Mark Reckless, funnily enough, is quite sensible here, though: maybe it’s his bank manager aura. It worked for John Major, it could work for him. Watch out, Nigel, he’s after your job!

New Conservative manifesto proposal: polling stations in bingo halls

Last up…should we kick a rich pensioner?

Grant starts as he means to go on, sultrily licking the bums of the older folks who obviously vote en masse for his party. Why not, while you’re at it, just dictate that young people have to make a ceremonial offering to old people every month, like sacrificing a lamb or something? It would be a whole lot quicker and more efficient. So don’t worry, silver foxes who are (one would imagine) the main audience for Question Time – Grandpa Grant is ON YOUR SIDE!

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Dimbles points out that this might possibly be considered electioneering. WHAT A CYNICAL VIEW gasps Grant, offended. This is all because of the EU, adds Mark. Thank you Mark. Thanks for that contribution.

“Why don’t we do more for young people to get them to vote?” squeaks an earnest young lady in the audience. To be this innocent again! Tessa, our fightin’ Lib Dem, appeals for the youth vote (well somebody has to), and Rachel murmurs that Labour’s policy is to kick some pensioners, but only the types that remind us of Mr Burns.

Grant spreads his palms like he’s Tory Jesus and sighs to the sky. How dare you, Tessa. How dare you, Camilla. How dare you, Rachel. Old people have worked hard all their life. Especially if they’ve had extra consultancy jobs.

It is at this point that Dimbleby cuts him off mid-rant and saves us all.

Time for the scores!

Shapps: 5/10

(LONG-TERM ECONOMIC) PLAN!!

Reeves: 6/10

(Wake me up before you go-go, as sung by the popular 1980s group) Wham (which is exactly what one needs to do whenever they hear her speak, that is to say, fall asleep, and thus need waking up)

Munt: 4/10

(Was brave to) Yam(mer on about certain subjects that could be very easily mocked as I have just proven conclusively)

Reckless: 6/10

(Got himself out a) Jam

Long: 5/10

(You want to give MPs more money?) Damn

The Crowd: 7/10

Grand slam

Next time, ever more surreal scores. Look forward to it!

Next week Lemmings, next week…

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Questionable Time #125

Published February 20, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 125

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to sunny Stockton-on-Tees, and a silly and suspiciously Scottish specimen of Questionable Time! Not much else to say other than let’s boogie on down.

All I know is everybody hates me

Nicola Sturgeon looks mischievous, Norman Lamb has stolen George Galloway’s hipster glasses, and Duncan Bannatyne is wearing a ridiculous suit, the kind that Michael Heseltine – who is also present and sitting, slumped, akin to a elderly lion caged in a Chinese zoo – would wear in the 80s. Oh, and Caroline Flint is there as well. They’re gearing up to answer our furst kwestion: if everything is apparently hunky dory now, why does everyone still hate the Tories and enjoy egging them as a national pastime?

Nicola gets off to a shocking start as she argues that things aren’t actually hunky dory and strongly hints that everybody should move to Scotland instead. Caroline looks grumpy as Hezza retaliates. Everything, you see, is truly hunky dory after all. A standard Question Time skirmish, one that Hezza – as a veteran, and the first Cabinet minister to appear on the programme all the way back in 1979 – has no doubt batted away boredly many times before, but at least I’m pleased to see that he hasn’t lost any of his magnificent hair, or indeed his eyebrows, which have always appeared to be trying to escape from his face.

Caroline, however, is not dissuaded. She doesn’t think it’s an ‘equal recovery’, and is in fact a ‘race to the bottom’. She looks scared but overall pleased with herself for answering somewhat adequately. Things are calm so far…but that will all change later.

Duncan, meanwhile, has a nice accent. I imagine Nicola would swoon if he actually supported the SNP. As it is, he is merely a traitor. (Or rather, a TRAETAH!!) Oh, yes, and there’s a Liberal Democrat there as well. It’s the Lib Dems who are saving us all! says the Lib Dem. Well, thank goodness for that.

“Norman…” wheedles Caroline in response, like she’s your mum about to ask if you ate the last cookie.

Ten minutes in and surprisingly slowly (I had expected her to attack in the first few seconds), Nicola finally gets to the real issue at hand. Forget the Tories – it’s Labour who are the true enemies. Yeah! Them lot not in office! This is a promising preview of possible coalition talks.

Then Hezza risks igniting the fury of the ScotNats, as he calls them, by comparing them to Le Pen’s lot in France. Now I must confess that I am somewhat terrified of certain sections of the CyberNat army (not all of them, just the very loud ones with an Irn Bru addiction) and have currently been writing this post with a gun to my head – I mean, talking about how they’re all just marvellous! But even I wouldn’t go that far. Ssh Michael. You’re, what, a million years old now? It’s time for your nap.

Nicola Sturgeon then makes one of the most beautiful expressions ever seen on this programme.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

The Neverending Tory

Next question, since the Tories have apparently taken a beating so far (have they? I thought Hezza was doing okay, considering): why is Miliband so weird and why don’t Ant and Dec like him? Michael doesn’t know who they are. This is incredible. I propose we change the title of this show to ‘Michael Heseltine vs the Modern World’ and get him to comment on every single light entertainer of The Now. He’s a crafty one is old Tarzan, switching between appearing like a doddery, harmless old man, a respected elder statesman, and a completely batshit elderly army general directing his troops into battle despite not wearing any trousers at the time. Later he makes a Fifty Shades of Grey joke and I think in his mind he’s imagining he’s still up at the conference podium circa 1976, soaking up the rapturous applause. I hate him, I’m confused by him, but at the same time, I can’t help but love him.

Anyway, Ed Miliband is amazing and quite frankly I’m astounded we’re not being showered with shit in the street, says Cazza. And that’s the end of that discussion and there will definitely not be 10,000,000,000 more articles about this subject in the months ahead.

I’m still here, Norman Lamb reminds us.

Next up: Russia! Exactly how loud should we scream in terror?

The problem is Trident, concludes Nikki Nack. No it’s not! yells Solid Hezza (Guns of the Patriots edition), suddenly metamorphosing into his 1983-era self. Gonna bash some hippies! Gonna wear a flak jacket! We can’t leave France as the only nuclear power in Europe, he grimaces. After all, they’re bloody useless.

Putin is a bit of an issue, understates Caroline, Mumsying it up. That’s why we need DA NOOKS. Duncan Bananarama agrees and Nicola looks betrayed. Norman Lamby and Beefy nods in assent. It’s twagic, says he, continually leaving absolutely no impression upon anyone.

There’s a lot of figure-swapping, budget deliberations and arguing over where money should be spent – the army? The navy? A nice pair of socks for the homeless? Nicola attempts once more to propose getting rid of Trident but is soon drowned out. How dare you try and fail to get rid of the nooks, comes the reply! After a while she just gives up and makes that face again. You could put it on a billboard and the SNP would win in a landslide (although, er, they seem to be on course to do that anyway…nice one guys! Heh heh! [gun cocking sound in the background])

Next question: should we make young people pull up weeds for pennies?

