Thursday, 21 March 2013

Question Time : Downgraded Chancellor edition.

 Joining David Dimbleby on the panel of BBC Question Time in York: Michael Gove MP, Education Secretary; Emily Thornberry MP, Shadow Attorney General for Labour; Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party; Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs; and bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.
A mix of meanies and greenies, 
 rough scoring guide and player's guide

Bang on,as the script, right answer - 3 points
Close enough for government work, right answer -2 points
in the right ballpark - 1point
witty comments - 1 point
sole entrant to guess a question asked - 3 points
guessing a 'catchphrase/bandwagon/party message' spoken , accurately - 1point 
Only choosing 4 questions out of a possible 5, and only 4 are asked  - 1 point.
Posting first - 1 point
Predicting correct colour of Dimbleby's tie - 5 point {must guess before 9pm.}
 This tournament is sponsored by Timbo 614
Week 10

DtP 76

GSD 67
BQ(MP) 66
Botogol 65
Hopper 64
Timbo614 64

ND 64
Measured 64
kynon 56
Malcolm Tucker 54

Budgie 53

Blue Eyes 35

Idle 28

Taff -27
CU 17 

James Higham - 7


agence web said...

I like watching the programs of BBC.They are so important and so informative.

Elby the Beserk said...

I just wonder how the **** anyone can watch QT? I think I'd take an axe to the TV - if we had one.

measured said...

1. Cyprus. Apparently Russia promised Iceland $4bn that never emerged. Daylight robbery precedent.

2. Budget. Small Beer.

3. Archbishop of Canterbury. Leader of who?

4. Academies. Not fit for purpose.

5. Media regulation getting at all of us. Richard II will be rolling in his grave.

Red and green. Hedging my roses.

Hopper said...

Crimson tie in commemoration of the blood to be shed.

Guessing at just the 4:
1. Is reinflating the housing bubble really the best the Chancellor can come up with?
2. Stay at home mothers neglected in the Budget, why are rich working mothers so important?
3. Cyprus deposits: what does this mean for the safety of everyone's savings?
4. Are new nukes the way to go?

Bill Quango MP said...

Yorkist white tie.

- Budget. Downgraded nation/chancellor.

- 200,000 missing schools places. And leads onto immigration- 200,000 more families on the way.

- Leveson, Hacked off as ever. freedom of speech compromised or a dreadful fudge to save the Murdoch empire.

- Cyprus. According to rumour the wheels are about to fall off and a bank is to collapse. I would have said unlikely, but for about the last five years every time Ive thought "That won't happen" .. then it has.
Something about gas and Russia.

- Has to be some green nonsense for the loony green. Probably the fracking go ahead.

idle said...

Island special, from Barbados:

1. Budget rentacar - good value on an island 20 miles by 15, or a rip off?
2. Sunny islands and shady people - should Cyprus/Barbados simply apply a withholding tax on foreigners' deposits rather than steal from them?
3. House prices - why didn't the government start investing in our mortgages forty years ago? We would have no national debt if they had timed it right. Now, they'll probably call the top of the market.
4. Osbo - a failed chancellor? 2.7% spending cuts in real terms over 5 years after 58% increase in real terms under Brown is a pathetic response to our biggest existential crisis since the war.

Colour of tie - banana

Taff said...

York is a strange place. Farmers in the hinterland. Students in the centre and a transient fringe of non-locals. Questions could be hard left or hard right depending on the audience mix - which is scientifically select to ensure no bias ;). So going down the middle to hedge bets

1. Is the National Curriculum a recipe for dumbing down?

2. Should second home owners pay a 100% bedroom tax. Cheating with 2 issues here. Double points or halves?

3. Is Nuclear the hope for the future? Or Windmills.

4. The Budget will get an airing but specifically I think the issue of the 45% rate will be raised.

5. Pot luck on the last one. What would Alex Rider make of Levenson.

Tie: Have seen him in the past wearing a black, green and purple monstrosity. Wonder if he will show it tonight or donate it to Oxfam. Or should I say he should have donated it to Oxfam.

Malcolm Tucker said...

Tie - orange and green

1. Budget special - Has the government failed all of its own economic tests. Osbo should have done what Brown did. Set economic tests but refuse to say what they were.

2. Housing bit of the budget. Homeownership push? Are we trying to restart the boom or accelerate the bust?

3. EU robbing savers from their banks. Is negative interest rates going to do the same here?

4. Energy - Greenest government ever. Why the government should build 20 billion new wind farms instead of nuclear.

5. Schools -lefty academics say learning is hard so it needs to remain easy for kids to keep their 26th place in the world league tables.

Dick the Prick said...

@Elby - lashings and lashings of cooking lager and shed loads of weed seems to help, plus our host's most generous efforts.

Evenin’ shirkers ‘n’ strivers but not stay at home mums the bums

Dimble tie – a browny mauve affair

1) Le budget – how will any of this stuff encourage growth?

2) Are Stay @ Home mums as saintly as Our Blessed Lady of Perpetual Responsibility?

3) Are Academies utter pants – cue much wailing ‘n’ gnashing by Thornberry (who really is a patronising sod – much in Patsy Hewitt mould methinks)

4) Nuclear power maybe, for the watermelon

5) Dodgy local punt but should Richard 3rd be buried in York?

