Heathfield's own Question Time
At the hustings, the candidates sat on a raised platform at the front of the hall, before a rapidly filling audience of students from year seven upwards. The very smallest looked as if they were too young to have lace-up shoes, let alone a political opinion.
They sat, from left to right; Jonathan Kent (Green), Huw Merriman (Conservative), Christine Bayliss (Labour), and Joel Kemp (Liberal Democrat).
The event began with dramatic music - the Question Time theme - a joke which may have been somewhat lost on the younger members of the audience. The first question was an open one which gave the candidates a chance to highlight what they and their party stood for. The Green candidate spoke of shared responsibility and was strong on the point of community and care for the environment. While the local Conservative MP Huw Merriman spoke of "giving people the tools to get on in life", highlighting an individualist approach, coupled with a "Strong and united Britain", which echoed the rhetoric of Theresa May on the national campaign, the Labour candidate spoke in a slightly rambling manner about fairness, and how the UK is "the sixth largest economy in the world", meaning that we need to stand up to Tory austerity. The Lib-Dem, the youngest candidate at just 23, spoke of "people having the opportunity to be who they want to be and do what they want to do", as well as saying no to a hard Brexit.
In retrospect, these statements mirror the national campaigns and their outcomes; the Conservatives falling victim to the lure of a soundbite, Labour making very heartfelt points but in a somewhat haphazard way, and the Lib-Dems valiantly opposing Brexit but finding most of their other points coinciding with Labour.
Next came a 'safe question', one that all the candidates could be guaranteed to agree on, more or less, and give similar, vague answers to: "In light of the recent events in Manchester and London, what actions do you think should be taken to prevent terrorist incidents in the future?" While all four expressed a need for unity, and agreed on "no knee-jerk reactions", Huw Merriman tackled a more controversial angle, highlighting the fact that the root cause of Islamic Terrorism needs to be dealt with. He also mentioned the idea of asking internet companies to remove certain content from the Internet. This might seem like an odd idea coming from a Conservative, with conservatives usually placing emphasis on freedom from an overbearing state, but it has been a common line against terrorism from Conservatives recently. This is despite control over Internet access being one of the first indicators, for many conservatives, of a too large state .
The Green candidate talked of "insuring that all Muslim-British people feel like citizens", a problem which has been all too evident recently, with terrorist acts carried out by 'home grown' terrorists. He also countered the idea of increased Internet surveillance, saying that the "Government has sought to snoop", in reference to the controversial Snoopers Charter, which was signed into law in December 2016, and gives the government powers over Internet providers, meaning they have to keep Internet data of users for longer. It also makes it easier for police to gather Internet data. While many on the political left argue that the Snoopers Charter is a waste of resources, if it proves to be successful in stopping terrorist attacks, as it may have done already, with many threats being discovered before they are carried out, it is difficult to see how successful arguments can be formed against it.
The topical question of "Will Brexit mean there are less opportunities in future?" was clearly what the candidates, and most of the audience, had been waiting for. Here the gap between the left wing candidates and the right wing candidate was most evident. While the Green, Lib Dem, and Labour candidates emphasised the idea of friendship with Europe, and the unfairness of the Brexit vote, the Conservative candidate focused on the negotiation process. During the election campaign, which now feels very long ago and like Britain is eager to forget about it, the Conservatives concentrated on the mechanics of Brexit and the negotiations. While this may well be the more sensible and constructive path, opposition to any plan is part and parcel of the democratic process, and therefore the opposition parties have taken largely an anti-hard Brexit stance. Arguably they haven’t taken it far enough: simply opposing a hard Brexit isn’t particularly effective as a hard Brexit is unlikely to happen even under the Conservatives, because many people who support Brexit would prefer a Brexit deal which includes access to the single market and the various perks of EU membership - aspects which would only be maintained with a soft Brexit deal. Therefore, a more effective campaign method would perhaps have been to question the legitimacy of Brexit; a huge constitutional change which was put to the general public in a vote with two non-specific answers. A referendum is not legally binding, and, while it may have been unpopular among some groups, a unique line for a party to have taken would have been to oppose Brexit in its entirety. But the Lib Dems instead decided to take a half-hearted line, proposing a second referendum on a final Brexit deal but accepting that Brexit would happen. In doing so, the Lib Dems, who have always been the most pro-Europe party on the UK political field, lost part of their identity. Of course, this as a method of campaigning was largely made impossible by the irresponsibility of Theresa May in triggering Article 50 before the election, and by doing so ensuring that if she lost the election Brexit would still go ahead.