Duncan is all in favour of having young people ‘help out in the NHS’…for no money…(although he at least points out the plight of dyslexic and other disabled people who don’t have the same opportunities as abled folks) but Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid) splurges out on a jobs guarantee. Since she’s so dull this unexpected act of splurging is quite welcome coming from her somehow both impassive-and-nervous-looking face. I’m not totally in favour of the Tories’ approach, says Norman, to limited applause, like he’s not part of the dang government or something. Come and work for Duncan instead, as he’s currently trying to recruit members of the audience.

Nicola says it’s exploitation. She’s really getting fired up now, although as a Scottish person I have come to understand that she must be fired up 100% of the time. Hezza is in favour because one imagines his massive garden does need a bit of weeding. Nicola is now making that face approximately every 30 seconds.

The audience are now arguing amongst itself. Dimbles is not intervening, however. This is great fun.

Glasgow smiles

Lastly, will Scotland be the shadowy figure pulling the strings after the election? Caroline, don’t mess up these potential negotiations! She says that she’d like a majority, thank you very much…but Dimbles is on her case right away. Could she, he asks, work alongside the SNP? VOTE LABOUR, she squeaks.

Nicola, on the other hand, would like to form a gang with the progressives. Maybe just loitering in a corner, glaring and muttering about everybody else. Or drinking and smoking by the bike sheds. Hezza then warns against this threatening crew stealing YOUR dosh, as taxpayers!

“COME OAN!” yells Nicola, as if gearing up to meet Heseltine in the pit. Before a fight can break out, however, Dimbles stops the madness.

“Ohh…” whines the audience. It seems, despite some strong opinions either way, everyone quite enjoyed that.

I know. Baffling.

Time for the scores!

Heseltine: 8/10

Swat(ted questions away like a bored, well-fed leopard)

Flint: 5/10

(A slight) Blot (on her record)

Lamb: 5/10

(I can) Not (remember what he said)

Sturgeon: 8/10

Scot(land forever!)

Bannatyne: 5/10

(You) Ought (to work for him, appaz)

The Crowd: 9/10

Hot to Trot

Next time, despair.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #124

Published February 13, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 124

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to Questionable Time, coming to you from a pretty grand venue in Norwich! It certainly made me ooh and aah, probably ten times more than the panel itself did. Without further adURGH, let’s get started.

Tax solo

We’ve got a mangy lot in the ring tonight. Representing the yellows, Mr Davey is wearing a little Earth pin to show that he’s actually Captain Planet. In the red corner, we have professional Blunt Hunter Chris Bryant. Then there are two right-wing women with varying degrees of rightyness, and Armando Iannucci, who already looks fed up with everything.

The first questions reveals exactly why. Is ‘vanilla’ tax avoidance acceptable as ‘everyone does it’? Ooh, kinky. I suppose you could call it Fifty Shades of Fink. Or Finky Shades of Grey. Whatever, I’m not getting paid for this. In any case, Armando has a go at ‘dodgy’ business practices and gets a big old clap, quelle surprise. This is hardly an unemotional issue for the general public, or genpub as I don’t like to call them.

Sarah Wollaston immediately steals my joke about Fifty Shades that ten million people on Twitter have no doubt made already to tiresome results. You see, she doesn’t like aggressive tax avoidance. As opposed to gentle tax avoidance that pets kittens and picks wildflowers. Meanwhile, Eddy Davez is also fed up! Close the loopholes, says he! And if you don’t, I’ll do it meself. Thank goodness for that one brave Lib Dem in the Treasury fighting against the system. They had to go deep into the system to do it, but by golly, thanks to them there’s been absolutely no tax avoidance scandals since! …Er, apart from this one. And the other one. And the other one…

Chris, internet troll in chief, shrugs that there’s one rule for the rich and another for everybody else. Suzanne, surprisingly, agrees. UKIP would investigate tax avoidance like a bunch of Sherlock Go Homes. For UKIP, of course, is as clean as a whistle.

No, declares Chris, it is Labour that is as clean as a whistle! No, it is the Lib Dems, says Davey, via a disgruntled face scrunch! Armando is scribbling away, noting down sadly-not-too-ridiculous-to-be-true ideas for his next biting, fighting satire.

He admittedly has a lot to work with. Highlights include UKIP’s deputy leader professing not to know the details of an anti-tax avoidance bill that the party’s MEPs voted against en masse, Ed Davey basically admitting that everybody is terrible, dodgy, and united in terridodge, to much bafflement from Dimbus Dimbledore, Chris Bryant bellowing about Andy Coulson like he’s the big kid that kicked his legs in the sandpit, Sarah rolling her eyes to the skies and muttering about no good dirty Labourites in them hills, and an audience that for some reason doesn’t appear to trust any of them. Gee, I wonder why?

Deploy the ABBA

Next question: we need to talk about Russia.

Mr Davey argues that we are indeed being tuff on Russia, which I can’t really take seriously coming from him due to his face looking like a concerned potato. As a Libby Dibby, by the end of his answer he obviously turns it into a butt-licking for the EU. This, of course, rankles Suzanne from UKIP, who prefers to butt-lick NATO. Then she starts going on about impending war for some reason. I do not trust this woman with the nuclear button.

Suzanne is on a roll. “The EU has expansionist ambitions as well!” announces she, to much mirth. Ah yes, Suzanne! The EU is merely a cover for the New World Order, well, according to that strange website you once looked at anyway!

“I don’t see Ukraine as being part of Europe,” she continues.
“Shocking!” gasps a greatly offended Mr Potato Head, pointing and gawping like a sightseer seeing the Hindenburg explode above their heads.

Chris moves on. He posits that Putin admires strong people…like, for example, not a certain British Prime Minister he could mention. Although he does admire former Eurovision winners such as ABBA, so perhaps we should send Lordi on a peace mission.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

There’s then a big argument about sanctions (what are sanctions? We just don’t know,) with Sarah interjecting helpfully to tell us that Putin is a ‘bully’. I hadn’t thought of that new and revelatory argument before. Well done.

This is put cheerfully to bed by a man in the audience. To sum up: Putin don’t curr about sanctions, and everything is doomed. Hooray!

On the road you must be brave and tireless, on the road you can listen to the wireless

I once had a pink Barbie bus. I made it run over my Barbies. This is also presumably what Harriet Harman wants to do to certain sections of the press.

Suzanne, as an ex-tomboy, isn’t a fun of #pinkbus. Admittedly it does come off looking like a choice drawn up by a bunch of clueless male Oxbridge graduates, but then she goes too far and asks “What has the Labour party ever done for women?” and I think Chris’ head nearly explodes. He’s still smiling, but only in the manner of a deranged chimp who’s about to claw another chimp’s face off. He does this via an intense debate about the colour of his tie. Okay, and some good figures about gender equality – but that really is a fetching tie, isn’t it?

Somehow the topic wavers off course to become about young people’s interest in politics. Mr Davey goes off on a long spiel, conveniently forgetting to mention tuition fees before getting REKT by a young person who does just that. Everyone begins to squabble over trying to ‘seduce a young person’ by talking to them afterwards…ooh no, not in this political climate, guys!

