Thursday 1 December 2011

Question Time Competition

A late post today due to a real capitalist workload on the go at the moment for all of us. I have two ringers in the audience tonight who I have primed with Questions so maybe, for once, I may win!

The rules as usual - Guess the 4 or 5 Questions that David Dimbleby will pick to most annoy the politicians and z list celebrities on stage with him. Then fume on Twitter as you guess incorrectly...

CU's Guesses:

- What should the private sector workers pay for more money for Public sector workers when their own pay is being cut?
- Should the Eurozone be broken up?
- Jeremy Clarkson - how long until he is sacked?
- What should the Government be doing to get Britain growing again?

over to you....
Leaderboard as of
1/12/12
The Bot still looks a certainty.

Botogol - 39

BQ - 36
Measured - 37

Appointmetotheboard - 35½
Budgie 35.5


Nick Drew - 34.5

Dick the Prick -34
Hatfield Girl - 34
Philipa - 33.5
Hopper - 33
Mark Wadsworth - 32.5

Timbo614 - 32
Sebastian Weetabix - 30

Miss S-J -30
Hovis - 29
Malcolm Tucker - 29½
Miss CD - 27
GSD - 27
CU - 27
Jan - 19
Andrew - 17½

Sean -9.5
Woman on a raft - 8


Electro-Kevin - 4
Anon {1} -3½
Alex - 1½
James Higham -2 {you'll get the hang of it one day JH}

28 comments:

Nick Drew said...

sheesh, a lot of possibles tonite

but I'm going with:

1) should benefits have been increased while Workers' pay is under the cosh ? segueing into (or out of) 1a) shouldn't the strikers think themselves lucky to have public pension ?

2) should we be breaking off diplomatic relations with Iran (/ is this the start of Armageddon) ?

3) Clarkson (the Beeb can't be seen trying to hush this one up)

4) are we officially Happy ?

5) credit crisis.2

measured said...

I have to be brief ce soir: 

1. Clarkson/ Clarkson/ Clarkson/ Clarskson and oh yes, John Terry/ tram lady - would for the CPS to prosecute be overreacting? 

2. Public sector strikers <- aren't they overreacting? 

3. Chucked out of Iran <- Why did they overreact? 

4. The poorest, weakest, most vulnerable in society. Benefit levels, challenging them at the ECHR <- to stop them from starving and overreacting 

5.  Growth, car industry, eurozone, economy, boost <- I don't want to overreact,  but the bunker is over there... Run! 

Philipa said...

C'mon Bill, Clarkson won't be sacked - Top Gear makes too much money. You're just saying that because he's black aren't you? #gottagetdowntoSpecsavers #non-existentracistpersecution

Fave quote on Clarkson came from Hopisen: "He uses controversy in same way Katie Price uses implants."

GSD said...

Hi all. Far too many choices atm. It was much easier when the Euro crisis was the only story in town - not that it helped my score, but at least I didn't dither as much!

1) The public strike & now "work to rule" - will they succeed?

2) Iranian embassy closure -

3) Is Osborne's Plan A+ the right plan with the IMF sooooo gloomy about the short to medium term?

4) Syria - will the Arab league sanctions do any good?

5) A survey by the ONS says the majority of British ppl are happy - what can be done to correct this?

Mark Wadsworth said...

1. Should Clarkson be taken out and shot in front of his family? His salary would pay for about six hard pressed nurses doing something useful.

2. 3p on petrol is it time to think about the hard pressed motorists?

3. Shouldn't we nuke Iran right now to save our hard pressed armed forces from the shag of actually having to invade. That's if our nukes haven't been scrapped because of Savage Tory Cuts.

4. Euro bail out, will Osborne stand idly by for the next ten days while the hard pressed Germans are forced to watch Europe crash and burn and take us down with them?

5. is it time for an economic plan B because Savage Tory Cuts seem to be increasing unemployment and the deficit?

Malcolm Tucker said...

1. Damp squib {damp squid as the Heart FM reporter kept saying}

2. Ed Balls cries at the antiques roadshow.

3. Iran and the British embassy attack

4. Shoot'em all

5. Plan B

Bill Quango MP said...

