Wednesday 12 October 2011

Question Time early edition

Some comments lost in the ether last week. Make your early guesses here. You can make any changes later, up until kick-off.

For those of us who missed out by there being no Foxy question last week, perhaps there will be one this week.

David Dimbleby is joined in London by Andrew Lansley, {Health Sec. Driving the impossible reform,} Ken Livingstone,{former mayor of London..sooon to be former, former mayor of London.} Mark Littlewood,{director general of the IEA and a rarity in the Liberal Democrats..A realist,} Phil Hammond { This must be the medical author and celeb Dr. Couldn't have two Tories on the show.}
and Sarah Sands{ The former Times editor and now Journo for the Independent.?}
This line up looks so wrong. BBc seem to have gambled the Health reforms wouldn't pass through the Lords, which they have. Labour must be putting someone up?

16 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Just in case I get bogged down tomorrow:

1. Fox, why hasn't he resigned yet (or possibly "Why didn't he resign straight away?" just in case he does so in next 24 hours).

2. Those evil FTSE 100 companies shovelling all their money offshore, the tax gap, if they paid that £18 bn there'd be no Savage Tory Cuts (TM the BBC) and we'd all live in a land of milk and honey. Directed at Mr M Littlewood.

3. Why can't they make up their mind whether to sell Olympic Stadium to Spurs or West Ham? Was Boris right to decide to rent it out instead (Author: yes of course, good old Boris), possibly: were they right to sell of all those flats at a huge loss to a major Tory donor?

4. Slovakia, were they bullied, Euro meltdown, should the UK bail out other countries etc.

5. Evil Tories, privatising the NHS, selling off our national treasure to faceless international corporations, who probably pay all the money to tax havens (see Q2).

hovis said...

In early so I dont forget ...

1. NHS: (must be as Lansley is there) Most likely about the treatment of older people in Hospitals - including "forgettng" to feed them. Is this due to incompetnace or budget cuts ?

2. Fox & Werrity: Should he resign ? Theme being corruption at the heart of government or a Misnter in denial?

3. Unemployment in London one of the highest in country, especially youth unemployment. Coalition cuts a disaster? Should special measures

4. EUro Meltdown - will it affct us and should be cough up

5. the Joke question at the end - What would you do with £101M? Or perhaps do adulterous child abandoning mothers deserve to win money or should they be stripped of their winnings a la the red and black furore

Miss CD said...

1. Fox. Are the sleazy party back?
Ken waffles about Boris' infidelity, without mentioning his own.

2. Unemployment worse since Major's time.How gleeful will Labour be when its the worse than Thatcher's?

3. Library closures in Brent. {might just squeak on}

4. NHS. Blood donors,Funerals for organs.

5. Immigration. Young spouse 18-21 legislation failure.

Elby the Beserk said...

Are there any current affairs programmes on the BBC - TV and radio - that Livingstone K is not on? One wonders how much he makes out of the BBC - strike that - the taxpayer, per annum, peddling his long discredited socialist shite? Spare us.

andrew said...

1 Liam Fox, should he resign because he is dodgy or resign because he broke the rules, or resign because he did not think what a shadow private office would look like to outsiders.
The unasked question is that if a Minister is that sure that his own civil service team are working against him, what does he/she do?

2 Unemployment. The Govt should DO something... (quite seriously, I think there is a case for starting a large infrastructure project - lots of houses / severn barrage / bridge over the river kwai / flood defences )

3 The CQQ report on care of the elderly. On the today program the head clearly said it is a leadership and cultural problem, not a resource problem. Can the panel bring themselves to say that nurses are anything other than Angels. Genuinely upsetting and I hope they spend a lot of time on this one.

4 the euro. The clock is ticking There are just a few weeks left. Are the new banking reserve rules being put in place to allow for the break up of the euro?

5 Rugby - are the gentleman players behaving like footballers, exactly how is Tualangi English (he entered on a holiday visa in '04)? cue discussions on skilled migration.

Nick Drew said...

Andrew - Tuilagi is English because he behaves like a complete twat, has won the "Tindall" prize for Good Behaviour in Foreign Ports on several occasions (to be presented by HRH Princess Anne at the next Calcutta Cup meeting), and runs only in straight, predictable (if vigorous) lines

what more qualifications does he need ?

andrew said...

How about

- An unwarranted obsession with property?

- Distrust of the French

- Doesn't seem to perform quite as well as hoped on important occasions.
Oh on that he probably is :)

GSD said...

Is the show coming from inside the M25 this week? They're all a bit weird in there (*ducks to avoid the missiles*), making it doubly hard to guess! I imagine it will be quite London-centric, but who can tell?