Finally, briefly, deeply…no. Just no. We’re not going to start charging for A&E. Any politician worth their salt knows that even if they might privately support doing so, to even whisper it out loud is a career death wish. And by the way, audience guy, what’s so ‘trivial’ about self-inflicted injuries? I fart in your general direction.

“We’ve been talking for an hour,” says Dimbles, in a fit of despair, as Chris bickers with everyone and Suzanne attempts to be Maggie Thatcher. We’re done here. (That woman in the audience will probably attempt a quick getaway before all those panellists rush up to talk to her. Run, girl, run!)

Time for the scores!

Davey: 5/10

(Stopped to) Think

Wollaston: 6/10

(With a nod and a) Wink

Bryant: 6/10

(Tickled) pink

Evans: 5/10

(Slightly off) Sync

Iannucci: 7/10

(Not a fan of) Fink

The Crowd: 6/10

(Needs a) Drink

Next time, a Sturgeon versus a Lion.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #123

Published February 6, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 123

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to Finchlayyyy, Maggie T’s old seat! Since I imagine you’re all eager to squabble over this edition in a manner that would make Officer Dimble piteously appeal for calm, let’s – to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail – GET ON WITH IT.

Get thee to Monaco

Tristram ‘bread loaf face’ Hunt hasn’t had a very good week, and it’s about to get worse. It seems that he simply cannot keep his mouth shut and prevent his foot from getting jammed up in there. The first question is clearly not loaded at all: is Labour ‘Billy No-Mates’ when it comes to business-type chums? Christina Odone, representing the thinky-tank wing of a private investment firm, is first out the gate ‘n’ ready to hate. She licks the milky teat of business, praising this vague concept (business! As in, all business ever! No distinction between the types or individual examples of business, just…business, innit?) out the wazoo. Jonathan Freedland, from the Grauniad, who looks like every geography teacher to ever live rolled into one human being, thinks Labour has…some mates. A few. For some unknowable reason. Like the weird kid in your class at school who eats glue.

Then Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary who surprisingly isn’t Michael Gove (although denies that he’s still sitting in her office with his feet up watching Game of Thrones) trots out the party line in a predictable and boring fashion. “There’s a clear choice -” is her very first sentence, and I automatically fall asleep. Her eyes are big and staring, like a squid. She and Christina also seem to perform an effective double act, acting as twins to jab Tristram in the face some more.

Anyway, let’s see what he has to say for himself. Breadhead rambles on about productivity, and George Galloway’s face visibly twitches. “I have a rather old-fashioned view about this! Call me old-fashioned but that’s my view!!” Tristram says, and I just know – with joy in my heart – that he’s about to go into a historical lecture, and sure enough he brings up the (of course!) American Revolution. Nicky Morgan looks confused and repulsed, but Tristram’s inherent nerdiness is my favourite thing about him. He may be useless when it comes to everything else, but he’d probably be a good history teacher so long as his students didn’t gang up and pelt him with paper aeroplanes because I feel like he would be very easily overwhelmed in that situation.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Then everyone gets into a kerfuffle about why the heating is off. This is extreme drama. It’s broken, assures Dimbles, but George ‘Top Cat’ Galloway, who has been wearing some fetching hipster glasses up until now, assures us that it is all a conspurracy.

Turn to page 394

Next question: aren’t zero-hours contracts terrible? I imagined, at first, that this would be a dull question with everybody agreeing with each other. However then I bear witness to the merry sight of Tristram getting annihilated by a man in the audience who is literally laughing himself to death over prissy Trissy’s hypocrissy. I’m sure many adulatory Tory Twitter graphics have been made about him by now. Go look it up, I’m too lazy to.

Then it happens again. And again. And again. Tristram looks constipated. Blimey, Finchley is pretty anti-Labour. Who would have thunk it! (Meanwhile, is it just me or have Tristram’s vocal inflections, when he speaks slower, begun to sometimes sound like William Hague?)

This is all due to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown being bum-kissers, concludes George…cattily.

Next up, is David Cameron right to say skewls are mediocre? ‘lmao ya lol’ says Nicky, like it’s her job or something. Schools can apparently be mediocre and amazingly improved at the same time! Wow! It’s all thanks to Michael Gove. Tristram, whose job is to dispute this, assure us that Nicky is wrong…because…uh. Dimbles asks him what his plan is. Tristram says to give it two weeks, with a nod, wink and a nose tap. The audience aren’t pleased with this and begin to heckle like they’ve never heckled before (it’s only going to get worse from here, folks!). Confused and frightened and chewing his lip into fleshy ribbons, the Yeast Beast starts lashing out at anyone and everything, even going so far as to tut about Christina’s nun-too-shabby education. You know, by nuns. This has caused mass Twitter outrage which is a phrase I use in these reviews depressingly often.

(Also, Nicky Morgan, I know he’s embarrassing but please stop tutting and moaning. It’s annoying. More annoying than squarebonce himself.)

And we will build Jerusalem

Finally, a question that will no doubt be answered with the respect and sensitivity it deserves. Why is antisemitism rising in the UK, and does a ~*~CERTAIN MEMBER~*~ of the panel bear some responsibility? Audible ‘ooooh’s abound.

A tense argument erupts tensely. Jonathan Freedland says that…occasionally…just sometimes…GG can be a teensy bit inflammatory. Galloway inflammatorily responds and compares himself to Daniel among the lions. Is that really the best comparison to make? Then things descend into chaos. People are screaming and possibly wetting themselves. Dimbleby has to scold them to quieten down. This isn’t helped by Galloway claiming that he’s being oppressed and recoiling in horror from Christina Odone attempting to tussle with him. “Take your hands off me!” he snaps, like an offended medieval maiden confronted by a leper. Are you feline okay, George?

At least Tristram somewhat redeems himself with a good answer to the last question, sensibly pointing out that it’s perhaps not the best idea to blame innocent people living thousands of miles away for the actions of an ultra right-wing government. Galloway has certainly not redeemed himself (if this is how he defends himself from accusations of being an antisemite, then I don’t know how he’d react to people pointing out his creepy comments on rape), but regardless I don’t like the sour note this programme has ended on, e.g. with that one guy implying that Muslims are routinely going around whacking Jewish people with baseball bats – white Neo-Nazi groups are also growing at worrying rates. Pitting Jewish and Muslim people against each other for televisual sport just doesn’t sit well with me.

I need a stiff drink. Time for the scores.

Morgan: 5/10

(Trod) Water

Hunt: 3/10

Slaughtered

Galloway: 3/10

(Ooh, says the crowd, what a) Rotter (Rawter? idk)

Odone: 5/10

(Would rather be on a) Yacht(…er)

Freedland: 7/10

Sorta (okay I guess)

The Crowd: 8/10

Shorter (tempers then most crowds)

Next time…something. More importantly, don’t forget to check out Noobminster, Ye Olde Webmastre’s new, cool, newcool webzone! Or I’ll ‘ave yer.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #122

Published February 1, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 122

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to this week’s (very) belated edition of Questionable Time. As you know by now the small fact of my laptop exploding prevented me from writing up a review for you while it was still fresh and tasty, and thus I have in my possession a slightly mouldy selection of old notes to punt into place for your reading pleasure. By now, you have probably already forgotten who was even on the panel, let alone what they said. In that case, I am pleased to re-educate you…

More like social ‘I don’t’ care, ho ho ho! Ohh, I’m so sad

We come from wriggly Wrexham, with a plea from Dimbleby to ‘JOIN US’ – sounding a little like a cult leader there, Dimbles, but then again what is the strange viewership of Question Time if not a cult of sorts? And, as inevitable as an overheating hard drive when one downloads too many questionable anime films (not that I would know, of course), the first question is on the Welsh NHS: is it crap? Or merely crud?

