Question Time: Yanis Varoufakis

Question Time.

Well said sexy Greek Marxist dude!

General Election 2015: Carry On Campaigning

While we’re on the subject of locker-room horseplay, though, could there please – in the name of all that is decent – be a moratorium on politicians making jokes about sexy time? In Hendon, Cameron was reiterating that to vote for Ukip is to “go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband. I don’t know about you,” he twinkled suggestively to the audience, “but no part of that works for me”. Last week it was Ed Miliband referring to the idea of having to go into a “darkened room” with Nick Clegg, telling the Question Time audience: “I don’t like the sound of that,” he oo-erred, “for a whole range of reasons”.

Guys, guys … Please. We get it. YOU’RE ALL STRAIGHT. You’re not mining some comic seam here – you’re doing the equivalent of going into the gents’ and writing “NIJEL FARRARGE DONE IT WITH NICK CLEG!!!!!” on the wall...

Marina Hyde, The Guardian's election diary.

Question Time: That's Entertainment

They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other "DEE". 'I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself.

They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked "DUM".

'If you think we're wax-works,' he said, 'you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow.'

'Contrariwise,' added the one marked "DEE", 'if you think we're alive, you ought to speak.'

'I'm sure I'm very sorry,' was all Alice could say; for the words of the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she could hardly help saying them out loud:

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle!
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel!
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.'

'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; 'but it isn't so, nohow.'

'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'

'I was thinking,' Alice said politely, 'which is the best way out of this wood: it's getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?'

But the fat little men only looked at each other and grinned.

Amanda Platell: Comedy Fucking GOLD!

A wedding day is always a special occasion and especially so, of course, for the first homosexual couples marrying today.

I wish them every happiness for the future. But that does not alter the fact that I still disagree with the concept of gay marriage.

No doubt I’ll receive a barrage of abuse for even admitting as much. For surely the saddest legacy of the whole gay marriage debate is how it has brought about the most appalling bigotry — not against homosexuals, but against those who oppose the new law.

For evidence of that, you only had to watch BBC Question Time on Thursday. One audience member, Marilyn Barmer, was booed and hissed for even having the temerity to ask: ‘Why do we need to change the definition of marriage that has existed for thousands of years, when equality already exists?’

A perfectly reasonable question, you might think. Yet from the outraged response of the audience, it was as if she’d been proposing the execution of every first-born. Others who echoed her views were similarly subjected to jeers, sneers and contempt.

I can’t help wondering if that’s the reaction the BBC — our self-appointed Ministry for Political Correctness — sought to provoke by hosting the show in Brighton, the gay capital of Britain...

Textbook stuff by Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail.

Question Time: Are You Homophobic?

Question Time: Paris Is Burning

Paris Lees seemed to be quite the hit on last night's Question Time.
A star is born! etc.
Though it turned into a bit of a love-in on Twitter.
Surely everyone can't have, not just agreed with, but adored everything she said?
But yes, she did make those identikit MPs - Chris Bryant included - look ever so grey.
It's not on YouTube in full yet, but you can watch it on BBC iPlayer here.

Question Time is repeated on BBC2 at 10am, apparently they're going to take out Ed Milliband's penis. http://t.co/b7QdmZJLxk
— Paris Lees (@ParisLees) November 1, 2013

Paris is profiled on the BBC News website, From Prison To Transgender Role Model...

Strangely, Paris thanked provocative writer Julie Burchill when she topped the Pink List earlier this month.
Burchill was widely criticised for an Observer article in which she described "trannies" as "a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs" - a piece which Paris describes as "pure transphobia".
"I'm grateful to her for doing that because it was so bad that it put trans on the radar for a lot of people," says Paris.
"Julie Burchill, thank you for being awful."

Equal Marriage: Heated Debates

Conor Marron from Coalition For Equal Marriage vs the beyond evil Sharon Jones from Cunts For Marriage.
Think it's safe to say Conor wins this one.

Update: Newsnight hosted an embarrassing bunfight - poor show Channel 4.
The subject wasn't brought up on Question Time tonight - presumably the producers thought they'd "done that" last week.
And who could top Will "Nice But Dim" Young?
It was the hot topic on BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze this week.
Sadly, Melanie Phillips was away.
The highlight?
Michael Portillo: ‘Ben, can you confirm that one man cannot impregnate another man and bring about a child?’
Ben Summerskill: ‘I’m surprised you need to ask that question, Michael.’
Michael Portillo: ‘Help me out with the answer.’
Ben Summerskill: ‘I’ll assist you. It’s why you have no children, Michael.'

David Starkey: Getting Into Bed With The Enemy

The Christian Institute has got a new BFF!
Hallelujah!
It's David Starkey, of making endless unwatchable TV programmes about the Royal Family fame.
Funny, I bet you're thinking, isn't he an atheist and a gayer and "the rudest man in Britain"?
Yes, but he's just come out very publicly in defence of anti-gay Christians.
''Gay Historian David Starkey Defends Christians', The Christian Institute hosannas on its website.
Mrs Mr Starkey was on Question Time yet again on Thursday, being rude and spitting feathers about this awful modern world.
They got onto discussing those new equality laws that Christian bigots keeping fall foul of.
David Starkey offered a stark warning; “I am gay and I am atheist but I have profound doubts about this case.
"It seems to me that what we are doing is producing a tyrannous new morality that is every bit as oppressive as the old.”
You better get used to these words - you're going to hear them hurled at us endlessly by The Daily Mail et al.
He explained that when he grew up being gay was "very difficult..." [Makes sad face]
"But I am very, very concerned that a new sort of liberal morality is coming in which is as intolerant, is as oppressive, is as intrusive into family life.”
Remember that nice Christian couple that got fined because they discriminated against a gay couple?
David thought that was madness, and made a modest proposal; “It is for them simply to put up what seems to me to be a quite proper notice in a small privately-run hotel which says we are Christians and this is what we believe.
“Otherwise, we are as I said, we're producing a new tyranny,” a line so good he's said it thrice.
"And can I also tell you something else?"
I fear you're going to anyway.
It's not going to be an Andrew Pierce-style "I, as a gay man, hate this gayery", is it David?
"Speaking as somebody who is gay and had a mother who was a Christian and passionately hated and opposed it, the hatred and the opposition made me what I am.
"Being nice and sweet about gays isn't wholly a good thing. It really isn't.
"We live in a world of intense difficulty and plurality, and just having a hand-me-down, reach-me-down, off-the-hanger imposed morality is a very bad idea."
What a silly old sod.
Surprised? You shouldn't be.
David Starkey is a gay Tory, so squaring circles and embracing contradictions come as easy to him as farting.
He used to be chairman of TORCHE, the Conservative Campaign For Homosexual Equality, who despite their name were never really known for campaigning for equality.
A gay Uncle Tom?
David's more of an Aunty Tom.
Getting into bed with the enemy - when the enemy won't let us sleep in the same room.
Praise be!