Poor old Theresa May.
Let's embarrass poor old Corbyn instead of answering difficult questions about Brexit, she thought to herself.
Only she made a bit of a mess of it.
Because when she was checking out Mr Corbyn's Twitter feed to see if she could get herself some forewarning of what he was going to ask her... she found an amusing tweet from a certain Mr Lewis Collins.
Mr Collins, suggesting a question for Jeremy to ask Mrs May, wrote: Does she know that in a recent poll asking who would make a better prime minister, "don't know" scored higher than Jeremy Corbyn.
Ho Ho Ho. Ha ha ha. Point to Mrs May. Right?
Well only very briefly!
Of course Mr Corbyn sat and smiled politely as she said it. Maybe he knew something that, at the time, Mrs May did not.
Mr Collins alerted to the fact that his question had been used... he'd hardly expect that... tweeted his pride at being quoted by her primeminsterness: "Looks like I'm famous", he bragged!
You are, Mr Collins, you most surely are.
Because it turns out that Mr Collins, maybe one of Mrs May's supporters, and a bit of a wit, may find that his 5 minutes of fame will not bring him the kudos he perhaps briefly hoped for.
Y'see, when something like this happens, people rush off to look at one's timeline. And, somewhat unfortunately for everyone except Mr Corbyn, dear old Mr Collins' turned out to be somewhat less respectable than a prime minsiterial script writer might be expected to have.
Well, clearly he doesn't overly care for Poles, as we can see from the Tweet above.
Eastern Europeans in particular have, since Brexit (whatever that means) was announced, have suffered badly at the hands of racists... including one being killed, apparently for speaking Polish to his mate. (Note to Brits going abroad: Always remember to speak the language of the country you're in, even to your Brit mates... Right? Yeah, right!)
But Mr Collins isn't a one trick pony. Oh no, he has other unpleasant strings to his bow. If Mrs May wants some one liners for next week's PMQs she may chose from a range of other prejudices.
For example, another tweet reads "P~ss off, you feminist piece of sh~t". Is Mr Corbyn a feminist?
Then he pictured a zombie and labelled it: "Migrant workers looking for ways to circumvent the Calais wall". Well, at least there are plenty of zombies in the House for her to poke fun at!
He reportedly also tweeted in support of the murdered of Jo Cox. And no one is going to amke any jokes about that.
Matthew Thomas
Today at #PMQs @theresa_may read out a tweet from Lewis @swingaleg who also tweeted in defence of Jo Cox's murderer.
Now Mr Collins may be perfectly entitled to these views, although, as we said, he may find that his fame as a prime ministerial gag writer will bring as many problems as plaudits...
...but Mrs May should most certainly learn from today's experience that the only way to be safe in these matters is to write her own material.
Mr Corbyn's smile is somewhat more comprehensible now.
Grammar schools .......segregation and not about education
ReplyDeleteIf only the UK (and I mean all the different education systems) could do segregation as well as some of the continental countries, it would probably work. As far as I can see no one sees it as "failing" if they go to a more technical school and not an academic school in France, for example.
DeleteIt's the snob thing here.
The troubling thing is that quoting dubious twitter accounts won't harm her popularity. Recent events make me think it might even bring her more support. If only there was some formal parliamentary mechanism for organised opposition to the government.
ReplyDeleteIs that twitter account deliberately referencing Bodie from The Professionals? After all, who can forget the episode where Bodie and Doyle defended a gay rights organisation? Or the episode where they defended an asylum seeker in danger from their own security police? Cowley, of course, fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. CI5 was far more complex than that twitter man might like to think.
tell
Deletetoo much TV methinks
Ah, if only!
DeleteIt crossed my mind that that was the name of the guy who played Bodie. But Lewis and Collins are reasonably ordinary names...
My mum has a box set of The Professionals (I think she fancied Bodie). I dont remember either of the episodes you talk about, so in answer to your question, who could forget them... Me¬!
I kinda liked CI5 though ... and the awesome George Cowley and his knee! Maybe it's time to borrow the box set !
As for Mrs May, who knows? It hadn't occurred to me that she might have researched Mr Collins carefully and decided that he was representative of the kind of people she wanted to appeal to. Trust your intellect to shine through.