Sajid Javid, with his weird egg head, goes on the offensive. The current state of the Welsh NHS is the worst mistake humanity has made since New Coke. And it’s all thanks to that no good Labour lot! Peter Hain shakes his gleaming greying hair in dismay. The aging Hain has started to bear a remarkable resemblance to Swiss Toni of The Fast Show fame. Surely getting the health service up and running is also ‘very much like making love to a beautiful woman’.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Swiss Pete points out that things have gone done the shitter due to the Tories cutting social care and a stampede of old people lying around groaning and dying in hospital wards as a result. Sajid is about to respond when he is interrupted by the Plaid Cymru guy with a name I can’t spell. “WALES!” he practically bellows. Wales is great, apparently. He just loves Wales SO MUCH and nobody else does. (This is, incidentally, the Plaid Cymru manifesto for 2015.) His accent is similarly spectacular, by the way. He ignores Dimbleby’s pleas to stay on topic and continues to babble on about Wales and how both the Tories and Labour don’t love Wales as nearly as much as him. He just has a lot of feelings. #obligatorymeangirlsquote

Then things go absolutely apeshit when a lady clad in red in the audience, who I’m going to nickname Melisandre, also starts blurting out her feelings about the NHS. Wales has free prescriptions?! I didn’t know that. Those lucky bastards. Melisandre even mentions Aneurin Bevan and, as expected when you mention the holy St. Nye, everyone is overcome with emotion. Somewhere far away from here, Andy Burnham’s huge sad eyes well up with tears and he breaks down during a television interview, rolling around in the foetal position on the floor and chanting “Nye…Nye…” to himself. Or is that just me?

Kate Maltby, the Telegraph woman, intervenes to stop all this. She mentions she’s not a socialist, but even she, in all her Torygraphyness (seriously, that is one HECKA posh accent) admits that the American system is poo. That said…long pause…she thinks everyone on the panel is being a massive baby and the only real news source one should listen to is obviously the Telegraph. Well, obviously. With all those pictures of pretty A Level students jumping for joy on the front page. Of course.

Germaine Greer hasn’t spoken yet, which is clearly displeasing her greatly. Are the problems in the NHS due to the patriarchy? Actually, she says, it’s due to people not respecting the old. Like her. She’s old now, she repeats. Old and grumpy. Get off my lawn you darn kids.

Wailin’ Wales

Next question: Syriza! Ayyyy or nayyyy?

Peter is definitely for, Sajid is against, and Germaine says something Australian. Balance is restored to the world. Kate, meanwhile, gives another…long pause…and rails against Greece for being naughty. And it’s all Peter’s fault, somehow. Sajid makes an impassioned plea for people to ‘live within their means’, which sets off keysmashname Plaid dude who is gunning for a coaltion between Greece and Wales (and Plaid Cymru, THE PARTY OF WALES) to take on the world through force if necessary. Sajid stares into the camera like he’s on The Office.

Then there’s an argument about what really caused the 2008 banking crisis but I’m going to skip that because for goodness’ sake it’s not 2010 anymore.

Next up, should we say ‘frack you’ to fracking? Or is it the heir to coal? Will this benefit Wrexham, the ‘industrial Mecca of the North’? (A real thing it called itself, pre-pit closures, as evidenced by this screencap from an old election I sat through and watched in full because I’m a nerd:)

Fig. 2

Fig. 2

There seems to be, with the exception of that one lady who Sajid praised/smothered his gooey oily residue all over, wide opposition to fracking. Peter remains silent and sheepish, the Plaid man smugly smug. And Kate Maltby…long pause…simply cannot grasp that people might be concerned about other things than what slice of the profits pie the people of Wrexham are getting. It was quietly heartbreaking in a way, to see her repeatedly fail to understand any of the concerns, real of imagined, that the plebs are raising. Don’t worry, she reassures them when they question the effect on the environment and their communities, we’ll find a way to make sure you get a cut of the dosh!

Don’t h8, deb8

The final two questions race by so fast I barely have enough time to write anything down. Germaine Greer has been disappointingly uncontroversial in this edition – perhaps she’s mellowing with age, and become a kindly older lady who intends to bed-block like a pro. Even when during the question on giving vouchers to pregnant women to entice them to stop smoking, Kate practically screeches apropos of nothing BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POOR MENS, she doesn’t come back with any sort of withering response. I’m let down, Germaine! That was an open goal.

Finally, debates. Or deb8s as the yoof don’t call them. Sajid not-so-smoothly admits that Dave is ‘making progress’ on the idea, to much mirth in the crowd.

“The public have a right to see us exposed!” says Peter, and with that I scream in terror and switch off.

Time for the scores!

Javid: 5/10

Egg(head)

Hain: 6/10

(Too many sausage rolls from) Greggs

(ap?) Iorwerth: 6/10

Segued (everything into a rant about glorious Wales, motherland of all)

Maltby: 5/10

Beg(ged the good people of Wrexham to consider the profit motive)

Greer: 5/10

(Mystic) Meg

The Crowd: 8/10

(Should throw a) Keg (party)

Next week: Questionable Time at a reasonable time. And by the way, Ye Sacred Webmaster has asked me to do a bit of shameless promoting! Noobminster is his new, cool website – a handy-dandy guide to British politics for people with better things to do. Which is mostly everyone. So go visit! I’ll sneak another plug for this into next week’s post as well, just to make sure. [steeples fingers, glasses flash menacingly in the light]

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #121

Published January 23, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 121

Good morrow lemmings and welcome to a saucy edition of Questionable Time, now with extra sauce. Apologies for the horrible lateness, but I have a stomach ache (possibly due to ingesting all that sauce) and my motivation for analysing this very D-list edition was not exactly stratospheric. I mean, Dimbleby doesn’t even have an interesting tie on. That’s not a good sign. Let’s trudge on, shall we?

Girls just wanna have fun

Dimbles begins with an unexpected load of feminism, praising Question Time for its increased percentage of female panellists. Good work, QT. This isn’t Mock the Week. Women should have the same right to be equal parts boring and inane just like the boys. Then we go on to a question about Page Three. Ah, society!

Esther McVey goes out of her way (there’s endless limerick potential there) to point out how dated the feature is. There’s a-clamourin’ for a new style of Page Three, you see, filled with pictures of Simone de Beauvoir. At least there is in the fantasy kingdom ruled by myself. Paul Nuttall, Nigel Farage’s right-hand slaphead, looks piteously at the silly wimmins getting in a fuss over nothing and mansplains that there are more important things to be concerned about, e.g. FGM, because apparently feminist activism can only focus on one thing at a time. Diane Abbott, meanwhile, says that she is concerned as a parent about the example it sets, and Amoj Rajan, the Independent guy, plugs the Independent. This is getting off to a good start.