Budgie said...

1. Sustainable Cyprus? Or not? Sustainable banks? Sustainable euros? Will anyone in Europe trust the Brussels government with their money again? Bank runs in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal etc? Putin gnashes teeth offstage.

2. Sustainable Nuclear power (huh??!?!!!)? Or can we survive on woodchips and windmills (these are a few of my sustainable things!!)?

3. Is UK debt sustainable? Cameron obviously thinks so (Osborne is Cameron's glove puppet). Can Osborne forecast his next visit to the jakes? [ans: No - Ed]. Will Labour admit that their spend-more-now policy as enacted by the Tories has failed? Inevitable veer onto mortgage handout - is the housing market sustainable?

4. Is government control of the media sustainable? [we hope not - Ed]. Is this payback for MPs and their sordid peccadilloes? Will Hacked-Off pay for Hugh's next blow job on his sordid pecca.... (well you get the picture)?

5. Who will prove more sustainable: Frankie the torturers' friend, or Justin Welby (who he)? And will either of them give Hugh a friendly hand shake, just in case Hughie is out of cash, know what I mean Squire?

gsd said...

Hi all.

1) How relevant will the new Archbish be?

2) The scumbags in parliament want to control the press to hide their own evil-doing - is this a bad thing?

3) Budget: who is "Help to buy" actually going to help?

4) Syria: with one side or the other apparently having used a chemical weapon, what should the world do now?

5) Cyprus: how can any savers in the EU (not just EZ) have confidence in the banking system after this fiasco?

and Dimbletie = green & gold.

Timbo614 said...

hmm, the green education budget edition, so much that could be asked.

1) does the budget help the middle/upper classes too much? 2 grand for business owners, builders in particular, 130Bln for having 5% of 160,000(Average house prices) etc.(There will be a lot of general budget references!!)

2) Does £23 a week really help persuade you to got to work and claim rather than stay at home with the kids, It's £5-7 per HOUR Per KID for child minding!

3) Have the greens now lost the public's support with Fracking and Nuclear to go ahead?

4) CYPRUS - I've been following this... Is this a massive mistake/blunder by the troika? Who authorised the freezing of deposits BEFORE the parliament had voted?? Forget the rest this was unlawful by any ones book!

5) Richard Branson is meddling in education now, is he right? Do our students understand what "enterprise culture" education might be?

Tie? hmm, fish on this one, colour Blue.

Nick Drew said...

yes, I'll join BQ with a white dimbletie

1) can we house-build our way to growth or is it just bubble-building?
2) segue to greenie-oriented lemma: should we be going for growth at all?
3) can 'we' really let Cyprus go? (why doesn't Disney just buy it outright? or Branson, or Deripaska?)
4) are multi-author blogs doomed to be regulated by Hugh Grant? (I think we are OK, actually, since manifestly we have no editorial policy)

just a rambling 4 this week

CityUnslicker said...

1 min to go but here I am at last!!

Pink dimby tie

- Evil tories with evil shale policy - boo from greenies
- 2nd homes for camerons mates
- wow we are broke
- should we bail out cyprus
- that leveson thingy yawn.

Bill Quango MP said...

Pink and black Dimbletie. Cu has it , but only 2 points as its past the time.

Q1: Should we applaud George_Osborne for his steadfastness or decry him for his stubbornness?

Taff was right. Even split audience.- possibly leaning slightly more right.
Someone call security!

Q2: Does a powerful regulator endanger free press or rescue it from its own worst excesses?
Leveson snooze coming up. Actually we should pay more attention. What we're doing here right now, QT quiz, is probably about to be illegal.

Q3: Will proposed changes to national curriculum stifle creativity and hinder development of critical thinking?

Q4: Should British savers take news of a Cypriot tax on deposits as a warning of things to come?

only 4 qs

Bill Quango MP said...


Measured - 9 + 1 for first = 10

Hopper - 5 +1 for 4 = 6

BQ - 5

Idle - good holiday? - 5 +1 for long distance -6

Taff - 6 +2 for excellent analysis of York. Very good QT episode.+ you were close on tie too so +2 = 10

Malcolm Tucker - good - 9

DTP -6 {including 1 for Thornberry- she was patronising} = 6

Budgie - lovely - 8

gsd - good too -7

Timbo - 6

ND - 8 + 1 for 4 = 9

CU - 7 + 2 for tie = 9

Winners are measured and Taff who need to come up with the new name for an out of Euro Cyprus currency

Taff said...

New currency for Cyprus? Easy. Its the Rouble.

Leave the Euro and convert to being a Rouble zone currency. At the rate we all need Russian gas, Germany will be there next.

measured said...

Such a tough decision, but a joyful one.

The Phoenix? The Ouzo? The Drachpapa?.... such good ideas. Hrmmm

I've decided on...

::[drum roll]::

The Kaleuftkout.

See, all their words are unpronounceable. That'll badger the Bloomberg mnemonicist.

Pleased to see you are better, BQ.

Blue Eyes said...

I decided to take a week off to allow others to catch up.

James Higham said...

Time, Bill, time. I'll come in on the next one.