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
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 