It’s ~*~cool~*~ that feminists came up with a hashtag, warbles Amol, wearing his cool sparkly earring and using words that the older half the audience probably don’t even recognise. Tim Farron, your next Lib Dem leader, says that Page Three was never cool and that everyone hates it, but sadly there’s nothing they can do about it because #jesuisjordan.

Well, that was pointless. Diane ‘n’ Paul predictable argument count: #1.

Ruff ‘n’ tuff choices

Next up, Chicken Cottage. I mean Chilcot. The inquiry. Yeah. I’m not hungry or anything.

There’s a lot of knowing looks about ‘Mr Blair’ and ‘Mr Straw’ which sounds like they’re gangsters in fedoras with machine guns working for Big G Bush or something. I hope those are the exact words of the inquiry whenever it finally gets published. Also, can we please not make the phrase ‘sexed down’ a thing? Thanks.

JUST PUBLISH IT, Amol half-yells to no avail. Diane is in her element, gleefully dissing Tony Blair and his civil servants. Paul too, funnily enough. Maybe they’ve finally made up and are about to kiss.

Oops, wait, the next question is on Ol’ Nige’s comments about the NHS (they just keep on comin’!). So I guess not! His deputy thus sombrely steps up to the pulpit. Apparently, the NHS is too large. Large and in charge. The only solution is to kick it about a bit. I mean – have a mature discussion. Involving UKIP, and large private companies. Large. I just like typing the word large.

Diane is Not In Favour, of course, and says so although in many more words. Dimbleby is constantly trying to get her to shut up, but Diane will not be silenced. Diane ‘n’ Paul predictable argument count: #2.

Apart from that, however, this particular NHS debate is dull. Maybe it’s just the medication talking but I was tuning out – which I usually don’t do when it comes to NHS debates. However, there’s only so many times you can look at Esther McVey’s boring face and boring voice and boring words and hear the words “tough choices” before you start to nod off. Get Jeremy Hunt and Andy Burnham on the programme and have them duke it out, possibly Gladiators-style with big foam spears and obstacle courses. I’d pay good money to see that.

By the way – uh, Tim, social care is in a state because you, um. Cut it. Oopsie.

Snerps

Our final question is on the SNP. There isn’t an SNP representative here. That seems a bit unfair, like when the popular girls in your school get together to giggle about you behind your back. Or is that just me?

Anyway, Nuttall goes the heck in.

“THEY’RE TAKING YOUR TAX!” he bellows, pointing out all the cool stuff they have and all the nasty stuff they don’t have while we, the poor, beleaguered English, suffer in silence with nary a badly-designed modern parliament of our own. This is some top scaremongering. Like the SNP are a race of bloodthisty beetledemons from space.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

I for one welcome our new Scottish overlords, although that is mainly because I am a little terrified of the so-called ‘CyberNats’ massing upon my ass and tearing me a new one. Digitally. A digital new ass.

Thankfully, Tim Farron is here to calm the tensions between the nations. He wuvs Scotland. He will hold it close, to his breast, and never let it go. Never. (Finally: Diane ‘n’ Paul predictable argument count: #3. We did it! We climbed this whole mountain.)

Time for the scores!

McVey: 4/10

Drone(d on)

Abbott: 6/10

(Had a good old) Moan

Nuttall: 6/10

(In the) Zone

Farron: 6/10

(That bird has) Flown

Rajan: 5/10

(I want to eat a) Scone

The Crowd: 7/10

(Had a) Bone (to pick)

Wrexham next time. Hopefully for our panellists, it WRECKS ’em. Dohoho!

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #120

Published January 16, 2015 Politics 1 Comment
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qt 120
Good morrow lemmings and…you know what, I’m not even going to try this time. We know what’s coming. We know the drill. We know what’s been squawked and squealed about on Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, all the dank fetid corners of the internet. It is merely my job to further poke the weeping scab of depravity until it oozes more putrid, pestilent pus and gets the nice rug all dirty. That’s right…it must be a David Starkey edition of Question Time.

Ahmed, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

The first question is on free speech, and thus everyone gears up to do some free-speechifyin’. Mehdi Hasan begins by solemnly pointing out the true meaning of Islam and seamlessly leads in to a string of fart jokes. Incredible. There should be more discussions about farting on Question Time, instead of the verbal farts that are usually uncontrollably spilled from panellists’ mouths.

Unfortunately David Starkey then jumps in, and Dimbles has to intervene to prevent a punch-up from starting. Alright then, what does Starkey apparently have an urgent need to say? Let’s at least give him a chance, shall we? Okay, I’m not a big fan of using the term ‘primitive’, but then he seems to have calmed down…talks about how feeling strongly about something doesn’t necessarily protect you from criticism…okay David, nothing’s gone tits-up so f- OH HE’S JUST BLOWN IT! You can literally feel the ‘I’m sorry, WHAT did he say?’ ripple through the studio as he refers to Mehdi by the name…Ahmed. Because, like, all brown people are named Ahmed. Ahmed A. Ahmed of Ahmedson, Ahmedland. Listening in, Anna Soubry vibrates her muzzle back and forth like a soggy basset hound.

Yes, that perennial Questionable Time favourite, Chortles – aka the Conservative Anna Soubry MP – so named for her jolly hockey sticks manner (she was gurning before the questions even began!) has jumped into the fray. She barely gets five words in before David Starkey interrupts her again. “Isn’t that free speech? Allowing somebody else to have a point of view?” she quibbles, but Starkey is undeterred. He’s on a roll now, and will interrupt as many women as possible throughout his reign of terror. #jesuisahmed, goes the joke that by now everyone else has already made.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Douglas ‘interesting’ Alexander hasn’t talked yet, thankfully, because he always puts me straight to slZzZzZz. He too disses Starkey in the most monotone mumble he can muster. Meanwhile, Baroness Sal Brinton (who I’ve never heard of up to this point), wearing a cool Liberal Democrat phoenix glittery brooch, recites that Voltaire quote which approximately one million people on the internet who know absolutely nothing else about Voltaire have already slapped across a Twitter status. What a groundbreaking discussion. Let’s move on.

Snoopers’ poopers

Here we have the obligatory Lib Dem civil liberties blubbering, because this is an important issue to them! You know, despite the whole support for the Lobbying Act and secret courts thing. There’s a warning against the tracking of web browsing history, which I can sympathise with as you probably don’t want to look at mine. A million sweaty nerds would probably turn out in protest against this prospective law, if they can manage to tear themselves away from their tentacle hentai.

Chortles isn’t chortling any more. One is sadly reminded that she’s a Tory after all, despite her ‘having time’ for the Lib Dem coffee-making drones in the government. Douglas says that this is an issue that is “far, far too serious” to be discussed on Question Time. Oh, sorry, he means bickered over in the coalition. But the first one is clearly what he really means.

