Mike Bubbins responds to English Tory MP's 'I subsidise Wales' jibe

The Conservative politician Michael Fabricant, who represents the constituency of Lichfield, in Staffordshire, made the claim during an attack on the measures that have been taken in Wales to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. In response, Bubbins, who co-hosts of The Socially Distant Sports Bar Podcast, and has acted in BBC Wales sitcom Tourist Trap, suggested that the "charitable sums" given to Wales by Westminster pay for the "all the coal, slate, copper & gold it nicked for hundreds of years".

Why do they do it? MPs who appear on BBC's Have I Got News For You, I mean.

Conservative Peter Bone was the latest to enter the lion's den and receive a mauling, with an old headline dragged up accusing him of being "Britain's meanest boss" for paying a trainee 87p an hour, and then just as predictably contrasted with another story that he employs his wife as one of the best-paid secretaries in the House of Commons.

It all made for toe-curling viewing as he floundered. But he's hardly alone - off the top of my head I can recall fellow Tory MP Michael Fabricant, former UKIP member Godfrey Bloom (the one who said women who didn't clean behind the fridge were "sluts") and Labour's then defence secretary Bob Ainsworth all making similar gruesome appearances. In every case, vanity triumphs over caution. Boris and Nigel Farage are the only two politicians who can remotely pull off such stunts.

One further point: the Beeb's decision to run its other comedy quiz Would I Lie To You? directly before HIGNFY is a particularly cruel piece of scheduling. The former show, thanks to team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell and host Rob Brydon, is as sharp as a tack and laugh out loud; messrs Hislop and Merton's effort, by contrast, now looks creaking and dated.

Tory MP Fabricant gets Twitter mauling following HIGNFY

Conservative MP Michael Fabricant has received a rather hostile reaction from viewers after appearing on BBC news quiz show Have I Got News For You.