1. Public sector workers strike.

{And why, with thousands of hours of news coverage did not one journo stop a Unison rep who was babbling about MP's pensions and say "yeah yeah yeah..we know about that. But there's only 650 of them. There are actually more Premiership footballers than MPs.And they earn even more. Its hardly relevant, is it?
Instead why don't we go into this hairdressers or the cafe there, or ask this cab driver what their salary and pension is? '

They didn't even have a pensions expert on. Why not a segment from Standard Life. Or the BBC's favourite Martin Lewis explaining who gets how much, for how long. Instead they let both sides misrepresent the issue and we still don't know how much is paid by taxpayers or by the workers.

Instead just the same old tired, middle of the road, boring snorefest of filming a fat woman with silly coloured hair and a placard and a pompous politician condemning the strikes for damaging Britain.
Dull, dull predictable questions. 'Are you worried about the children? ' 'Well of course I am..But I have to make a stand..'
wimp wimp wimp.. Get some proper questions you dim journo. Ask that teacher if the children were going to be marked absent today? No? Why not? Because it effects the Ofsted? I see...so why is a parent unable to take a kid from school during term-time because it ruins their education, yet the school closing for a strike today won't effect the children's education at all. Why is that? Should parents be able to strike if they think the school isn't performing well enough, say in the league tables? Should a parent have the same rights to say this isn't fair? After all they are paying for the school and the teachers aren't they?.

Not that I'm bothered, but ask some bloody questions. Lukewarm Sky. Insipid C4 and the usual left of fence sitting from the Beeb made it a more pointless news day than usual.}

Ahhh.. right..got that out the system a bit..

2. Clarkson
3. Iran
4. Privacy
5. Banks

Budgie said...

1. America saves Europe again whilst Sarkozy and Merkel agree another meeting. Will the Fed print zillions more $? Will the euro collapse bring down the UK? Should we use our £s (and USA, $s) to prop up the euro? Will the Germans control Europe (again)? Will we all suffer a double dip, another credit crunch and financial storms because Osborne won't listen to genius Balls?

2. Who shot the sheriff? Should we shoot the deputy assistant jobshare climate change officer as well? If not, why not? Is Clarkson the One? Did anyone else really notice the difference when the public sector parasites "stopped working"? Does this make it as futile as CMD said?

3. Police corruption trial collapses. Why? Is our justice system fit for purpose?

4. Iran embassy attack. Is this a prelude to war? Will I'm-A-Dinnerjacket get his bomb before the Zionist Entity can stop him? Does O'Barmy know where Iran is? Or even Israel? Why were we first with sanctions?

5. Afghan President Hamid Karzai frees a woman jailed for adultery after being a victim of rape. She apparently agrees to marry her attacker. Is this what we have been fighting for? Will a deal with the Taliban doom even more women?

Dick the Prick said...

Evening comrades!

1) Strikes

2) Living standards regressing to 1950 levels was it?

3) How come Merv the Perv can issie edicts to banks but Tories can't?

4) Iran and some foreign policy stuff

5) Clarkson

andrew said...

With 20 mins to spare

- Was the strike actually a boost to the economy as after demonstrating in the am the strikers went shopping.

- Levinson aren't all newspapers evil

- Growth will the infrastructure thing rally help

- Does reducing the price of dollars illustrate the growing irrelevance of the euro

- How do you get British engineering going again as the biggest British owned car company is Morgan - never mind ford

Miss S-J said...

1 strikers. 2 million or 1 million? Damp squib or crippled the country? Everyone cares or no one cares?

2 Osborne says 'there's no money left.' is it too late for plan b.

3. Starbucks 'the enemy of the working class' is to create 5,000 jobs. Should the tent people try to understand wealth a bit better now?

4. No English actress to play Maggs? Has outsourcing gone too far?

5. Is it time to tell Iran to just build its bomb. But make clear what the west's response would be if it ever used it.

Bill Quango MP said...

Q: Should Jeremy Clarkson be prosecuted for comments about strikers and, if found guilty, be taken outside and shot?