Mehdi points out that our much-lauded right to ‘freedom of expression’ is actually being kicked in the bum. How does the state accessing ‘your most private emails’ help anyway, says he? Ooh, ‘most private emails’…tell me more, Mehdi. At the same time, Starkey says that “essential human goodness” is bull. Mehdi points out that is true due to the mere existence of David Starkey. This is turning into ‘laugh at Starkey’ show and it’s brilliant. If one can ignore the racism, sexism and general arseholery going on, then the entire experience becomes hilariously ridiculous. Hasan and Starkey sniping at each other will never cease to amuse. At least it won’t to me, but I am easily amused.

The next question is on the claim a judge made that a 16-year-old girl ‘groomed’ a 44-year-old man into having an affair with her. This is obviously a serious subject, and rightly most of the panellists condemn the judge’s remarks. Indeed, as pointed out, Anna and Douglas even used to be lawyers, so they do have experience of this kind of thing, maybe we should listen to th- NOPE DAVID STARKEY WANTS TO PLAY. He is as offensive as you can imagine. Can I use my freedom of speech to tell him to shut up and stop claiming that the girl seduced a pathetic dude who should have known better?

It’s about the abuse of power, Anna Soubry explains, as if to a particularly dense child.
“SHUT UP”, yells Starkey (really!). Soubry looks genuinely shocked that anyone could be such a bellend. As he blathers on about ‘sexually mature’ 13-year-olds, Soubry groans and moans in possibly physical pain. “Oh no…” she mumbles, “ohhhh noooo.”

Same here, Chortles. Same here.

Daffy deficit

Finally, next up is…the deficit. A dull and generic discussion compared to the exciting scenes that came before. Douglas is predictably soporific. “Thirteen years!” says Anna. I’m so bored of these endless back-and-forths that I can’t wait for the slightly different generic arguments that will come about after the election, whatever the result may be. Just think of the new, exciting buzzwords and catchphrases! Endless possibilities!

“We’ve got to start choosing,” says Starkey. I choose a world without David Starkey. Will that save us money?

We end with Chortles calling Mehdi a naughty boy, which I must confess I was slightly freaked out by.

Time for the scores!

Soubry: 7/10

(Will probably get a) Promotion

Alexander: 4/10

(Showed no) Emotion

Brinton: 5/10

(Going through the) Motions

Hasan: 7/10

(My) potions (are too strong for you, traveller)

Starkey: 3/10, 10/10 for sheer hilarity

Caused a (commotion)

The Crowd: 6/10

(Do the) Locomotion

Next time, Paul ‘get some nuts’ Nuttall. Who’s been hankering after ol’ Nige’s job, apparently. Bow down to your future king.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #119

Published January 9, 2015 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 119
Good morrow lemmings and welcome back to Questionable Time! Now that we’ve all finished our annual Christmas bloat, I’m sure you’re practically dying to work off those pounds by angrily sweating out a storm while watching a ridiculous political panel show. I know I am! Sure, this may not have been the most classic episode in the world – but as the beleagured Tesco slogan goes, every little helps.

Free speech, £4 a barrel

New year, same story: after Dimbles predictably advertises the Twittersphere – yet still, no matter how many times he does it, with the look of a man who knows absolutely nothing about what he is blabbering about – we begin our humble harrumphathon. Unfortunately, due to the recent tragic events in Paris, the first question is a rightly sombre affair. This makes my job harder since there’s less to take the piss out of aside from tallying to see which panellist can be the most self-important about free speech. (Liz Kendall looks disappointed. She must have eagerly agreed to appear this week, perhaps with a cheery ‘Boy howdy! Gadzooks!’, thinking she could do a little dance about A&E statistics and leave. Now, however, she’s got to contend with Julia Hartley-Brewer threatening to get the whole show bombed by throwing Mohammad cartoon confetti everywhere. Pray for Liz. Pray for her.)

David Davis answers sensibly, quietly arguing that unforgivable acts of terror should not be used as an excuse for tighter controls on civil liberties. Then Julia kicks the door down and screeches that were she not peeing herself at the prospect of getting killed, she’d wear a comfy Mohammad t-shirt just to rub everyone’s noses in what a upstanding and fair-minded citizen she is. Julia, perhaps that would be a bad idea, not even because it’s not actually a triumph of free speech, but because it’s a dickbag thing to do. No you shouldn’t be killed for it, but you should probably be tutted at. Freedom to tut, that’s all I’m arguing for here. Less guns, more grumbling.

Meanwhile, Vince Cable also sensibly points out how it’s unfair to tar Muslims with the same brush when no white people were urged to apologise for the actions of neo-Nazis such as Breivik in Norway, and Liz herself – looking resplendent in taramasalata pink – drones out something boring. Jimmy Wales is just there to ask for a donation. Alles ist gut.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Next up, is David Cameron a chicken? A big old chicky-chicky-chick-chick? Buh-gawk! Buh-gawk! This is some intense and mature debate going on here. Even Jimmy Wales suddenly turned into a Sassmasterâ„¢, accusing Cammers of being a closet Green, what with his newfound love for them. David Davis rubs his hands with glee at a chance to ‘ave a go at his fiercest enemy. Him, bitter? Nah, surely not.

Then everyone laughs at person who says that Dave merely wants the Greens there to show how fair he is. They guffaw at him. They howl at him. They chortle themselves to death. ANNIHILATED.

Apparently, Nick Clegg has called on his ex-BF to stop making excuses and get out there and slap him across the chops (harder, Dave, harder!). Vince blushes and shifts uncomfortably. I frickin’ hate Clegg, he no doubt thinks. Him and his demotions.

We end this round with audience calls for a no-holds-barred knockout competition between the small parties to see who can take their place amongst the big boys and give them the finger. Or they could just take part in a Super Smash Bros tournament, it would likely have the same outcome.

Sadly we then go from silly to serious, as the next question is on Ched ‘scumbag’ Evans. Liz Kendall doesn’t hold back in telling us how gross she thinks he is, and Julia responds by being even grosser. She’s a better judge of a rape case than a jury, don’tchaknow. I mean, that woman was ~drunk~. She can’t be taken ~seriously~. Not by ~media types~ like ~her~. Liz responds by glaring in a frightening way, threatening to vaporise all in her path with her furious stare.

Julia seems alone in this fight, though, as even David Davis thinks ol’ Cheddy should feck off. Jimmy Wales, likewise, is not really that bovvered if he can’t get a job. However, Kendall Mint Cake is getting annoyed with a blue-haired woman (another one?!) who has been yelling for the majority of the programme. Careful, blue-haired woman, or Liz will come down to your local Sainsbury’s and deliver Ched Evans there herself.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Ayyyy and E

After some more shouting, the next question is about, finally, A&E. Time to put on some Goldfrapp!

Alas – we only have five minutes to discuss this important topic, a topic that dominated the headlines before a group of laughable tossers decided it would be fun in a bun to brutally murder some cartoonists. So in summary: Vince defends things, Jimmy the King of Wiki calls for calm, Liz-who-looks-a-bit-like-Rachel-Reeves-but-isn’t ignores this and goes in fightin’, and David Davis escalates the punch up. Dimbleby, in despair, finally pulls the plug.

