It seems that presidential style election debates are all the rage in the UK this year and last night I got to see one – regrettably not THE leaders debate but a similar event that was being held in each BBC region last night and televised. Actually it was more like Question Time than the leaders debate (we were allowed to clap, boo and cheer if we felt like it) but fascinating never the less.
The panel was made up of a representative from the three mains parties and one each from UKIP and the Greens and was supposed to be looking at local issues – those directly affecting South of England, however, as ever, it proved impossible to prevent a politician from answering the question that they wanted to answer rather than what the questioner asked.
I’m not sure that I feel any better informed for having attended than had I just read the statements in the media and the manifestos but it was interesting to see the process and I made the following observations (based on a partisan position it should be noted):
- Chris Huhne talks too much
- Nigel Farage talks way too much
- Michael Gove talks without any substance
- John Denahm talks the party line
- Caroline Lucas talks a lot of sense (but then you can when you aren’t likely to ever get into a position of power!)
So Alex and I got our 15 minutes of fame and we’ve got pictures to prove it. Actually I added to my fame bank following my successful media debut on the Timmy Mallet programme promoting my record, but that’s a story for another day!
