Claig … Farage running around the shires fighting evil and helping the poor, gives me visions of the man in leaf green tights, with Claig as his Maid Marrion; ‘nuff said. Lol
Having accused you of high blood pressure watching political programmes (especially before bed time) , I long ago gave up the regular viewing of the likes of Question Time and Newsnight, and only trust This Week on Thursday night to not interfere with my chance of restful slumber soon after – especially as they leave the (little interest from me) guest ‘expert’ opinion until the end, so I switch off earlier.
Re PMQT, as an old fart I don’t like change, especially for change sake, as too many times so called ‘political reforms’ of something that has been around and worked for hundreds of years, does not have a better less political solution to replace it e.g. the Lords.
Where as far as I can see, the long serving wrinklies there mainly wear non partisan hats and do what is right for the country, but must have ‘reform’ gets them replaced by those appointed/elected/whatever, due to their partisan allegiances. Maybe a bad example, but you get my gist.
At PMQT with a ‘balance’ of government/opposition MPs, I believe that if many of the MP’s were not in denial of their own record in power and therefore did not try to score cheap political points based on that denial, ideology, with more than a dusting of ignorance on the consequences of their past policies, PMQT would be a far quieter affair.
At a PMQT where the government has a huge majority e.g. 140 seats, they can just shout down ANY opposition, which is equally as non-informative to the outside viewer as a bun fight or MP’s hypocrisy.
If we want a quiet PMQT life, maybe we need to strip out the MP’s and get as non partisan as possible academics to pose ‘probing’ questions on current government policies.
I say that as questions from a non fully informed of the history/facts public like “why can’t my aunt Agnes get a social home?’’, has no prospects of receiving a full and satisfactory answer within a minute, or so.
In theory an MP who was, or still in government, and had the brains to follow housing for decades, SHOULD be able to ask a constructive question on what is generally going on in new social home builds and ask a serious question, maybe regional in and around their own constituency, on why the government isn’t doing better - and what the PM can guarantee can be done about it.
But the numb-nuts in parliament can’t manage that, so all hell breaks loose. All IMO, of course.