Time for the scores!

Cable: 6/10

(Sitting in a pool of) Stagnation

Kendall: 6/10

(A&E) Fixation

Davis: 8/10

(Question number one’s) Salvation

Hartley-Brewer: 4/10

(Her head soon succumbed to) Inflation

Wales: 5/10

Citation (needed)

The Crowd: 6/10

(Let out their) Frustration

Next time: CHORTLES AND STARKEY. I need say no more.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

Questionable Time #118

Published December 12, 2014 Politics 1 Comment
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qt 118
Good morrow lemmings and a very merry Dimblemas to you all! We’re in Canterbury for this edition, and lemme tell ya, it’s a real doozy. What even is a doozy. I don’t know. This is merely the first bout of confusion and distress you are no doubt about to experience in this week’s razzmatazz rendition of Questionable Time. Onwards!

There are actually more women on this panel than men, but who cares about that! It’s time to let the chaps speak for once. Where would we be without them

First up is a question about petty adversarialism. It is somewhat predictably answered by…petty adversarialism? Actually, no, for these are the five minutes at the beginning where everyone pretends to be ‘mature’ and ‘diplomatic’ before inevitably descending into the standard shit-slinging that goes on every week. When will they learn? At this point panellists shouldn’t even try to fight it, but should get their shit in early.

Panellist number one is Niggle Farridge. This is a man who needs no introduction, so I won’t give him one. He looks like the hhhehehe lizard of some internet repute. He also mentions that he experienced twenty years in business, which he no doubt spent most of heheheing. With, like, a cigar…and a pint…or whatever…yeah. Quality satire!

Panellist number deux is Russelly Wusselly. He has the wild hair and eyes of a discombobulated lion being poked in an illegal zoo. He calls ARE NIGE a ‘dude’ and then a ‘fella’ while bemoaning the state of absolutely everything. He gets a little too carried away about, oh…[checks watch] seven minutes in and Mary Creagheyyeyaaeyaaaeyaeyaa has to smack him down to remind him not to call women he doesn’t know ‘love’. Russell apologises. He is working on it. He tearfully tears away a page in his calender – it now reads ‘there have been 0 days since your last mildly sexist incident’. Tragic. And he was on such a winning streak.

Penny Mordaunt is also here. I have no idea why. She was plonked on immediately after her truth-or-dare swearing in Parliament fiasco, where she made copious references to a rooster, as I seem to recall. Apart from this COCKsure upstart (look ma, I can demean democracy too!) we also are in the presence of Camilla Cavendish, Times columnist, who will be performing the role of ‘obligatory even-handed journalist type’ for the duration of tonight’s programme. Riveting!

Speaking of swearing, Nigel waxes lyrical about Australia – not just their immigration policies but the way they all flip each other off in the chamber. Meanwhile, in contrast, Penny continues to be boring. ‘There are many great debates in Parliament’, she says, or something like that. I don’t remember. Probably not any of the ones she was in. Unless she started going on about poultry again.

I think it was here my troubles began

The next question is when people clearly started to hallucinate due to the spiked QT sandwiches. It’s about overcrowding – Nigel agrees that we are far too full, like post-Christmas dinner bloat, and it’s for that reason he can’t get anywhere on the motorway.

Dimbleby turns his head. It is time for a response.

…Does anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that Russell Brand is not a great fan of Nigel Farage? There’s only one way to find out: FIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHTTTT!

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

While Russell declares Nigel to be the biggest meanest rotten old racist in the world, Nigel bites back by rolling his eyes – but not even with any particular malice, which is just rude, to be honest. At least give me some classic insults to work with here. Russell even comes out with an admittedly great line about Nigel being a ‘pound shop Enoch Powell’ which I predict will be all over Twitter graphics in the weeks ahead. He even reads a teeny tiny pre-prepared note, which is quite cute, and tries to get the other panellists to acknowledge some rather alarming statistics, which they of course all valiantly fail to do. Nigel even chortles and shakes his head along the way! OMG, rude! Look, I don’t care if you also think Russell is being rude, this is exactly the kind of petty adversarialism you all tutted about ten minutes ago. Somebody please take the moral high-ground, quick.

But apparently this was not to be. Two audience members almost get in an actual, real-life fight. A Kippery sort of gentleman rails against Russ – apparently in order to campaign for/against anything you have to actually get elected to Parliament first, so I guess we should all start working on our election pledges – before a woman in the back row goes for him. And I mean freakin’ goes for him.

‘ES A RACIST

‘ES NOT

I’M COMING FOR YOU FARAGE

What does it mean to truly live a life?

This woman is bafflingly not escorted out of the premises, but needless to say a great many Kipper Komplaints to the BBC were made tonight as well as many warm-throated drunken student cheers. Grievous Bodily Harm Woman is now a living legend in the making. I’m A Celebrity 2015 awaits.

Camilla calms us all down, and Mary mentions Labour balancing the books or whatever new wacky catchphrase they’re trying to force now. Nigel thinks Labour are a bunch of WEAK BABIES. Then GBH woman interrupts another person, who was going on about vetting and not the type that has kittens.

David Dimbleby is clutching his head in pain.

Where are the Lib Dems? Crying in a corner

Time for some NHS screeching! Hooray!

Mary mentions the Conservative and Lib Dem health bill – wait a minute, there aren’t any Lib Dems on the panel for her to point the finger at. Where are they, anyway? Well, someone had to get kicked in order to make room for Ye Blessed Nige. Sorry Libdibs, that’s life!

What is privatisation? We just don’t know. Dimbles repeats something the Lib Dems pulled out of their bums about a privatised hospital which still had an NHS bid in the running when Labour left office. I mean that’s not the greatest argument in the world, sure, but it is in fact an argument. This is something more than Camilla can do, who doubts that proper privatisation exists ever and that it’s not so bad even if it did. Even Nigel disagrees, what with his new MP posse voting for the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act in a recent debate ‘n’ all. The whole ‘looking at different systems’ thing was just an idle daydream he had one day. Like a homosexual fling at university, he’s over that shit now.

After Russell’s brief drift into becoming a werewolf earlier in the programme, he’s back to acting sensible again. He points out some more figures, which he’s becoming surprisingly adept at doing, about the 70-odd MPs who stand to gain from the privatisation that definitely isn’t happening. Penny reminds us all about how much she cares about a four letter word staring with c: care. An old man in the audience then raises the subject of NHS workers’ pay being crapola while MPs dance naked under golden champagne fountains. “I completely understand that,” says Penny, to general giggles.

Five minutes remain, which is apparently enough time to tackle the subject of grammar schools. Russell answers with something entertaining but off-topic, while the others try for boring but on-topic. Nigel of course is in favour of bringing grammars back, because they are apparently completely classless and 100% meritocratic. Heckus yeckus.

Meanwhile: Penny sends us back to sleep, Camilla demonstrates middle-of-the-roadism to an almost unbelievable degree, and Mary is basically your sensible aunt trying to soothe the array of crying children back into watching Frozen for the 357th time. The usual holiday cheer.

