I didn't watch the TV debate last night, because instead I drove to the county town 13 miles away to attend a local hustings meeting. This is actually the first time I've done that, and it was extremely interesting. All six candidates were there, getting equal treatment, and the moderator was a member of the local church group which had organised it.
The UKIP candidate was a disaster. A train wreck. He had no clue. He didn't have coherent answers to many of the questions. Very early in the proceedings he announced that the main reason to withdraw from Europe was immigration, and that when Turkey was railroaded in there would be x million more people flooding into Britain - of a different religion, even. To the audience's credit, he was greeted with hissing, and cries of "shame".
A little later he made a special intervention to tell us that the reason he would never support proportional representation is that this was the electoral system that had elected Adolf Hitler. This blatant piece of Godwinning simply provoked general laughter. However, the undercurrent wasn't quite so funny. We have PR for the Scottish parliament, and when Alex Salmond became First Minister three years ago under that system, he was compared to Hitler by some commentators for exactly that reason.
The Green candidate was quite young, and a one-trick pony. She was also a poor speaker, and seemed unable to address the substance of many of the questions. Everything came back to abolishing nuclear weapons, as if she was the only candidate standing on that platform, which of course she wasn't. She failed to show a coherent grasp even of energy conservation and renewables, which was a bit sad.
The SNP candidate was the only one I know personally. She didn't make any especial gaffes, but again she wasn't as good a speaker as she might have been, and she missed quite a lot of tricks. She answered questions in a general way, rather than dissecting the issue at a local level. Several times I felt I could have formulated and delivered better replies, without any preparation. [There is a reason for this. The seat isn't a target, and is very unlikely to be won, so what is required is someone local who is able and willing to put in the effort of fighting the seat for no expected return. This covers UKIP and the Greens as well of course. What makes it worse in the SNP's case is that this party promotes nearly all its potential stars into the Scottish parliament, leaving non-target Westminster seats short of talent. Our real local talent will be wheeled out next year at the Scottish elections, and has a good chance of taking the seat.]
However, the voting patterns in the constituency are such that all the three main UK parties could be seen as in with a chance. It's a Conservative seat at present, Labour held it until 2005, and the LibDems have history. All should have been fielding potential MPs.
The Labour candidate was a disappointment. She wasn't a very good speaker, and also failed to tackle many of the questions effectively. She almost seemed to be distancing herself from the present Westminster government. In spite of Labour having been second here in 2005, and having held the seat before that, I got the strong impression they weren't trying to regain the seat. This was reinforced by the almost total absence of election material coming through my letter box from that party. Odd. At one point she gaffed by speaking in such a way that it was clear she envisaged herself still being in her teaching job after the election. She gave me no sense at all of why we should want to retain the Labour government, or what the country would be like if we did.
The Conservative candidate was also surprisingly poor, considering that he's the incumbent MP. He tried to put across party policy, but not terribly effectively. He wasn't at all likeable. I can absolutely see why he isn't even being considered as a possible Secretary of State for Scotland, despite being the only Conservative MP in Scotland at the moment. This is the party of Rifkind and Lang and Fairbairn, how did this nonentity get under the wire? I understand that last time round there was a lot of tactical voting to get rid of the Labour MP, and I wonder if this guy got elected by mistake? I think he might fail to hold this time round.
I'm no fan of the LibDems, and I wouldn't trust this particular candidate as far as I could throw her, for a number of reasons. However, having said that, in this company she stood out as by far the best performer on the night. She spoke well, with an excellent grasp of party policy and its relevance to the question. She went into detail, without becoming tedious. She dissected the question and the answer down to local relevance. She came over as likeable. Several times she gave the answer I myself had formulated for the particular question. She didn't gaffe.
Of course she was riding high on the Clegg effect, and she was also impeccably trained. She's the daughter of a former LibDem leader, for goodness sake. She also didn't have any really quality opposition. However, she was the only one, on the performance in that hall, who seemed to have what it takes to be a competent MP. I won't be voting for her, obviously, but if I had been a floating voter it would have been no contest.
The thing is, though, there couldn't have been more than 200 people in that hall, and a good third of them would have been already-committed party supporters. A tiny, tiny fraction of the number of people who would be sitting at home in front of their TV screens watching the leaders' debate. The chance to influence the actual poll was fairly minimal.
I heard this morning though, that a similar meeting in the neighbouring constituency had been broadcast on local radio. Again, that probably didn't offer much competition to the TV debate. However, I wonder if the increasing fragmentation of broadcasting and the ease of availability of video technology will get us to the point where local candidates' debates are televised and more widely accessible?
We need quality candidates to make quality MPs, and without quality MPs how will Westminster ever recover from the repeated scandals? Labour lost the 1988 Govan by-election at a local hustings meeting, because they'd pinned the red rosette on a donkey who didn't know anything about EU policy on the regions in response to a question, and Sillars ran rings round him. Of course that got publicity, being a by-election, and Gillespie was toast.
At present the emphasis is on the groomed and briefed leaders, rather than the bods of variable competence vying to be the actual MPs. I wonder if that will intensify, with elections becoming more presidential, or if the local element will reassert itself?
Rolfe.
