Question Time & This Week

Mciahel Goodman said:
You could sense Icke wanted to come off as somewhat reasonable (talking about legitimate political issues). But it went downhill very quickly when the lizards and 9/11 were brought up.
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Tbf, they had nothing new, they were just poking him with the 9/11 and royals are lizards sticks, waiting for him to react. Guess he has his
Mciahel Goodman said:
I'm also growing to not despise Michael Portillo in recent years.
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He is a genial gent, maybe he's mellowed with age.
 
Portillo would likely have been PM if it wasn't for all the gay stuff, which was unacceptable in those days. Neil's good at gently poking fun at his masculinity.

You're right about mellowing though, he was a Tory of the nasty sort as an MP, now he's still a Tory but with some compassion. My missus absolutely loves his railway programmes, rail travel and the places it takes you is very much her passion.
 
712 said:
Portillo would likely have been PM if it wasn't for all the gay stuff, which was unacceptable in those days. Neil's good at gently poking fun at his masculinity.

You're right about mellowing though, he was a Tory of the nasty sort as an MP, now he's still a Tory but with some compassion. My missus absolutely loves his railway programmes, rail travel and the places it takes you is very much her passion.
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Neil can be very aggressive too though. Not sure about the Portillo leadership, thought the gay stuff came out, as it were, much later? I do vaguely remember him saying he experimented when younger, but in the same breath was going on about having a relationship with some bloke for several years, so hardly a one-off drunken fumble.
Agree his programmes are good and he has an easy charm.

This is from wiki on his leadership bid.
Some saw the Defence Secretary post as a reward for his cautious loyalty to Major during the 1995 leadership challenge of John Redwood, following Major's "back me or sack me" resignation as party leader. Many urged Portillo, the "darling of the right"[11] to run against Major. He declined to enter the first round but planned to challenge Major if the contest went to a second round.[11] To this end, he set up a potential campaign headquarters with banks of telephone lines. He later admitted that this was an error; "I did not want to oppose [Major], but neither did I want to close the possibility of entering a second ballot if it came to that." Portillo acknowledged that "ambiguity is unattractive"[12] and his opponents within the party later used Portillo's apparent equivocation as an example of his indecisiveness;[11] "I appeared happy to wound but afraid to strike: a dishonourable position."[11]
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I think the blue rinse brigade had somewhat turned against him by then though, his other mistake being to deny his past rather than admit it, although that was more understandable then of course. I may have got the chronology wrong however, my memory's not the best.

I like all his coloured linen jackets as well!
 
Portillo was hated when he was in govt. I don't remember him coming out as a bender, doesn't he do a load of Beeb stuff now?
 
Grinner said:
Portillo was hated when he was in govt. I don't remember him coming out as a bender, doesn't he do a load of Beeb stuff now?
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I'm watching him right now. He's just left the disused Wolverhampton low-level station, the most northerly outpost of the Great Western Railway, in a very fetching cerise jacket.

He was hated by sensible people, but not Tory ladies, they loved him.
 
Paul Mason made some decent points on the EU but he is crazy if he thinks we will get another EU referendum. Its vote leave now or never.

Also on the following program Micheal Portillo was talking a lot of sense about the EU.
 
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BringNaniBack said:
Paul Mason made some decent points on the EU but he is crazy if he thinks we will get another EU referendum. Its vote leave now or never.

Also on the following program Micheal Portillo was talking a lot of sense about the EU.
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No it isn't. We're almost certainly going to have a Eurosceptic Tory party in charge for a number of years to come, and we're probably going to have a pro-Brexit PM in Boris Johnson. If there is a growing sense of favour towards Brexit after an In vote, and major figures in government who want to leave, then it's not an issue that's going to go away anytime soon.
 
Yeah I enjoyed Mason, went a bit too far at times but he made an interesting point about the dilemma for people on the left who don't trust Europe. I haven't heard anyone else articulate that point as well. I am probably a bit more pro European than him anyway but he summed up why voting out is not something I would even consider. Imperfect as it is I trust Europe more than I trust the Tory party - especially the right wing of the Tory party.
 
Caroline Lucas on QT last night: If Britain left the EU it would have no environmental policy and no workers' rights.


When does this nonsense reach a tipping point of stupidity? If the case for remaining in the European Union is so very conclusive, one wonders why politicians are sinking to such crude blatant forms of misinformation. A bit like when Ed, bless him, trotted out the visa-travel argument.
 
I guess the argument Lucas was getting at was that without EU legislation curbing its worst excesses, this Tory government would have been able to do far more damage than it already has (the Trade Union bill is a clear indication of what this government thinks of the rights of working people). It's a decent point which has a degree of truth to it with reference to the last 6 years, but it's not a strong long-term reason to vote remain as whatever result is returned by the referendum will long outlast the current government.
 
"Foreigners with HIV are smuggling crows into the country."
 
He's replacing Eva at Chelsea.
 
"Next week on Shambles Time: Jizzy the crow, Colleen Nolan, Pudsey and Adolf Hitler."
 
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