Monday, January 29, 2007

The Independent: You Couldn't Make it Up

The Independent has a feature each Monday headlined YOU ASK THE QUESTIONS, where they invite their readers to put questions to the rich and famous. Today it was David Miliband's turn. As Dizzy points out, it makes for hilarious reading. I guess it says more about Independent readers than it does about Miliband. Take these...

Q I have a 20 month old son and climate change keeps me awake at night...

Q I can't wait to get my individual carbon allowance. When are we going to have rationing?

Q Please could we legislate that all items must have a 'power off' switch?
A The EU is leading the way on this - one reason you cannot protect the environment if you are a Eurospectic.

You really think I have made that last one up, don't you? Click HERE for proof that I haven't.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could see Cameron saying all of those given half a chance..

That's the think you couldnt make up...

Anonymous said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/29/weu29.xml

"Miliband wants EU re-branded Eco Union"

How about rebranding it "Baby Jesus and the Labrador Pups Alliance" ?

They really are sick, they imagine that everything can be changed by some word play.

Anonymous said...

Me thinks the spin doctors are leading the witness as usual.

Anonymous said...

I have just read them all and found myself shaking my haed at the question and the answers.

I think these people are on another planet.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone still read the Indy these days ?I took it from launch until about 2001 by which time it had become too bizarre to take seriously.The sunday is worth reading for Alan Watkins and to laugh at John Rentoul.

neil craig said...

To be fair to Indy readers I doubt if this is a random slection of their views. Having written some letters there (& actually had 2 published) I think I can confirm that they don't tend to publish independently minded ones.

Anonymous said...

Tell you what it does show Iain - that deep down the Tories neither get nor support the environmental agenda, despite what DC's PR men may claim.

Anonymous said...

Typical anti-freedom tripe from so-called liberals. These people despise the "masses" and believe that they are entitled to tell everyone how to behave.

The Independent is like the Guardian but without any sophistication. It adopts a tabloid style while passing itself off as a broadsheet. If the Guardian is only kept afloat by public sector adverts, how does the Indie survive?

Etzel Pangloss said...

Stick clear of Independent readers.

I'm surprised they don't go door to door in pairs with free copies and the promise of salvation.

The Independent Watch Tower, it's got a ring to it...

Anonymous said...

What keeps me awake at night ?

The thought that the childish imbecile milibandwidth is in the bookies' top 5 prospects for being Prime Minister.

Give us Hilary Benn as PM - he actually has a brain. Give us Reid 'the heid' as PM - he is actually a decision taker and can keep calm in a crisis.

Even give us Peter 'suntan' Hain - ok he is a vain, conniving, arse - licking, mendacious, untrustworthy charlatan - but at least he isn't David bloody Miliband.

Anonymous said...

What is depressing is that at the outset the Independent was just that - it gave you both sides of the story and, hey, you actually had to make up your own mind ! Radical concept.

Even the Guardian and Torygraph piss me off occasionally not only for having a party line, but making out that you are sub-human if you don't ascribe to that point of view.

Iain, glad to say that you don't do that..

Anonymous said...

surely thats a private eye piss take.
no sane person could belive those are real questions and not millivolts own rambling wish list.

Anonymous said...

Silliband should strunge up by his small testicles for answering "Yes" to James Miller's question!

Anonymous said...

How many of those questions were sent in by Milliband or his staff, family and friends? Most were of the "If I lob this one at you how far can you hit it?" variety.

Anonymous said...

Mr milliband I and most of the electorate just cant wait for you to confiscate my car and 90% of my earnings , please hurry up and do it.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for the right-wing backlash.

Anonymous said...

Tories neither get nor support the environmental agenda

I think Tories, as opposed to the Cameron clique, saw through the "agenda" a long time ago. It's just so funny to see some silly smug sanctimonious soft-lefties unwittingly exposing it themselves. As evidenced by this prize corker from the Indie Q&A list:

"Will you challenge Gordon Brown's mantra of "endless" economic growth, or will you buckle at the altar of the corporate community?"

Stop the planet, we want everyone to get off. That's the agenda.

Anonymous said...

All sound quite sane to compared with Cameron's "Let sunshine win the day" speech!

Anonymous said...

Does it really matter what the Independant thinks or doesn't think.Hardly anyone reads it, (circulation just over 200,000 and falling). The rumour is that O'reilly is getting fed up with it and may soon try to sell, that is if anyone wants a loss making rag.

Anonymous said...

I think Cameron is so dissapointing. He will not even support the Catholics in their deeply held views. What is the Tory party comming to if it will not support this.

It is becomming clearer where he stands and I dont like it. Tony Blair Mk II

Anonymous said...

"he is a vain, conniving, arse - licking, mendacious, untrustworthy charlatan "

Continuity New Labour?

Vlad the Impala said...

I stopped reading The Independent after their 63,912th cover story promising the earth would be imminently wiped out by global warming.

BTW Anonymous 10:55, you can now read John Rentoul online to save the earth from the rest of the Independent you ditch.

Anonymous said...

I can see why the Indie gets given out free at the party conferences, plus, last year,also a handy black shopping bag. Still not worth paying for it though.

Anonymous said...

Should anybody with a conscience shop at Tesco? ANGELA ELLIOTT, Welton le Marsh

I do, as well as at farmers' markets and elsewhere.


...Wasn't he caught holding up the queues in Tesco empty all his food out of the bags the fool!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Iain, for pointing this out and bringing a little ray of sunshine into an otherwise gloomy day. Not being of the Indie fraternity (?sorority) I'd have missed these gems. I only wish I had so little else to worry about that thoughts of global warming kept me awake at night.

Anonymous said...

I think that much of the Independent is deeply ironic. It has probably the two most politically incorrect columns in any newspaper - Sleeping Around and Cooper Brown. I think the Times and Guardian are far more po-faced.

Don't take these questions too seriously; I'm sure some of them are taking the piss. The vegetarians eco warriors are Guardianistas.

Anonymous said...

The mentality of these people is easy to understand.

They were the sort of people who were beaten up in the school changing rooms, not because they were weak but because they were weak and deserved it.

Unable to accept that their personalities were obnoxious and in need of alteration these soon-to-be liberals decided to campaign for a political system that would allow them to get their revenge by making everybody else's life a misery.

Anonymous said...

Dont worry the unelected, unaccountable "commisioners" of the EUssr will take care of us!

Anonymous said...

Those Indies! Bunch of prats only good for laughing at.

Nicodemus said...

Suprised no one asked the perfidious blighter if e was or has ever been an Owl Magnet.