Question Time came tonight from Cardiff with both a lively audience and panel for a change.
For Labour we had Chris Bryant. Sigh...once upon a time, not so long ago, I would have had time for Chris, but then he became a government minister and it turns out he's as bad as any of the rest of them. For instance this evening when the subject turned briefly to the disability benefit cuts Chris sat smirking and grimacing before going on to offer a blatant lie. He angrily accused others of scaremongering and childishness then claimed 'nobody would be losing their PIP', which is of course absolute bollocks. He had to have it dragged out of him that what he meant was that nobody would be losing their PIP
immediately, they'd only be losing it in the future when they're reassessed under the harsher eligibility criteria, which presumably means Chris thinks it's entirely fine for disabled people to try to live with a massive sword dangling above their heads that could fall at any time over the next couple of years because their lives aren't difficult enough as it is. I understand ministers have to put up a collective front, but the smug smirking, the faux taking of offence, and the twisting of the truth was all Chris. What an absolute prick he made of himself.
For the Tories we had Mims Davies. Mims solution to dealing with Trump, who she claims 'loves Britain', is to cross the pond and kiss his arse even more firmly than Starmer's been doing, get her tongue right up in there, while slobberingly offering him sweet nothings. She also tried to claim the UK's 10% tariffs as a brexit dividend. For that to be true brexiters will have to accept that leaving the EU has made us so enfeebled in our international trade that we now stand alongside Afghanistan and Haiti in the threat we pose to the U.S (at least as Trump and the idiots surrounding him see it). Other than that Mims trotted out the usual bollocks about leaving the economy growing and such like. A mere eight months ago she'd have been laughed at, tonight she managed to get some applause. In Wales.
For Plaid Cymru we had Rhun ap Iorwerth. Despite the fact that Fiona Bruce wouldn't let him finish a sentence Rhun had a good night, he had the decency to bring up the disability cuts which led to Bryant making a show of himself. Defended the idea of nationalisation of industries, advocated for the expansion of democracy in Wales, and sounded like the only left wing member of the panel.
For the TUC we had Shavanah Taj. Sadly Shavanah was the biggest disappointment of them all, while she was more forthright about Trump than Labour that's as far as it went, she was like Bryant's mini me. If anyone thinks the unions might save them from this Labour government Shavanah was giving off negative vibes.
For Tory nepotism we had Emily Sheffield. Like a lot of vacuous idiots Emily likes to talk, a lot, no matter what the subject. This evening she tried to make the case that Trump was doing the right thing in trying to bring manufacturing jobs back to America after the failure of globalisation. Now if that were the case I'd have had some sympathy with her argument, but all she did was hand a rare win to Bryant who pointed out that the last time Trump put tariffs on steel it cost US steel workers thousands of jobs*. She sounds like me in the pub when I'm whinging it, enough knowledge to get away with it most of the time, while occasionally getting my arse handed to me by someone who actually knows what they're talking about. But then I'm not Samantha Cameron's sister so I don't get to edit papers or be on the telly.
*
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/econom ... s-n1242695