Yes, it’s that time of the week again – so pour yourself a stiff drink, plump the cushions and settle back in your sofa to enjoy/endure another hour of love it/hate it political debate courtesy of BBC1 Question Time.
Holding up the Lib Dems’ end tonight will be Julia Goldsworthy, MP for Falmouth and Camborne MP, and the party’s shadow communities and local government secretary. And, incidentally, the Lib Dems’ youngest shadow cabinet member (though not, despite her BBC QT profile, “the youngest MP in the House of Commons” – that honour belongs to Jo Swinson).
Joining Julia on the panel will be Labour’s Employment Minister Jim Knight, who achieved some degree of fame last month after he claimed £6.99 for an oven glove; Conservative shadow security minister Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who the Guardian has reported is in favour of ID cards; Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Member Leanne Wood, famously ordered out of the Welsh Assembly, in 2004, for referring to the Queen as “Mrs Windsor”; and right-wing agit-prop columnist Kelvin McKenzie, who once allegedly characterised the typical Sun reader as “the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he’s afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdos and drug dealers. He doesn’t want to hear about that stuff (serious news).”
As trailed earlier tonight, we’re trialling a new way of contributing to the open thread, via Facebook’s Live Stream Box, below:
If you’re tuning in, you can join the simultanous online Twitter debate here at #bbcqt, or the LDV debate in the thread below. Meanwhile Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson will be liveblogging events via CoverItLive at his own blog.
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17 Comments
Is there any signficance to using the #bbcqt hastag in the Facebook connect chat? Is it piped into twitter or something?
Just habit really. I think I prefer CoverItLive or Twitter – they are persistent for everyone whereas not only does Facebook filter most of them out, I can only see Stephen Tall’s after it finishes!
That bit’s particularly unhelpful when you’re watching from Wales where it’s on half an hour later…
Oh dear – Goldsworthy Lib Dem trougher in chief (prob worse than Opik the Whig in chief) is pathetic. Clegg needs to sack her, Younger Ross and Opik (and possibly Huhne) – otherwise we will get stuffed generally as being no different to the others.
The fact that they have done much less wrong than some of the Tory or Labour MPs no longer matters – unless we are prepared to make examples of our wrongdoers – however tirvial we will be brought down with the rest.
Get some perspective Dan. Making 5 or 6 figure sums from flipping and phantom mortgages makes you a trougher in chief. Charging half of a new rocking chair to an allowance covering furniture is a completely different moral category. And how many MPs ever claimed for only half of anything?
Why are so many people trying to lump the embarassments in with the frauds? Is it cover fire to protect the frauds, perhaps?
No Joe – I agree with you on a rational basis – but that’s not how the expenses scandal is now seen by the public. All MPs are at risk – and those that have acted inapproriately, but not illegally will go down with them. My worry is that the vast majority of MPs who have acted correctly will be brought down with the venal and stupid ones – the only way to insulate them is to take action against all those who have claimed for stupid things (for which they should have known better).
Does Goldsworthy ever get off the fence?
Almost as dull as the plaid idiot.
@Dan we’d have to get rid of most of the MPs in the commons in that case.
Personally I don’t think a single Lib Dem MP has done anything worth removal of the whip or deselection.
Bear in mind that Chris Huhne actually claimed very little. Richard Younger-Ross’ comments after his claims were publicised were, to put it mildly, lacking in tact.
Agree about Goldsworthy. She is painful. Why all this bile at Chris Huhne, I think he was a bit cheeky with the trouser press but you can see his logic. He is also a very capable performer.
Peter 1919 – how about asking the taxpayer to pay for their fine for nonpayment of Council Tax (because they hadn’t asked the taxpayer to pay the tax soon enough)? Or buying a wig? Or scatter cushions, £1000 book cases or a half a rocking chair? Or hundreds of pounds a month for entertaining their friends at swanky London restaurants?
These are not things that are vital for them to do their job and are an exercise in public piss taking. Any MP who is not 100% squeeky clean will lose if there is campaign against them (and many who are clean are also vulnerable).
It’s not just about flipping and CGT – the public are furious at their venal stupidity and many Lib Dems are in the firing line. They should go now before they are pushed by angry voters.
I’ve never actually thought that Julia Goldsworthy is very impressive.
@Dan the point is that they had a food allowance and were allowed to claim for funiture, IMHO they did nothing wrong by using the allowance or claiming for furniture even if IMO these allowances/expenses should never have existed/been allowed in the first place.
It is like changing the offside rule in football and then retrospectively trying to disallow goals already scored in the past season.
Who did the cat belong to?
I saw a ginger cat behind Julia Goldsworthy? Is it hers?
I’ve just watched it again on the ‘recent program highlights’ clips on the Question Time web site.
Hehe, you saw it too? It was a strange one, with that cat, and the seagulls throughout.
Dan, have a look at the BBC expenses that have been published. Even in just the top 100 executives, there is a feeling of horror when you see all the swanky lunches, champagne, and chartered holiday flights that have been charged to the taxpayer.
“It is like changing the offside rule in football and then retrospectively trying to disallow goals already scored in the past season”
I hope Alex Fergusson will be paying back all the goals he wrongly claimed…..
Definitely wasn’t impressed with Goldsworthy. Also perhaps someone should advise her on the need for more modest looking necklaces in these ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mean to abuse the expenses system’ times. It was even worse at the ALDC conference.