The by-election hustings which took place this weekend was billed as 'The Battle for Rochester and Strood'. Everything in modern life is a battle or a war, because that makes it so much easier to pretend we're all fighting the good fight, when we're just pawns in large corporations personal pension plans. All the candidates and most of the audience wore poppies, you know the kind that we all proclaim make us 'remember them'. If we genuinely remembered them, we wouldn't trivialise the hell that they went through by referring to a small town political debate as a battle.
Having applied online, I was called by BBC Southeast to offer me a place, after checking my voting tendencies – flip-flop would be a fair summary of those. The email encouraged attendees to submit two short questions prior to the event: “Make your questions short and provocative. …Issues likely to be covered are Trust & UKIP; Europe & Immigration, NHS and the Economy”. I didn’t quite understand how having UKIP as a topic in a debate for a by-election in which UKIP were standing fitted in with BBC’s remit of not showing bias, but maybe my lack of an Oxbridge education just prevented me from such insight. I also wondered at the time if expressing a different voting tendency would have ruled me out, but decided that may just be me being ultra-suspicious of the BBC.
Having applied online, I was called by BBC Southeast to offer me a place, after checking my voting tendencies – flip-flop would be a fair summary of those. The email encouraged attendees to submit two short questions prior to the event: “Make your questions short and provocative. …Issues likely to be covered are Trust & UKIP; Europe & Immigration, NHS and the Economy”. I didn’t quite understand how having UKIP as a topic in a debate for a by-election in which UKIP were standing fitted in with BBC’s remit of not showing bias, but maybe my lack of an Oxbridge education just prevented me from such insight. I also wondered at the time if expressing a different voting tendency would have ruled me out, but decided that may just be me being ultra-suspicious of the BBC.
I turned up on
time with my photo ID, which was checked twice, just in case between the front
door and the desk I turned into one of the eight candidates not allowed into
the debate. Once inside we were invited
to drink tea and coffee and had the opportunity to mingle with other attendees,
who were a mixture of those who had signed up much earlier in the week and last
minute additions, rumour having it that the BBC had struggled to fill the
debate.
I chatted to a
woman who agreed with me that immigration was the scapegoat of choice and how
unfair it was. Then we moved on to the parlous state of the National Health
- we were warming up well for the debate. Another audience member came
over to chat to us - and quickly moved on to what a huge problem immigration
was, I studied the carpet, it being more interesting, and wondered how many other
attendees actually did think immigration was THE big issue. We were
there for about 45 minutes until the debate chair, Polly, came to greet us and
warn us that although she would like as many of us as possible to ask our
questions, it would not be possible to get to all of us. We were then very
slowly placed in seats. I wondered at the strategy - aesthetics, balance
of gender, age etc. I had been pleasantly surprised to see so many
younger people there, particularly young women voters.
A man sat in
front of me was wearing a t-shirt over his shirt with a slogan on it – which I
think was ‘glass half empty’. The
producer asked him to take it off saying no advertising, political or
otherwise, was allowed. The man was
clearly unhappy about this, but did as he was asked. The warm-up man asked for five volunteers
were asked to sit in the place of candidates for light and sound checks. We had clapping drill with instructions to
clap for 20 seconds at the start and 40 seconds after the introduction of the
candidates. It turned out that we were
quite poor at clapping so we had to have quite a bit of practice. Warm-up man advised us that the camera could
be on us at any time, so could we all try and look as though we were watching –
not sleeping or yawning etc. We were
also strongly encouraged to shout out comments and to boo candidates if we
wished. Boo candidates? Why ever would they want us to do that? Could it possibly be because it was a BBC
televised debate with a UKIP candidate?
Once the
candidates came in, Polly then started off the debate with a practice question,
the debate not yet being televised. A
member of the audience was asked to read out her question, which was asking each
candidate if they didn’t win, which candidate they would be least unhappy to
see win instead. Clive Gregory, the
Green candidate, stated that if it couldn’t be him, his choice would be anyone
other than UKIP, which was echoed by Kelly Tolhurst – so there are at least two
votes for Britain First! Geoff Juby and
Mark Reckless were the only ones who could bring themselves to be least unhappy
with any of the other candidates, choosing respectively the Green candidate and
the Conservative candidate and Naushabah Khan, the Labour candidate,
categorically stated she didn’t want anyone to win other than her.
Then we were
off …. to a false start, flunking clapping school was beginning to show because
we had clapped for far too long for the first round of applause, so we had to
start again. Then we were really off, finally
having mastered the concept of ‘only 20 seconds’. I didn’t take notes after the candidates
came in, so I am now trying to remember which questions were asked and in which
order. I am pretty sure Polly went for
the jugular with her first question, citing Mark’s defection and asking Mark
about Grant Shapps’ comments about him lying.
