Bernard Ponsonby vs A Spotted Hanky

This is possibly the most embarrassing thing you will ever see in your lifetime. The so called ‘MSM’ get slagged the whole time but Bernard Ponsonby is excellent in his understated demolition of UKIP’s David Coburn who appears here in the ultimate car-crash interview.

Does this beat Willie Rennie’s amorous pig moment?

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  1. James Alexander says:

    This “politician” would be funny if he weren’t so tragic.
    To sit in front of Bernard P, one of THE most respected, knowledgeable and intelligent journalists in our country and attempt to insult our intelligence with such balderdash… breathtaking in his audacity and ignorance !

  2. Aileen Mitchell Stewart says:

    Very amusing to seem him squirm inside his ludicrous sartorial aping of his social ‘superiors, in itself amusing enough. It’s all very revealing as well as entertaining, but how many of those likely to vote UKIP watch such programmes? Unfortunately — very unfortunately — most of those likely to vote UKIP will just grab at their manifesto lies and hoodwinking, including the promise of no higher taxes, without bothering to consider what this means for the public services whose reduction they complain about, or will leap at the idea of smaller class sizes without, just like their party’s leader, bothering to ask how this is going to happen while maintaining teacher quality, or how much it will cost and where — plausibly, unlike their leader’s notions — this dosh is to come from. Of course we’d all, all sensible folk, like to get shot of the PFI ‘money for the fat cats’ schemes that the Tories and — let’s not forget: ever — the Scottish Labour government let us in for, which, as anyone (anyone other than an ideological politician) could have predicted, would cost us a ransome for a generation or more. Both of those parties were willing to do anything rather than tell people honestly that it would be better to raise direct taxes (which are progressive) to replace our neglected schools and hospitals, neglected by Tory and Labour alike, each waiting for decades for the other to pick up the bill. No, they both thought, better to hide the ultimate costs under a scheme which, I suspect, few people generally understood at the time. We need to grow up, and accept that you can’t have something for nothing, and if we want better public services we need to pay for them, either in hard cash or else in dreadful outcomes like foodbanks and social malaise: I choose hard cash. The LibDems once tried to gain support for the notion of a penny on tax for education. But they were howled down by the partisan press, and by Tory and Labour alike, each of whom, fearing they’d never get to hold power (which seems to be their only real goal) if they were equally honest, preferred the dishonesty of pretending we can have great public services for no more money, or even less. (I sometimes even miss the almost-honesty of Thatcher’s ‘housewife’s purse’, though she seemed to prefer near-starvation for the nation, rather than asking for more ‘housekeeping’ money.) And so both Labour and Tory continue to tell the same old lie. Until they are safely elected, that is. Then they either allow services to fall into chaos, leaving the most in need to pay for it in lost opportunities and missing support, or surreptitiously raise (preferably non-progressive) taxes, or — more often — both. I’ll vote for any party that tells me honestly that if I want to maintain, let alone improve, public services I need to be prepared to pay a little more. So I’m all for a Scottish government of any hue being able to vary taxes even by the proposed tiny amount. One reason, among many others, I won’t be voting Labour in May (voting Tory? Don’t be silly!) is that even if they do ever (re)discover what they are supposed to stand for there is not even the proverbial snowball’s chance in Hades that they’ll ever dare raise taxes north of the border. Not if their Westminster masters tell them not to because it would send a message they can’t afford to have received in Middle England, not if they’re ever going to get power in Westminster again, power being the important thing, not what they can do with it to serve the principles they once, very long ago, stood for. I’d like to think that in any constituency where UKIP is even a distant threat there might be some way of persuasively articulating the need for everyone who cares about public services to vote for one party, either the SNP, or the Greens, or for any party that is prepared to nail the lie that you can improve or even maintain services without financial or human cost.

    1. Ian says:

      most of those likely to vote SNP will just grab at their manifesto lies and hoodwinking, including the promise of no higher taxes, without bothering to consider what this means for the public services whose reduction they complain about, or will leap at the idea of smaller class sizes without, just like their party’s leader, bothering to ask how this is going to happen while maintaining teacher quality, or how much it will cost and where — plausibly, unlike their leader’s notions — this dosh is to come from

      That seems to work also

    2. CM says:

      Thatcher didn’t need to raise her housekeeping money by increasing taxation. She used the income from oil to fund her government instead of using it as Norway did.

  3. Aileen Mitchell Stewart says:

    Wish you could edit after posting too hastily. If my post seems unclear, or even self-contradictory in places, I apologise.

    1. Justan Observation. says:

      Don’t worry….I don’t think anyone will actually read your comment!

  4. Ian says:

    An extreme caricature of the current state of debate in Scotland. Only two main parties propose any sort of increased taxation to save public services, and of those only the Green party’s are truly progressive.

    1. Mike says:

      Nothing progressive about raising taxation if its not based on an ability to pay. Nobody is proposing raising taxation based on an ability to pay not even the Greens.

  5. Mislein says:

    They’ve got a bit to go before they’re as good as Bird and Fortune but a brave attempt

    1. Scott says:

      Agreed, nice one

  6. Bert Logan says:

    Painful. Oh so painful – that someone like this gets voted in.

  7. Mark Cullen says:

    Makes Natalie Bennett look positively competent.

  8. Vronsky says:

    Coburn is a witless and unprincipled buffoon – let’s get that out of the way. That said, the interview is unfair – all politicians recite stories from their researchers and have no detailed knowledge of sources. They trust their staff. I’ll bet good money that wee Ruthie and Kez will not be examined in the same detail as to their sources.

    As an aside, it’s curious – when did the BBC decide that UKIP was not really their party? It was their love child for long enough.

  9. Frank says:

    Brilliant. The headline really made me laugh – Bernard Ponsonby versus a spotted tie. Good stuff.

  10. John Mooney says:

    Absolutely brilliant comedy gold,what a joy watching Bernard Ponsonby utterly destroy that pathetic bumptious poltroon Coburn,this clown Coburn surely epitomises the dross that is Ukip,I still cannot stop laughing,thank you Bella. :0)

  11. Mike says:

    What a shame the MSM don’t make as much effort to demolish the same level of pish put out by the other Yoon parties on TV.

  12. John says:

    What a bumbling idiot , sooner he is out the better , we as a nation can do much better than this .This time around we have no choice , it has to be SNPX2 , there is no opposition .

  13. Shutch says:

    Very impressive but sadly David Coburn is a soft target. I’d like to see how Bernard would fare against Nigel Farage.

    1. John Mooney says:

      No contest,Bernard would demolish Farage with polished aplomb leaving Farage to his usual spluttering invective,up shit creek without a paddle. :o)

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