Then it ends.

Thank you. Thank you for ending.

(Immediately afterwards there’s an advert for a programme on drugs starring…Russell Brand. Looks interesting actually. More interesting than this programme.)

Time for the scores, and they’re a little special this week to celebrate the sheer ridiculousness of this episode and to prevent Nigel Farage’s fanboy fraternity from coming after me with torches and tweets.

Farage: Bathtub/10

(His party is no longer) Small

Mordaunt: Wombat/10

(Good at) Stall(ing with naughty words)

Creagh: Space Jam/10

(In for the long) Haul

Cavendish: π/10

(Has an unchallenging type of) Drawl

Brand: Heat death of the universe/10

(Gawd bless ‘im,) Y’all

The Crowd: 10/10

(All-out) Brawl

We’ll be back on the 8th January for some more Dimbletastic fun. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Season’s Bleatings from all of us here at Questionable Time! Do let us (that is to say, me) know what you thought of this first run under new management. If I suck, I’ll go and retire like Gordon Brown and make a mint on after-dinner speeches. It’s the honourable way.

Next year Lemmings, next year…

Questionable Time #117

Published December 5, 2014 Politics Leave a Comment
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qt 117
Good morrow lemmings and welcome to another splendiferous edition of Questionable Time, live from Doncaster! This, incidentally, is where Ye Greate Laboure Leadere Ed Miliband keeps his counsel and apparently was in danger of getting the boot but now isn’t, according to some Ashcroft dude you may have heard of. Whatever, I’m sure nobody actually cares. My goodness this was a boring episode, though, so I’ll just expand this little opening paragraph for as long as possible. Hm hm hm. Lalalala. Okay, that’s enough. We really should get started. Don’t worry, my friends – it won’t be like this next week [imagine foreboding music playing here].

The 1930s were like the 1920s only crappier and with the characters in Downton Abbey probably had to sell their house because of the recession. Tragic. Isis the dog didn’t die for this

Sajid Javid starts us off, with his weirdly disproportionate head, talking about ~*~the challenges~*~ of dealing with the deficit and how that happens to involve cuts, and you’re all just gonna have to get used to it, sry2say. I hope you like the 1930s ‘sack dress’ aesthetic! By the way, I can’t read his lapel pin. It looks like a pretty blue flower. Anyone with any insider info on what the heck it is, give me the deets.

Why don’t we ask the people where the cuts should or should not come from, says Omid Djalili. After all, we don’t trust folks who moo like they do in that there House. Having watched a great many PMQs in my time like a saddo, I can confirm that they do indeed moo a great deal. Just pad the benches with hay and they’ll be happy. Wait, do cows even eat hay?

Meanwhile, representing the red team, Yvette ‘pixie woman’ Cooper is up to bat. It’s strange, for the last few weeks we’ve had the most likely future Labour leadership candidates in quick succession: Burnham, Umunna and now Cooper. Feel free to debate amongst yourselves what their respective QT showings say about their chances, but for now let’s all concentrate on Yvette bellowing about the great unfairness of it all. So unfair! These cuts are just so unfair, mum, she cries, practically stamping her heel but in a much more boring way. We’ll balance the books…but…fairly. Sajid demands to know exactly how, but his interruption is interrupted by the arrival of Jill Kirby on the scene.

Looking like Theresa May’s older, even scarier sister, she makes a worryingly long diet-related metaphor and finishes it off with an order to ‘please clap’, which for a moment I thought was a frightening threat to the terrified audience. I can see how she was formerly head of a think tank set up by Maggie T.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Shirl the Pearl, one of the QT old guard (I am thankful, at least, that there is a QT old guard still remaining, who can remember the glory days of Robin Day and whoever it was that came after him) umms and ahhs, and the general public are not satisfied by her or indeed any of this nonsense. Tell us exactly what’s going to happen, they cry in unison. Yvette rattles off some Labour policies and the panel scoffs at her, or at least Sajid and Jill do, and presumably high-five under the table afterwards. Jill wants us to be exactly like the blessed USA. ‘They have a much more balanced economy’, she gushes, conveniently forgetting that they also have barely any truly public services and certainly no proper health service. But maybe that’s the best way forward, eh?

It seems that direct democracy is the way2go, even if it would probably end up in a huge screaming mess. Everyone wants referendums! You get a referendum! I get a referendum! We all get referendums!!

The next question is on the British Identity: what is it? We just don’t know.

Isn’t it all about being a jolly nice chap? asks Yvette innocently. Dimbleby is also somewhat confused. He corners the man who asks the original question – about the name ‘Mohammad’ and how it is scary – in his own, Dimble-ish way that makes you pee yourself but very quietly. However, it is the audience who really answer this question, by taking part in many people’s favourite pastime of all: dissing the Daily Mail. Now that’s what I call British Identity!

Gordon Brown, texture like sun

Now here’s a question about (guess who?) nail-chewer supreme, Grumbly Gords. Jill Kirby blames Gordy for everything except keeping us out of the Euro. Thanks Obama Gordon. But – wait, what’s this? It’s Shirley Williams, riding to the rescue! She passionately defends the departing ex-PM which takes everyone a little aback for a moment. However, the Eggman/Sajid has the master plan, and he fights back, claiming that while Gordon was a smart dude ‘n’ all he was also a complete dingus. Yvette disagrees, obviously (although doesn’t praise Gordo to the high heavens or anything either – Labour know he’s a liability, deserved or not. Isn’t it sad, Gordon?).

Then everyone gets into an argument about zero-hours contracts. We’re abolishing them! No, we are! No, we are!! A zero-hours contract is better than no contract at all, says Jill, to general uproar, and a man in the audience yells ‘go back to London!’. So say we all.

Question Time must be stopped

Our final question of finalness is finally about obese people and whether we should care about them and their lives. Jill is not in favour (surprise surprise) and wants people to help/heft themselves. The rest of the panel shake their heads with varying degrees of ferocity.

Omid, who so far this programme has been the only source of non-boredom by actually cracking a few jokes (which I hear is something he does for a job, imagine that) is grotesquely offended! I am also offended. My roast potato addiction isn’t going to go away on its own, you know. It’s terminal. And slathered in gravy.

Dimbleby closes the programme with a bombshell, but first:

Time for the scores!

Javid: 5/10

Tumbled (down the hill with his big egg head)

Cooper: 5/10

Fumbled

Williams: 6/10

Rumbled (in a stern grandmotherly sort of way for you young people to not be so gloomy)

Kirby: 5/10

(Was not) Humbled

Djalili: 6/10

Jumbled (his jokes all together)

The Crowd: 7/10

Grumbled

Well folks, it’s Nigel Farage and Russell Brand next time round – ‘if we survive that’ according to Dimbledore. The two greatest minds of our generation. Merry Christmas one and all.

And, by the way, another plug: I’ve created an Ed Miliband Adventure Game in my spare time. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a comedic text-based adventure game starring Ed Miliband. Because that’s just the kind of thing I like to do. Go play it if you’re interested – which if you’re reading this blog, you should be.

Next week Lemmings, next week…

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