Mixed blessings for Question Time tonight
Posted by Ellee on Oct 23, 2008 in updates | 2 commentsI bet Question Time is kicking itself for not taking up the offer of
having Tony McNulty on its illustrious panel tonight. He was suggested as a last ditch replacement for the new immigration minister Phil Woolas, who was barred by Home Secretary Jacki Smith for making controversial comments about asylum and immigration.
Up until the recent reshuffle, McNulty was a Home Office minister in charge of security and policing. He would have been well qualified to speak about today’s disturbing revelations that some police forces have been miscounting serious crimes.
Some crimes that should have been classed as "grievous bodily harm with intent" were recorded as lesser crimes. As a result, overall crime and overall violent crime remain down on last year – but the official total of most serious violent crime is up by 22%. This most certainly does not establish public trust.
Labour’s hot seat will be taken by Lord Hattersley who will most likely have to defend their position on this. Iain has reminded us of his hilarious tub of lard episode. Will history repeat itself?
I shall, as always, look forward 
to listening to the highly intelligent and articulate Baroness Warsi speak for Conservatives.
And I shall be all ears too for the dashing Editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber. He was responsible for the revival of the broadsheet pink paper and led its biggest revamp for a generation, transforming it it to win "newspaper of the year", while attracting increased sales and public appeal. He was most certainly an inspired choice.
And I’m not just saying that because they published one of my stories recently….
as Kev said; utterly contemptible.
Ellee you wrote “barred by Home Secretary Jacki Smith for making controversial comments about asylum and immigration
I’ve never been able to understand this. MP’s are elected representatives of the people and shouldn’t be silenced. They should be themselves. But first and foremost they should represent the people who elected them. However, this happens to be the local party committee not the public. Is it time this system was changed?
Of course the police have lied to us about crime statistics.
We knew this all along but were patronised as being overly concerned. Similarly the credit crisis and those of us who said that a system based purely on money suffling would lead to disaster.
Of course, the politicians, the police, the judges, the celebs … always know best.
Utterly contemptible.