CommonSpace weekend reporter Balder McDash brings the week’s big stories
Kezia Dugdale calls for minute of silence
SCOTTISH LABOUR leader Kezia Dugdale has insisted that the now infamous silence after an impassioned plea on this week’s Question Time was actually a pre-planned minute’s silence.
Panelists and viewers were shocked by the deathly atmosphere in the studio as they waited for an applause that would never come. One audience member could be heard dropping a pin.
However, according to Dugdale, the whole thing was deliberate.
Speaking from her I’m-trying-to-be-an-ordinary person VW Golf, Dugdale said: “Lots of people were shocked by the reception that I received on Thursday night. But what they don’t realise is that it’s what I wanted.
“I spoke to audience members on their way into the studio and asked them to engage in a minute of silence to commemorate the death of Labour in Scotland.”
She added: “I’m trying to be an honest leader. That’s why I did it: we really don’t stand a chance up against Nicky Sturge.”
Osborne ‘booby traps’ the Lords
MEMBERS of the House of Lords are this week reported have gone ‘missing’.
The news comes only days after the UK Government’s controversial tax credit cuts were defeated in the upper chamber.
Now, a Lords insider has reported that Labour and Lib Dem peers are have been seen “disappearing into the benches”. Chancellor George Osborne is rumoured to have laid out traps in a fit of rage.
Speaking at a press conference, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “George utterly refutes these allegations.
“I’ve known him for a long time and, yes, he does love a good prank call, but the only thing he’s interested in making disappear is the welfare state. God I’m funny. If I wasn’t prime minister I’d be a comedian.”
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber said: “What a marvellous idea for a new musical! Strange disappearances, fancy outfits, posh accents… it’s surely a masterpiece in the making.”
Lord Sugar added: “If Osborne was in my boardroom, he’d be gone after the first task.”
Chilcot and Blair change relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’
THIS WEEK former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Sir John Chilcot changed their Facebook relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’ amid anger over the publication date of the long-awaited ‘Chilcot Report’ into the Iraq war.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the friendship turned sour after Chilcot was appointed to lead the investigation into the Iraq War in 2009. ‘Sweeteners’ from Blair are rumoured to have delayed the publication of the report considerably, but Chilcot has now announced it will be released next year.
Sir John was unavailable to comment on the matter but assured us that he would publish his comments “sometime in the near future”.
Blair said: “Honestly, you have one little war and people never let you forget it.”
Research commissioned through independent pollster U-SUK found that the Chilcot Report is now more highly anticipated than the X Factor final, Star Wars: the Force Awakens and Phil Collins’ comeback tour.
Pictures courtesy of Shelter Scotland , Gareth Milner and Tim Stevenson