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Monday, 03 May 2010

Oxted Election Hustings

Westminster is sometimes called the mother of all Parliaments, presumably because it was exported (with colonialism) to various other countries. However, as any geek knows it is not the oldest parliament in the world and the United Kingdom is not the oldest democracy. In the lifetime of my own grandparents: the franchise was extended to all men over 21 (in 1918), the franchise was extended to all women over 21 (in 1928), wealthy people were restricted to only one vote (in 1948), and the vote was extended to all aged 18 and over (in 1969). Only a few years ago (in 2006) it became legal for an 18 year old to stand as a member of parliament. Today we still have an unelected House of Lords and a Monarchy with unelected powers.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I made my way to the general election hustings at the Oxted Community Hall on Saturday 1 May 2010, to listen to the following candidates: Sam Gyimah (Conservative); Martin Hogbin (Monster Raving Loony Party); David Lee (Liberal Democrats); Sandy Pratt (Independent Conservative); Matt Rodda (Labour); Helena Windsor (UK Independence Party) who are standing in the East Surrey constituency. The photograph above gives an indication of the average age of the audience, who packed the hall. Everyone was given a polite clap. Extra applause was awarded for mentions of things like: our nasty overlords in Brussels, our cherished British way of life, the need to control immigration and to introduce English-language tests, the need to scrap health and safety legislation (that is shackling our cherished British institutions such as the boy scouts and local businesses), and the need to reduce national government (and government waste).

Here are just a few highlights:

Sam Gyimah - Conservative - Spoke about how he has worked his way up from (what sounded like a) relatively privileged background to being chair of Oxford Union and then a successful businessman. Will have the ear of David Cameron, the next Prime Minister. Would like to continue the good works of his predecessor (Saint) Peter Ainsworth. Has moved into Oxted and is becoming part of the community. Will vote for country, then constituency, then party. Opposes the Party line on .... er, well he thinks the Conservatives could go further than they have indicated in negotiating powers back from Brussels and (in the “free-vote” promised by the Conservatives) he will vote in favour of fox-hunting. The accusation that the conservative allies in Europe are anti-semetic and homophobic are a left-wing smear.
Martin Hogbin - Monster Raving Loony - in favour of a 99 pence coin so that people could pay for something that is worth £3.99 without bothering with change. Not in favour of reducing trident. He hears we only have one operational submarine and it wouldn’t be a good idea to reduce that to half a submarine. Will reduce the national debt by printing a single 50 billion pound bill and giving it to the person who we owe the money to. The down side is that person won’t be able to spend it because nobody will have change. He will get all the chewing gum chipped off the pavements to use to fill the potholes in the road, and this will be funded by a tax on traffic and CCTV cameras.
David Lee - Liberal Democrat - David outlined how he is a local man who was not parachuted into the constituency: he grew up on Horley, lives in Oxted, represents Whiteleaf, recently pamphleteered the street where he grew up, does local things, and has been local all his life. When asked what he would do about the economic crisis he said he would try and get everyone, across all parties, together to discuss what to do. This elicited laughter in the hall, and I gathered that the member for East Surrey is expected to know how to solve a serious economic crisis in his spare time. Otherwise we heard what a great man Nick Clegg is, how the Liberal Democrats are different from the other main parties, and what a useless Chancellor George Osborne would make.
Sandy Pratt - Independent Conservative - Sandy outlined what a jolly good chap he was, what excellent work experience he has, that he plays golf and is well connected. Sandy is against all things politically correct. When asked what he would do about the economic crisis he stated that he would consult his good friend xxxxx (I didn’t catch the name) who had wound up a number of failing businesses, and pointed vaguely at the back of the hall at another white middle aged and respectable-looking gentleman. For some reason I seemed to be the only person in the room who found this amusing. Anyway Sandy’s unique selling proposition was not what a good chap he was, but rather that he was a conservative who would represent the locals and not the party in parliament. As he didn’t put forward any ideas that were contrary to Sam’s I did not feel sure that this proposition was unique. He is against all health and safety legislation as he does not believe it can be legislated against: it is all down to human error (much as the recent BP oil slick). This received applause from the audience.
Matt Rodda - Matt faced the no doubt daunting task of defending the current government’s record and arguing in favour of it’s many many achievements such as the human rights act, the minimum wage, the child allowance, and general improvements in educational standards and health provision and care of elderly people. He also warned us of the dangers of Tory cuts and the importance of not cutting government expenditure in the coming year so as to avoid a double-dip recession. Of course (he acknowledged) there are many things still to be improved, but his party would be the best one to go boldly forward in order to achieve these. Matt answered a question about the nasty health and safety legislation by trying to suggest that perhaps the legislation was not the problem but the misapplication of it. Groans of disbelief from the audience.
Helena Windsor - Helena runs a small business, is a pharmacologist by training, and argued that she would bring the independence of an independent candidate, but she has the support of a party and specialists in various fields who can advise her on key issues. If you want someone to take Britain out of Europe, and to protect our way of life against Johnny Foreigner, then she’s clearly the woman. Or perhaps Sam had neatly finessed her with his anti-Europe line?

Personally I didn’t find any of the candidates particularly impressive. My neighbour remarked to me at the end of the meeting that the only two candidates who came across as “straight-and-honest” (“you have to respect the way they spoke, even if you don’t agree with what they said”) were David and Matt. Of course neither of the two are natural representatives of this constituency, and it will be a huge shock in East Surrey if anyone other than Sam wins the election.

I thought the chair did a reasonable job. The format of the meeting however was frustrating, since all questions had to be submitted in advance. The highlight of the meeting for me was when a young man standing at the side heckled one of the candidates. The chair pointed out that all questions had to be submitted and vetted before the meeting by the meeting organisers. The young man shouted back that this was undemocratic and meant that questions were restricted to a select group (who knew how to submit questions in advance). “When will I get a chance?”, he added to applause. Maybe next election, replied the chair, who did (at the end of the meeting) allow one respectable and elderly gentleman, who was known to the chair, to ask a question on the economy. He explained this by stating that there had been no questions submitted on the economy. This in itself is a revealing statement, if not on Oxted as a whole, then about the organisers.

Posted by bigblue on 03/05/2010 at 05:46 PM
Filed under: Europe • United Kingdom • England • (2) Comments • Permalink • Bookmark or Share

Did anyone mention the Iraq War? The Afghanistan War?
And Labour may have introduced the Human Rights Act, but also wanted to introduce 80-day detention—did they say anthing about that?

Posted by SteveH on 05/05/2010 at 04:51 PM

None of those issues came up. The closest anyone gets to criticising the war/s these days is to say that our government is not giving our “brave troops” the equipment they need “to do the job”, so the political consensus is against questioning “the job” in the first place.

Posted by bigblue on 09/05/2010 at 04:50 PM

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