While the Labour candidate called Brexit “incredibly sad”, the Green party candidate lamented the fact that people were made to vote for “a deal that people didn’t know what it was” and talked about “Britain no longer being a big deal”, an issue that many Britons seem to struggle with, perhaps harking back to a time when large swathes of the world was pink and Union Flags flew above ports all around the world to show British occupancy.
The Lib Dems admitted that the UK would not fall apart after Brexit, but would undoubtedly be in a weaker position, speaking of “forgotten opportunities in Europe”. Forgetting the function of the EU and what it stands for was a big issue in the Brexit campaigns, with people seeing the Union as simply a bureaucratic machine rather than a union of countries with similar interests to ensure peace in Europe.
“The best negotiating card is the EU citizens in the UK,” said the Conservative candidate, adhering to the idea that the remaining countries in the EU will give the UK a better deal regarding trade if the futures of their citizens in the UK are at stake. While to many this may seem like a good strategy -the ultimate bargaining chip,- the use of people as ammunition in negotiations has been said to disregard humanity. However, Huw Merriman said that holding back on granting EU citizens the right to stay in the UK would cause the Polish to put pressure on the French and the Germans to give the UK a better deal, as the futures of a large number of Polish people in the UK would depend on it. The first of the meetings between the UK and EU negotiating teams in Brussels, which took place on 19 June, did not show promise for the UK. The UK team already caved to the EU’s demand for a ‘divorce bill’ before trade talks, as had been warned.
Next came the question of reliability: “How can we trust that what the parties say will happen is actually doable?” The idea of politicians being unreliable when it comes to carrying out campaign promises is nothing new. However, it is worth noting that often politicians may lean towards populism, and promise things on the campaign trail which are very desirable and which are vote winners, but are impractical or even impossible to put into motion once in government. A case in point is Nick Clegg’s infamous broken promise to lower tuition fees in the coalition government of 2010-2015. In the 2017 election campaign, this was most evident from the Conservatives, with Theresa May repeating her claims of a Brexit which maintains the single market access while stopping free movement of people (a deal which seemed unlikely) and from Labour, with Corbyn talking of renationalisation of the railways and privatised utilities.
While the Lib Dem candidate spoke, perhaps a little ruefully, of “broken promises being a big issue”, the Conservative accepted that promises cannot always be kept, saying that “we can’t guarantee anything right now” because of the natural caution which surrounds the negotiating process. The Green candidate proposed that the UK will be “back in Europe within 20 years”, or would at least be attempting to get back in. He said that people have “complex identities” these days and that “Britain is a global country.” Parties who say that a success can be made of Brexit may well be wrong. The Labour candidate took a strong anti-Tory line at this point, and argued that they shouldn’t be trusted as they have “manufactured conflict situations to prove toughness”, for example the brief argument over Gibraltar, with claims of a war with Spain over the British territory.
The next question on grammar schools showed a more united panel, with the question “How will you ensure that funding into schools reaches our needs?”. The Labour candidate declared that “the cake is getting bigger but the slice is getting smaller”. Record levels are currently being spent on education, as claimed by the Conservatives, however the actual amount of money per child is decreasing. The Labour candidate finished with a small anecdote about her own school days in Hastings, and said that “it is a waste to spend money on new grammar schools.”
The Green candidate claimed that having debt from student loans is “like being shackled”, and that grants should replace tuition fees at university. Whether this is economically workable is questionable, but it is certainly a popular line. He also suggested higher taxes on the highest earners.
Here the Conservative candidate distanced himself from his party and spoke of how he had challenged his own party to put more money into education, saying that a number of Conservatives were pressing for more money for this area. He also highlighted the idea of unfair funding across the country, which is true in many different ways, with some of the most densely populated areas receiving some of the lowest education funding.
A second question on tuition fees saw the Labour candidate scramble to defend the costing in the widely criticized Labour manifesto, saying that if the income tax on the top 5% of earners is increased then there can be more money channeled into young people. The Lib Dem candidate, learning from his party’s past mistakes, said that “scrapping [of tuition fees] isn’t the most efficient way”. Speaking against the Labour point on raising corporation tax, the Conservative claimed that companies have the ability to up and move, and that they will if corporation tax was raised under a Labour government. The election itself may have come as a relief to some UK corporations in some ways, as corporation tax is unlikely to be raised under the conservatives, but a hard Tory Brexit could equally push them out of the UK.
On the question of “How should you pay for your pledges?” the Green candidate said that “people will pay for excellent services” and said that the problem was that the current public services were not excellent and so people were reluctant to pay for them. Their pledge to tackle homelessness would be [aid for by allowing councils to keep all the money from council housing, therefore allowing more to be returned to the housing of vulnerable people. The Labour candidate repeated the idea of rising corporation tax to pay for public services, and said that they would “not raise taxes on the lowest 5%”, pressing for a collective and fair system. The Lib Dem candidate suggested, more pragmatically, that corporation tax be kept the same but a system be put in place to “ensure multinationals pay this.”