{I'm one of the few that doesn't get Clarkson. I don't much like Top Gear. I can only read his columns in small doses. I thought it was over the top. Not as over the top as the unions but still over the top.}
Chuka is against Clarkson too..He's not talented. {see i didn't say that. I said I don't get him.. Very , very po faced performance from Chuka.
Audience seems packed with strikers, so a 50/50 on Clarkson seems quite a good response.

Q: Were the strikes justified?
Chuka Umunna manages to support and not support the strike at the same time. Ken puts those words more forcibly into Umunna's mouth than he would like.
Ken tells the truth on pensions. Audience isn't going to like this.
Teachers union Mary Boustard says Teachers pensions are affordable and she quotes figures why. Says it was all sorted out in 2007.

Meaden says 'there is not enough money.So there must be cuts.'
Mary didn't like that.

Then its more waffle.

Q: Has George Osborne’s economic plan failed?
Ken gives it the Euro failure speech. but quite convincing.
CU tries to trip KC on something but I wasn't paying enough attention. Twitter is more entertaining.
Ken does get a good one on CU about 'lectures on borrowing.'

Meaden says gov is right to stick to planA but with more imagination. I agree. A few boiler scrappage schemes and so on wouldn't hurt too much. They're all ring-fenced so can be costed.

MB says something about the pointlessness of UK AAA rating so I'm going to ignore her for the rest of the show.

Q4: Why do British teenagers find it so difficult to find jobs when Eastern Europeans seem to be able to?
Odd question. QT still running a week behind.
We discussed it lots over at EK's place. Might be time to bring it up again.

{none of the panel have yet managed to disagree with DM and then say ..if you can't see that, then i'm out!} It would get a good laugh.

scores coming up

Timbo614 said...

This isn't capitalism this is slavery! Sooo busy, with trying to make some money during the day, that QT Compo had to be sacrificed on the pyre of 40th anniversary night out. :(

The missus just does not realise the things I do for her!

Fell three from home I think will be my epitaph for this compo.

Here is what I wrote for her last night (excuse the indulgence I think I'm P**sed)


Anniversary poem for George

This may just be a plain piece of paper, but that’s what we started with,
with much to write upon it.
Upon this day it is forty years since me and you set out ply the tides of time
Time that has sometimes been kind,
And some times have been a little tricky, not many,
many times have been serene and they’re not hard to find, to remember, just now.
Just now, we were in our twenties, so much to do then
then, now in our fifties there’s twenty times the things!

The things I will remember, our best and forget all the rest.
A rest? Ha ha! For that we’d give plenty, and plenty of time would be nice,
nice that we have been US so long I can’t remember being me only.
Only seems like yesterday, that we became two.
Two it takes to tango they say, well tangoing we are, and two I hope we will remain.

Remain with me for another forty, and All My Love will have been yours
from teen to has-been.
Has been a very long time that you have been my love, you’ve more to come
So come and be my love, for all my love again.
Happy Anniversary
All my Love
Tim

Bill Quango MP said...

Philipa - you asked 8 questions? I'll take the latest as the plan A.
- 3

Hopper - 3 {+½ for the accuracy of your Q1.} - 3½

appointmetotheboard - Now they were really good q's . But only 1 came up. {½ for the general welfare} -1½
I just found out that 'poverty' requirement for age 2 childcare is mostly defined by postcode, not by income. So very wrong.
-1½

Botogol - I could be harsh. there's only 1 correct answer in that lot. Yet 2 are close ..so -2

Hatfield girl - Good - 3{no Obama though. He can't buy a mention nowadays. Before his election he was mentioned every week.}
-3

Hovis - Gary Speed was a good guess . Still 3 goodies ..no Clarkson? Have you been away?
-3

Nick Drew - not bad at all -3

Measured - 2 and 2 halfs -3

GSD - 2 {but out of 4 so its ok}
-2

Mark Wadsworth - 2½ + ½ for the accuracy of the Clarksons q. -3

Malcolm Tucker - short and accurate -3

BQ -2 I hope someone read that rant. Its too long for order-order.