We didn’t get
much opportunity to ask questions. Polly
led the focus on immigration with a short section at the end on the state of
Medway Maritime. When Polly asked for
comments from the audience she said she was not seeking questions but comments
– and would state what kind of comments, i.e. after one gentleman stated his
views on immigration asking for comments from others agreeing with him. At one point she asked for a comment from
the gentleman in front of me, who stood up to ask his question – with his
t-shirt now hanging from his waistband (he was wearing a shirt). He was actually protesting about having lost
three quarters of his pension due to the Standard Life scandal. Polly thanked him and moved on, back to
immigration. I doubt very much that his
comment will be shown. At the time I thought
she should have made the candidates give him a response. Looking back I think we, as an audience,
should have insisted on it. It is our
town, our by-election, our questions, why did the BBC think they should limit
the debate to the anti-UKIP angle and not actually give us the opportunity to
hear what the candidates had to say on the issues that affect us, the issues
that deprive us of affordable housing, decent healthcare and hospitals, that
leave us with sub-standard public transport, that can allow huge companies to
plunder pension pots. We get the
politicians we deserve, so I regret sitting there and saying nothing. Polly moved on to the EU referendum, a young
lady very near me had an excellent question which she put very well, Polly
wasn’t interested in getting the candidates to answer, she just moved on to
another question. I felt that was very
dismissive. The young woman’s question
and composure were impressive. Polly’s
dismissal was not a way to encourage the young to take part in political
debate.
One surprising
and unscripted outcome of the debate was the support for the Green candidate,
Clive Gregory. He came across as more
sincere and more passionate about his beliefs.
He also pointed out that immigration and people on benefits had not led
us into a state of perpetual austerity (albeit austerity only for some), the
banking scandal and allowing debt to be such a huge commodity, were the
cause. We mastered applause perfectly
in agreement – you see, all the stats in the world won’t give people an
education, but a committed teacher who believes in their subject will.
One audience
member was asked whom he would vote for.
He replied, to much applause, that he was a floating voter but based on
that evening’s performance he would probably vote Green. Clive’s comments and the audience’s response
seemed the least contrived part of the entire debate. When Polly had told us at the beginning that
she wouldn’t be able to get to all our questions, we assumed it was due to
time, but really it seemed that the BBC weren’t interested in getting the
candidates to answer. They had set the
debate, we were there merely to clap and boo, our clapping had been
sub-standard and I really think the BBC had hoped the entire debate would be
the candidates and the audience turning on the UKIP candidate. In truth four out of the five candidates
didn’t come across well, and I recall both Kelly and Naushabah also being
subjected to the audience’s derision, although not as often as Mark was. I felt very sorry for Geoff Juby, the Liberal
Democrat candidate. He has had little
support from his party and the lack of campaigning suggest that neither he nor
they expect him to get many votes and his place on the election is seemingly paperless.
The event was
interesting, even if the debate revealed little. Only having five out of the thirteen
candidates does seem biased and unfair on the remaining eight. At the end of the debate, Polly did read out
the names, parties and policies of the other eight – so two seconds of airtime
each. The audience booed so loudly at
the mention of Britain First that we didn’t hear the next candidate. At mention of the Monster Raving Loony Party
we all cheered. There is something very
comforting about them taking part in elections. Our politics may deliver little
at times in terms of democracy, but we can always hope one day the OMRLP will have
its day. It is already responsible for
getting the voting age down to 18 and passports for dogs, so I don’t see that
they could make a worse job of governing than the out-dated and corporate
friendly two / three party system we currently suffer.
Another aspect
of the debate that intrigued me was once it had finished, seeing the candidates
chatting and laughing with each other.
Even in local by-election, we get so used to their political personas
and attacks on other candidates / parties that I forget they are people, it was
good to see a brief snippet of camaraderie.
I want to see
how the televised show, going out later today, matches up to my memory of the
event and which parts have been edited out.
I don’t understand why the BBC asked us to
pose questions but then stuck rigidly to only two topics, both the BBC and the
candidates seemingly oblivious of the questions the audience really wanted
answers to. The Westminster bubble must
have quite thick walls for the mood of the audience not to get through.
I would like to
see a list of all questions submitted by the audience as well as voting
tendencies of the audience. I bet the
focus of the debate, immigration, was not the most popular question posed by
the audience. Also UKIP didn’t have much
support in that debate – and that isn’t representative of what I hear and see
locally, neither does it reflect the polls.
The bookies, never ones to lose money lightly, put UKIP’s odds at 1/33,
so it seems odd that out of 150 constituents the BBC couldn’t find more than a
handful who supported UKIP. I don’t
want a UKIP MP. I particularly don’t
want another victory for Nigel Farage to take credit for; when I suspect that
it is more down to voters tiring of the same old parties failing to deliver on
their promises. But, even more
importantly, I don’t want a biased BBC and tactical voting by Conservative and
Labour supporters to deny other candidates and other constituents a fair
vote. It will be very interesting to see
how the Green candidate fares in the election.
The Green party has long protested about the inequality of coverage for
their candidates. It will be truly
ironic if the media and the establishment obsession with UKIP actually work in
the Greens’ favour.
No comments:
Post a Comment