Question Time: A Review.

Sorry folks, didn’t get my questions picked and didn’t get to say anything. In fact, I ended up sitting in the very worst seat in the theatre, shoved right up the far corner, so there weren’t even any shots of me caught on camera. A nation mourns.

But I did thoroughly enjoy myself. It was odd to be amongst politically minded people in real life as opposed to the blogosphere. Oh, the joy of being amongst Tories and posh students again.

If you watched the program you’ll probably agree with me that it wasn’t one of the best. It never makes a good program when the panel generally agree with one and other. I even found myself clapping Greg Dyke and Mathew Parris on a couple of occasions, which, quite frankly, I’m still in shock about. But there was a lot of common sense talked. In particular I was glad that there was a general agreement about the media overdosing on this bird flu thing. Enough already. You plan and prepare for it, I’ll carry on with the ordinary miseries of life. Stop telling me I’m going to die.

Anyway, special mention must go to Andrew Lansley MP, Shadow Health secretary and General Slimeball. They do stand out these Tories. I could sense them even in the throngs of the audience before the show. That whiff of arrogance, that need for an enlarged personal space to be centre of attention, and that vague sense of duplicity and underlying nastiness. Lansley had it in buckets. Note the way he slimed all over Cameron’s name. When Dimbleby (thoroughly nice chap, shorter than he looks on telly) pointed out that he was saying exactly the same things now about Cameron as he had been about Clarke, Lansley tried to slime his way out of it by saying what he was saying was still “consistent”. Yes, in terms of brown nosing, very consistent.

It’s odd though, what is not quite picked up on camera. The young chap in the front audience who pinned Lansley down about his own pension rights when Lansley refused to agree that public sector workers should keep their agreed terms over retirement – the one who noted that Lansley’s own terms of retirement were “rather good”? What you didn’t really see was how Lansley eye-balled that chap, for a long time, and very seriously, and did not let it go until he managed to get a word back on it. The message was clear – do not mess with me. What a tosser.

And as Lansley wriggled on his hook trying not to answer that question, talking a lot and saying nothing, so much so that Dimbleby asked him to clarify what he was saying twice, you might have noted some vague shout from the audience that got a round of applause? That was Mr Scribbles shouting out “Answer the question”. Sadly not picked up well on telly, but much appreciated by the audience. And by me. Rarely have I been so proud.

Other than that flash of glory, the best moment came pre-show. Settled in the auditorium the floor manager was getting us, the audience, to tell him little irritable things that they would ban if they could. This was both to warm us all up and to test the sound and camera angles. People jumped at the chance to put their hand up and tell everyone how they hate chewing gum, or traffic wardens, or whatever, as the fluffy mike on the end of a long stick hovered over their heads. All very amusing, ha, ha.

Then one chap, in a brummie accent, said how he would ban “self-obsessed middle-class people who wanted to ban everything.” Wild round of applause form me and Mr Scribbles… but no on else.

Give that man a blog.