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Dragons’ Den star Theo Paphitis has been left so frustrated he threw his head into his hands during a discussion about immigration on Question Time.
From 2005 until 2013, Theo, 63, appeared as one of the dragons on the reality series after making a majority of his fortune in the retail sector.
In the years since he’s appeared on the show again to fill in for other dragons, as well as on Question Time on several occasions.
On this week’s episode, the entrepreneur was left exasperated after Conservative MP Laura Trott, the parliamentary undersecretary at the department of work and pensions, dodged a question about migration from presenter Fiona Bruce nine times.
It comes as net migration levels reached a record high with figures from the Office for National Statistics showing overall migration into the UK for 2022 had reached 606,000.
When asked to explain why her government was failing on immigration, Trott struggled to say how her party were going to keep migration numbers down after 13 years in power.
Theo Paphitis has buried his face in his hands while appearing on Question Time (Picture: BBC)
In response to the first question on the show – What is the right level of immigration? – Trott said the Tories had ‘a plan to bring immigration down’ including the small boats crackdown.
She added: ‘The last thing I’ll say is you can’t trust Labour on this one. They went into the last election saying they wanted freedom of movement. As recently as 2020, Keir Starmer said he wanted to defend free movement.’
However, her response clearly frustrated Paphitis.
‘I’ve never been (so) disappointed when a politician comes on, gets asked a question, and the first thing they do rather than answering a question is attack the opposition. It was a question that needed an answer.’
The conversation later turned to work visas, with the recent figures showing that 1.47 million were issued in the year to March 2023, up 53% from last year.
Do you understand why Paphitis got so frustrated?Comment Now
Bruce asked Trott repeatedly who currently on work visas would the Conservative government prefer not to be coming to the UK.
‘It’s really important we have more training for people in the UK,’ she replied, which left Bruce frustrated as she suggested the example of lorry drivers given would not make much of a dent in the figure.
When Trott said she would like ‘lots of jobs to be done by British people’, her co-panellist put his head in his hands.
Paphitis previously appeared on Dragons’ Den for a decade (Picture: BBC/Andy Farrington)
This was pointed out by Bruce, who said: ‘He has got his head in his hands so we’re not getting anywhere.’
Some watching along at home also weighed in.
‘Well done Theo for calling out Laura Trott for not answering …read more
Source:: Metro
