Question Time audience member tells Tory chairman that he is a ‘disgrace to the country’

Question Time audience member tells James Cleverly he is a 'disgrace'. Photograph: BBC. - Credit: Archant

A Question Time audience member has launched a tirade at Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly – telling him he is a ‘disgrace’ that made him ’embarrassed to be British’.

James Cleverly – Credit: Question Time/BBC

The audience member had asked the panel what nice gestures they had done on that particular day, in a bid to try to get the point across that politics could be gentler that it currently is.

But when James Cleverly said that he had only made his wife a cup of coffee in the afternoon, the audience member hit back suggesting it was a weak answer after hearing what other panellists had said.

He said that he wanted to see him showing “statesmanship” that made him “worthy to be followed”.

“Not giving people a cup of tea in the afternoon, this is about people whose lives are being wrecked, and you are a disgrace to the country by the way you behave in parliament, the way you talk, the way you are videoed. It’s just awful.”

To applause, he continued: “There are times where I am embarrassed to be British”.

Cleverly however admitted there were times “we were not particularly proud of” but he did not put it down to just his party.

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He said: “The saving grace is the bit of parliamentary life that is most visible is the most confrontational.

“And actually there is genuine kindness, and there are many hundreds of us, and you find people who have had recent bereavements, or family illnesses, and actually what I find right across the political spectrum people can be unbelievably thoughtful and kind.

“And sometimes we’re really bad at doing that publicly, and we could and should do more of that publicly”.

Viewers praised the audience member’s intervention.

One said: “This man calling @JamesCleverly a ‘disgrace’ for his comment that making his wife a cup of coffee is the kindest thing he’s done today. Worth the license fee on its own.”

Another wrote: “Cleverly gets bloody mauled by this bloke for counting ‘making his wife a coffee’ as a kind act.”

Theodore Koulouris tweeted: “Cleverly is kind to his wife; apparently, by making her a cup of coffee – this is a new ‘walking through wheat fields’, I think.”