Anyhow, my guesses are:

1) Football stadium deal thingy that fell apart/changed this week (you can tell I don't follow football, huh?).

2) NHS bill/reforms.

3) Banking reforms/proposed EU Torbin tax - must we sacrifice the City to save the EU/Euro? Leading on to the Euro crisis in general - will this week's plan work?

4) I guess the Fox Q - will he jump or have to be pushed? (But only because the media are jumping up & down about it - there are much more worthy stories around).

5) Why aren't NATO forces protecting the Libyan civilians in Sirte?

hatfield girl said...

Is the coalition government now slightly foxed?

Should London build a new airport in the Thames estuary and give Heathrow over for housing and advanced technology and light manufacturing - a Heathrow Garden City?

Is there an unspoken policy behind the neglect of the elderly and 'do not resuscitate' tendency in NHS hospitals?

Drowning in a sea of public and private debt, are we redefining the nature of property and theft? Should we engage seriously with policies of debt forgiveness both for sovereign and private debts?

Is the Leader of the Labour party a failure leading centre-left politics in the UK to political irrelevancy?

Old BE said...

Damn, MW beat me to it! My question 1 was going to be "Why is Liam Fox still in the government?".

Hopper said...

1. NHS - can we look forward to more abandonment of the elderly with the Govt's now-passed NHS reforms. (Will be very interesting to see what Dr. Hammond has to say about all this - Ken and Andrew, not so much). Probably several questions of material here.

2. Unemployment - clearly the fault of austerity, time to turn on the spending taps. Expect Ken to be banging the drum here

3. Liam Fox - is it a crime for a minister to be this dumb about public perception of his actions?

4. Local question - London libraries being closed, isn't this barbarians at the gates.

Just 4 this week again as q1 likely to take up most of the time.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

1. Are evil tory cuts killing the elderly in hospitals?
2. Fox/Werrity - is it time for "back to basics" on ministerial conduct?
3. Youth unemployment.. wicked Tories need a Plan B to promote growth
4. Merkozy: are they killing the Euro because of their procrastination?
5. Rugby players - high spirits or uncivilised boneheads who are worse than footballers? (Obviously they are a national disgrace to you English, I won't intrude on your grief. We Scots have our own useless team who contrived to make your lot look good on the field; but at least they behaved themselves off it.)

I daresay they'll only get through 4 questions as the rabid hand-picked lefty audience will rabbit on forever about the "envy of the world" NHS. Judging by the experience of my 85 year old father-in-law in hospital recently our elderly 'care' seems to be an exercise in letting the poor old sods die from neglect. If the memsahib hadn't visited him twice a day, fed and watered him and put a bit of middle class stick about he would have died from dehydration. God help those who are on their own. The staff certainly won't, unless prodded.

Malcolm Tucker said...

- NHS - how come 120,000,000,000,000 doesn't ensure an old person can get a drink of water?

- Blackberry. What's going on?

- Should labour be repealing its ban on Liam Fox hunting.

- Unemployment - Being a young woman means you're the most likely to be out of work. Should clerical non-jobs be reintroduced into the public sector to scoop them up.

- Iran and assassinations

Botogol said...

I'm not sure about a local question. I think for the BBC local means 'not London' (in the same way when Americans say 'international' they mean 'not the US'), so a London programme provides a great opportunity to drop the tedious local issue. and no one outside london cares about us anyway do they?

Anyway, here goes: my guesses are

1 - Liam Fox - do cabinet ministers have the right to a private life?

2 - Jobs - With unemployment at an all time high, and employment falling, should the government slow down the cuts? Why not use the £75bn of Quantative Easing money for something useful...

3 - NHS - isn't a measure of a civilised country how it looks after its elderly (panel will recall with shock horror the suggestion that relatives might help in hospitals, like they do in the nasty third world. Goodness me looking after granny is the role of the state isn't it? isnt it?)

4 - Should a first-born daughter, married to a catholic be allowed to inherit the throne?


I think that's quite enough to fill an hour. Four questions then.

Jan said...

1) Council house sales at a discount...is this a good idea? (Who will say it's not fair first?)

2) Scandal of elderly in hospital...should those hospitals breaking the law be prosecuted? (maybe this would concentrate a few minds on the problem)

3) Dr Fox....should he resign and just be done with it....or should Dave sack him and stop prolonging the agony?

4) Will the Euro survive longterm? (They can all waffle on to their heart's content)

Philipa said...

ARGH WORK YOU BUGGA! 22:15..

1. NHS/old people/care issue
2. Fox/private life/ministerial code
3. Rents/affordable housing
4. Euro/europe/laws/curency
5. I forgot now... er... oh I dunno, unemployment vs pension age?