That’ll be the fuel increase Labour proposed, then.

@ 19:20 she did a throat fart… didn’t know that was possible.

I couldn’t watch it all the way through. Painful.

Wonderful! Paxman totally on form up against a clearly, incompetent and out-of-her-depth ‘minister’. It really does reinforce the absolute ineptitude of this government. Looking her up, I see she’s 30, university to Deloittes (advising businesses and government, apparently) and then became an MP. So, there we have it in a nutshell. Career politicians with no real-wrold experience taking on big jobs at an age when you know nothing and even less because you haven’t experienced anything. God help us!

So lets get this clear.

You believe there should be positive discrimination to correct the gender imbalance in parliament and fast track promotions to reflect an inclusive looking government, but when one of these over promoted (in relation to their abilities) women is found out and publicly humiliated, you then take delight in her misery!!!!

Moreover, in fairness to her, she had an impossible position to try to defend and I thought she was rather cute (in a sort of repressed librarian kind of way). I suggest that you only enjoyed her being bullied on party political grounds so, in future, pick on someone your own size!!!!

The shame of Chloe Smith’s performance is that Gidiot isn’t prepared to attend any interviews and stand up for his department forever wheeling out Chloe and Danny Alexander.

@1 cheap comment – given we’re two years away from where the Tories took over the economy and we’re now in recession again (thanks for that) fuel duty rises may have been more affordable and the revenue may have actually been invested in something actually useful for the economy and the country.

Pagar!!!! You use too many exclamation marks!!!!

Nevertheless, good points. The title seems especially nasty given that the article effectively that this woman had the buck dumped on her by the people who are actually responsible; it seems pretty unpleasant to revel in the “humiliation” of someone put into a situation not of their making.

@pagar – ‘bullied’? There’s a moment near the start, where Paxman threatens to give her the full ‘Michael Howard’ interrogation, but in the end he’s far more stiletto than blunderbuss (if you see what I mean), not least because he’s got the all the evidence he needs pointing towards how the Tories repeatedly rejected the proposal they’ve now adopted. He’s the copper who knows s/he has the suspect’s fingerprints, DNA, appearance on CCTV and an audiotape saying ‘I did it.’

I thought Smith was bad enough on C4, but you’d think that someone at Tory HQ would have given her a few pointers before going on Newsnight – but maybe even the LibDems weren’t going to take the hit for this U-turn (Danny Alexander must have been busy washing his hair).

The whole situation is utterly ridiculous – and now we have maria miller (minister for disabled people) defending economic policy and a tax u-turn on the politics show (and, not surprisingly, failing miserably to do so).

It is actually speaks volumes about the senior figures in government that they are cowering away from this and sacrificing such junior figures to save their own position.

Does no one in the Cabinet have even one shred of integrity?

#4 Well CallMeDave was desperate as hell a year or so ago to get more female faces around him (as though a smaller sausage fest would make women forget the disproportionate cuts their gender faced). For a first time MP she seemed okay (i.e., I didn’t feel like getting all Elvis at the TV), most of my embarrassment was for her only being there because of Clueless George and Danny Boy… of course I fear and feel sorry for all of us a lot more for suffusing this whole shower of government idiots.

@ 9 M4E

“It is actually speaks volumes about the senior figures in government that they are cowering away from this and sacrificing such junior figures to save their own position. ”

…and THIS is what the headline should refer to: Pressure Dumped on Junior Minister by Cowardly Chancellor.

Honestly, I’d sympathize more with Smith than with Paxman. Who the hell cares what time of day she was told of the decision? He came across to me as pedantic and bullying. We’d never put up with this when he did it to ministers in the Labour government.

A really really lovely lady and my heart goes out to her. Only scumbags like Osborne and company could hide behind and put a lady like Chloe Smith through something like this fully knowing what she was up against.

If you happen to be reading this Chloe Smith you have my utmost sympathy. I’m sorry that it was you.

She’s Tory ‘filth’ and she really got a roasting but, unfortunately, she was the wrong target. However, her own bloody party pushed her out like a sacrificial lamb, knowing the roasting she’d get. I hope she’s as pissed off with Gideon et al as the rest of us are.

CG

in fairness, the brief intro makes clear that this is a result of the chancellor being a coward.

And the clip is one showing the hapless underling suffering humiliation.

@ 15 m4e

It’s the title that I dislike, not the intro. And as a general rule, who writes the titles of LC articles?

Cast your mind back to the year 2,000.

