Question Time viewers applauds mum after remark linking Tories to her toddler
A BBC Question Time audience member was applauded after savaging the Tories’ behaviour amid the deepening betting scandal.
Jasmine said politicians were behaving in ways she “wouldn’t accept from my three-year-old child”, and was clapped after directly asking the Conservative minister on the panel whether his party can “conduct yourself appropriately”. Speaking to politicians from different parties, she asked: “With the recent gambling scandal, infighting and general bad behaviour that I wouldn’t accept from my three-year-old child. Why should we vote for any of you?”
Foreign Minister Andrew Mitchell said: “Well, I greatly regret what we have heard about this betting scandal in the last week, but you should vote because there are real differences between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, and indeed the other parties as well.”
He then attempted to turn the discussion to local issues in Birmingham, where the council is controlled by Labour. But BBC Presenter Fiona Bruce interjected: “All that may be true. But Jasmine is voting in the Westminster elections, not in the local council elections… Jasmine, is this a question about trust as much as anything?”
The audience member responded: “I think it is about trust. I think politics more recently feels chaotic. It feels a little bit like carnage. And I don’t know who I can trust actually in Westminster now.” But Mr Mitchell again turned to Labour – this time to claim there were no restrictions on spending in its manifesto – which Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper branded as “nonsense”.
The Labour frontbencher said: “I think trust in politics has fallen and I’m just really sorry, Andrew, but when you come up with just all of those inventions, you just keep making things up. I think that undermines trust even further. This is a question about this gambling saga. I mean, you really couldn’t make it up. I thought after Partygate, I’d kind of seen the limit of this just totally chaotic self-interested one rule for them and another for everyone else kind of behaviour, but no they’ve gone a step further.”
Audience member Jasmine added: “I do agree that Labour have their issues, but can Conservative MPs behave appropriately? Are they able to because so far what we’ve seen, especially in the last few years, is that you can’t, you don’t know, how to conduct yourself appropriately.”
Mr Mitchell suggested the Tory party was not all bad, adding: “The vast majority of Members of Parliament on all sides are honest, decent people trying to do a good job and if you if you take a few bad apples and you damn the whole profession, on that basis, you will not increase trust in politics.”
At least five Tory politicians and officials, one Labour candidate and seven police officers are being probed by the Gambling Commission over alleged bets on the timing of the General Election. Ms Cooper criticised Rishi Sunak’s slow action to suspend two candidates in the betting scandal, as she pointed out Keir Starmer took “fast action” in the case of one Labour candidate involved.
