She was stung into action after two Falklands war heroes received letters suggesting they were being barred from Britain - less than 24 hours after Gordon Brown had assured her that he would take personal charge of the Gurkhas' legal battle for citizenship rights.
The actress, best-known as Patsy in the comedy Absolutely Fabulous, and the minister ended up shoulder-to-shoulder after she outflanked Mr Woolas on the steps of a meeting, confronting him publicly over the shambles.
She pounced on the unwitting minister, announcing in her inimitable cut-glass tones: 'I want to speak to you.'
After emergency talks, the red-faced Immigration Minister was forced to insist the verdict on the veterans was an 'interim' one - and to suggest they would be allowed to stay after all.
andrew sullivan says:
It was a scene reminiscent of Patsy Stone's lighting up a cigarette in a theater and refusing to put it out, "Oh don't be so bloody stupid!" The actress Joanna Lumley ambushed Gordon Brown's immigration minister today, over the Brown govenment's disgraceful policy of refusing to allow Nepalese Gurkha soldiers to reside in the UK. It was a performance worthy of Margaret Thatcher in full hand-bagging mode. Just look at the way she looks at him. The Daily Mail exults here.
At the end of (another) torrid week for the Government, it's perhaps fair to ask: just who's running Britain?
Yesterday actress Joanna Lumley took charge of immigration policy - and did a considerably better job than ministers.
Not only did she virtually dictate policy on the Gurkhas to the feeble immigration minister, Phil Woolas, live on air, but she treated him in the process like a miscreant child forced to apologise to the school with the headmistress looking on.
i'm sorry but, i know it has been a while, her face during the whole thing is so PERFECTLY pissed brit patsy! I know there was a reason I loved her! i think she made very similar faces in the episode of abfab where she was in court for a traffic offense....
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