Budgie Now Budgie, you rolled clarkson and strikes into 1 q.Still -2

DP - hmm - 2 and ..½ -2½

Andrew -2 {no Clarkson?} -2
Miss S-J ditto -2

CU - 2½ +½ for 4qs = 3

And Timbo614 - {And this does not set a precedent.} 1 - for the romantic poem and -1 for 40 year anniversary. -2

Happy Anniversary.

Winner is Hopper -3½

Hopper said...

Not sure if I should be pleased or worried about getting into the minds of a Dagenham QT audience. But hey.

Happy anniversary Timbo + Mrs. Timbo - 40 years, wow...

Dick the Prick said...

Cheers Bill. What a crap show that was apart from Ken biatch slapping Chukky.

Happy anniversary Timbo, superb stuff.

Nick Drew said...

yes congratulations indeed Timbo, on both counts

anyone would be real chuffed to get a missive like that

Philipa said...

No I asked 5 questions! OK I later *emphasised* the Clarkson/pensions divide and was hoping for a 1/2 for benefits but I am a happy woman, BQ x

Electro-Kevin said...

Happy Anniversary Timbo.

Back to QT ...

I can't believe that the whole point of youth unemployment was missed.

There ARE jobs. They are not particularly skilled jobs. Employers are picking over indiginous youth because of their indolence or lack of stickability.

Finding British people who are bright enough to do this work but who are dumb enough to keep doing it is hard. Especially when benefits are index linked.

It's got naff all to do with giving out apprenticeships as Deborah Needham says (she was bang on about there being no money though) - you don't need anything other than basic literacy and numeracy and a smile to work in Costa or Kentucky.

The welfare bill is the biggest of Govt expenditure and it is so by far. The Coalition has - by some estimates - just added to it to the tune of £2bn.

This will also add to the demands on services and infrastructure and lead to more unemployment as Britain will become more of a draw to foreigners.

This is madness. I fail to understand how we've convinced the ratings agencies to give us AAA other than we can print our own money.

Plan A: Print money, raise welfare ... who'da thunkit of a Tory administration ?

I repeat. There is no shortage of jobs in Britain. For that matter there is no shortage of accommodation either ...

... it's just that welfare is artificially raising expectations and subsidising the choices of domestic business which can't lay any more claim to 'wealth creating' than the NHS can.

Philipa said...

Happy Birthday Timbo!

Electro-Kevin said...

PS, On the NHS. I spoke to a paramedic yesterday who told me:

- There is no paperwork in hospitals for redeeming the cost of treatment to foreign nationals

- A wheeze among illegal immigrants is to state to immigration that they are drugs mules and that they've swallowed condoms full of heroin.

They must then (because of previous deaths) be sent to hospital by ambulance. They go unescorted with only a letter to report to the nearest police station once the treatment has been completed.

The NHS is the second largest expenditure btw.

Botogol said...

well done BQ, I feel slightly embarrassed by receiving any largesse on the scoring at this the penultimate hurdle - but of course I'll take it nonetheless!
:-)

until next week then...

Philipa said...

PS: I will be extra-good next time and not so excited :-)

Timbo614 said...

Thank you for the good wishes all and thanks for the points BQ :)

Timbo, with hangover to mark the next day :(

Timbo614 said...

Oh, and to mix Germany, Fiscal Union and the NHS, glad we don't have the German system read this, from Toby Russell for a little enlightenment:
http://thdrussell.blogspot.com/2011/11/health-health-insurance-and.html

Mark Wadsworth said...

EK: "The welfare bill is the biggest of Govt expenditure and it is so by far. The Coalition has - by some estimates - just added to it to the tune of £2bn."

As I posted at yours:

"That is not true, not in a million years. It is pure Daily Mail propaganda, try looking at official spending figures.

The biggest chunk 40% or so is corporate welfare/subsidies, then is public sector salaries and pensions, then is old age pensions (15% or so) and welfare in the narrowest sense, money given to families where nobody is working (or not legally, at least) is maybe 5% of all government spending."

Budgie said...

How come
Second: BQ - 36
Third: Measured - 37
???

Bill Quango MP said...

Well spotted Budgie. It will all sort itself out at the Final