Niko: Not everyone leads your fine life of wine women and song...
DeleteSome of us are somewhat more sedate in our lifestyle... if not sedated!!
Dear Blogger<
DeleteWhy has Wings disappeared form my blog roll?
love
Munguin
Definitely too much TV but I was a huuuuge Professionals fan.
DeleteCowley only hinted at the Spanish Civil War once or twice over all five series. That's where he got the bad knee.
I remember the episode about the gay rights organisation. Stephen Rea played the leader of the gay rights group. And of course the Ford Capris - pure class! ( too much telly in our house too).
DeleteAs for PMQs - what a load of mince, my kids could stand there and hurl better insults at each other. FMQs are just SNP baaaaaaaaaad, but then Ruthie and the other two have nothing else to say.
I like Doyle. He seemed so incredibly cool.
DeleteWhen you look at Martin Shaw now, it's hard to imagine him as super cool babe magnet Ray Doyle.
He must also be an incredibly good actor, because I heard him not long ago on the radio and he's very "actor, dahling"! Not in the least like Doyle
I maybe watched too much tv when I was a kid. I've made up for it since!
Delete
To be fair I don't really remember any particular episode. More the general idea... and the music... and the horrible building... and George Cowley and his malt... and the lads and their birds.
DeleteThey are kinda in our ear out the other kind of shows, but they were great for their time.
You'd have thought the PM would be internet savvy, seems not.
ReplyDeleteSurely she wouldn't do that kind of research for herself?
DeleteAch she could have quoted anyone's twitter feed. Or email. Or browser history.....
DeleteWell, she could have but she chose a bloke who is racist, misogynist and appears to have been less that troubled by the killing of a pro-Europe MP.
DeleteMost people have stuff on their twitter feed that isn't necessarily terribly savoury, but this boy has gone for the full Monty!
Someone should have checked!
The snooper's charter anon, good one.
DeleteLOL yeah, sorry, I should have seen that.
DeleteI wonder what she thinks of this...
Tris
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen PMQ's yet but it is such a waste of time. They never answer the questions, it's boring and about point scoring. It's an embarrassment, as it is in any country with a similar system. It's annoying that so few people vote but understandable that so few people vote when you sit and watch these people. Once you watch a lot of it, as many of us do, it is actually scary that these people mis-run the country.
May will be found out more and more as the months go on as she is not even up to Cameron standard. Corbyn is not very good, Robertson probably the best and Farron has no point. But the system stinks to high heaven and is very very broken. We're doomed I tell yi doomed.
Bruce
Total waste of time both in Edinburgh and London, Bruce. Never seen the Cardiff or Belfast ones, so I don't know.
DeleteI think I read somewhere that Ken was going to try to do something about the farce that is FMQs
They all know it's the one time in the week when people will tune in and the press/telly will be interested, so it's become a comedy show. Corbyn tried to make it sensible by asking questions people wanted answered, but she's made a mockery of that.
Robertson is quite good, yeah, but the whole thing needs scrapping.
They might as well sit in the bars getting pissed as turn up for that.
In both cases if I were PO I'd get them together and tell them that anyone who abuses FMQs/PMQs will be put out of the chamber for a week.
It's about serving the needs of your constituents, not trying to compete with The Two Ronnies, or Ben Elton, or in some cases, Mr Bean.
If we wanted comedy we'd get Netflicks.
The blogroll seems to have stopped working properly!
ReplyDeleteBlogger is forever messing up one way or another.
DeleteI tried to reload Wings, and even though I removed it and put it back on... you can see the result.
Sorry folks. Nothing I can do about it. It will repair itself given time!
Now that they are about to abandon Westminster for an unknown period,and at vast expense,it would be a good time to completely overhaul the antiquated and irrelevant procedures that dominate that institution.
ReplyDeleteNo chance of course because pomp and ceremony is just about all the British establishment has left.
Good entertainment though,if you like that sort of thing.
Holyrood was setup by people who only knew one way of doing things and our parliamentary processes should be re-examined to see if a better way of doing business can be found.
Accountability should be about much more than a boo yah session once a week where nothing is achieved.