One very loyal Labour MP, Barbara Roche, was asked about Labour’s campaign to block Ken Livingstone. She repeated the claim that a huge number of firms were going to pull out of London if Livingstone became mayor.

Alas, she could not name one of them despite being asked 6 times.

That was very funny too.

(You can see this again on The Best of Paxman, Youtube).

So which is it?

Mr Grunt A really really lovely lady and my heart goes out to her.

Oliver She’s Tory ‘filth’ and she really got a roasting

or perhaps

She’s Tory filth but my heart goes out to her

Male responses to damsels in distress have always been somewhat confused but I’d happily take a swing at Paxo on her behalf.

A careerist lying to us through her teeth to cover her boss’ arse and progress her own career. Paxman did exactly what I want my interviewers to do.

Not sure about ‘cute’ I rather prefer Frankie Boyle’s “looks like a lesbian jockey”

She’s a muppet. Another pampered middle-class blue stocking who knows the price of everything and the value of nowt. Her type (and Labour, sadly, is swamped with them too) think mediocrity a virtue and imagination a vice. But she didn’t deserve to be hung out to dry by the cowardly Chancellor. Had she been better briefed I still think Paxman would have mithred her, but basically she went into that interview defenceless. Osborne should be ashamed of himself.

I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for Ms Smith. I feel as sorry for her, as she does for the sick, disabled, unemployed and vulnerable victims of the Tory government that she is a willing and enthusiastic part of.

I also find it kind of laughable the Tories on here are whining on about her being bullied, considering the merciless bullying of the most vulnerable people in society by the Conservative party.

pagar: in future, pick on someone your own size!!!!

Seriously? Pagar, you’re turning into a joke.

The tories want to sack poor performing teachers. They should start sacking their own poor performing MPs.

The real blame for last nights meltdown was the complete cowardice of Gideon to front up himself. But then millionaire toffs are used to dropping the staff in the shit.

@ 21 R32

“I also find it kind of laughable the Tories on here are whining on about her being bullied”

I find it kind of laughable that you apparently can’t conceive of a non-Tory feeling sorry for a Tory. Especially since most of the people on here sympathising with her have made it clear that they don’t like the coalition (and indeed have attacked Osborne for putting her in the firing line), and the person who first mentioned bullying (pagar) is a libertarian.

You may allow your morals to be governed entirely by party politics, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us do.

pagar: in future, pick on someone your own size!!!!

Seriously? Pagar, you’re turning into a joke.

Err…… that was a joke. The much maligned apostrophes were supposed to give you the clue.

However, if you want it straight.

As others, like Chaise, have pointed out above, it seems somewhat misogynistic for you to gloat over a young woman being bullied and humiliated on live TV by a hoary old dinosaur like Paxman.

I enjoyed it, because I’m unreconstructed, but you’re not supposed to revel in the closest thing you’ll see to verbal rape.

@ 25 pagar

Point of order: I never said it was misogyny. I’d use the moral general category of “being an arse” to describe it.

@ 24. Chaise Guevara

“I find it kind of laughable that you apparently can’t conceive of a non-Tory feeling sorry for a Tory. Especially since most of the people on here sympathising with her have made it clear that they don’t like the coalition (and indeed have attacked Osborne for putting her in the firing line), and the person who first mentioned bullying (pagar) is a libertarian.

You may allow your morals to be governed entirely by party politics, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us do.”

You feel sorry for the individuals who are voluntarily part of a government that relentlessly and mercilessly attack the most weak and vulnerable in society, I feel sorry for their victims. To each his own.

Pagar @ 5

No-one is laughing at this Minister because she is a woman, we are laughing because she is a Tory and cut to bite sized chunks because the Government she is a member off have lost has lost the plot.

I don’t blame Paxman for being so aggressive. He started with simple question “When did you find out?” and “When was the decision made?” and couldn’t get an answer. Not even a confirmation or denial that she found out when GO announced it in Parliament. Quite frankly, it is insulting when someone won’t give you a simple answer.

I do feel sorry for Smith in the sense that she was horribly out of her depth. Osborne should have been there but would have suffered the same fate.

@ 27 R32

“You feel sorry for the individuals who are voluntarily part of a government that relentlessly and mercilessly attack the most weak and vulnerable in society, I feel sorry for their victims. To each his own.”

I feel sorry for both, so don’t throw that false dichotomy at me. I’m capable of feeling sorry for flawed and even deeply unpleasant people, and I don’t think I’m exactly a rarity in that. Are you by any chance of those people who thinks we should make jails as nightmarish as possible because criminals have “made their choice”?