The Conservative candidate here took a vastly different approach to the other three, saying, in reference to renationalization of the railways, that “government is not set up to run everything”, suggesting that government does not have the capabilities to efficiently run all public services. He insisted that the state should be kept small, and warned against a “big brother” system, whereby the state has too much control over personal freedoms, an interesting antithesis to the Tory stance on the surveillance.
The Verdict?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with it I can say that, personally, I do not think that the performances of these four candidates at the hustings correlated to their parties performances nationally. I was most impressed by the Conservative candidate, Huw Merriman MP, and the Lib Dem candidate Joel Kemp. On election night, the Lib Dems saw their vote share fall, their old leader Nick Clegg lose his seat, and gained a mediocre number of MPs. The Conservatives lost their majority in the most embarrassing win in history. Theresa May’s bluff was called, and she lost her nerve, her majority in parliament, and her credibility. While Labour did lose the election, they proclaimed victory, possibly because the bar had been set so low, with Corbyn being expected to lead Labour to certain defeat. The Greens failed to gain any seats but increased their hold on Brighton Pavilion by a large number of votes, the seat held by their one MP, Caroline Lucas.
June 8 2017 will not be remembered with fondness by many. A resurgence on the far left, a Tory party forced into talks with the hardline Protestant Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland to secure their majority, and a cold-blooded massacre of many talented politicians, with Nick Clegg and Angus Robertson losing their seats to name but two.
However, it was also the day that 18-25 year olds, a historically low turnout group, cast ballots which disrupted the political norms. An unheard of turnout of 66.4%, up from 43% in the 2015 election, showed young people ready to take part in the democratic process. The unappealing nature of the robotic, uncharismatic, wheat-loving Theresa May pushed young people towards an extreme left candidate, an exciting socialist who managed to grab their attention by being different from the dull figures we are used to seeing in politics.
If the election proved anything then, it is that we, the young, hold the key to the political future, and must use it wisely.
Emily Evans, Y13
They sat, from left to right; Jonathan Kent (Green), Huw Merriman (Conservative), Christine Bayliss (Labour), and Joel Kemp (Liberal Democrat).
The event began with dramatic music - the Question Time theme - a joke which may have been somewhat lost on the younger members of the audience. The first question was an open one which gave the candidates a chance to highlight what they and their party stood for. The Green candidate spoke of shared responsibility and was strong on the point of community and care for the environment. While the local Conservative MP Huw Merriman spoke of "giving people the tools to get on in life", highlighting an individualist approach, coupled with a "Strong and united Britain", which echoed the rhetoric of Theresa May on the national campaign, the Labour candidate spoke in a slightly rambling manner about fairness, and how the UK is "the sixth largest economy in the world", meaning that we need to stand up to Tory austerity. The Lib-Dem, the youngest candidate at just 23, spoke of "people having the opportunity to be who they want to be and do what they want to do", as well as saying no to a hard Brexit.
In retrospect, these statements mirror the national campaigns and their outcomes; the Conservatives falling victim to the lure of a soundbite, Labour making very heartfelt points but in a somewhat haphazard way, and the Lib-Dems valiantly opposing Brexit but finding most of their other points coinciding with Labour.
Next came a 'safe question', one that all the candidates could be guaranteed to agree on, more or less, and give similar, vague answers to: "In light of the recent events in Manchester and London, what actions do you think should be taken to prevent terrorist incidents in the future?" While all four expressed a need for unity, and agreed on "no knee-jerk reactions", Huw Merriman tackled a more controversial angle, highlighting the fact that the root cause of Islamic Terrorism needs to be dealt with. He also mentioned the idea of asking internet companies to remove certain content from the Internet. This might seem like an odd idea coming from a Conservative, with conservatives usually placing emphasis on freedom from an overbearing state, but it has been a common line against terrorism from Conservatives recently. This is despite control over Internet access being one of the first indicators, for many conservatives, of a too large state .
The Green candidate talked of "insuring that all Muslim-British people feel like citizens", a problem which has been all too evident recently, with terrorist acts carried out by 'home grown' terrorists. He also countered the idea of increased Internet surveillance, saying that the "Government has sought to snoop", in reference to the controversial Snoopers Charter, which was signed into law in December 2016, and gives the government powers over Internet providers, meaning they have to keep Internet data of users for longer. It also makes it easier for police to gather Internet data. While many on the political left argue that the Snoopers Charter is a waste of resources, if it proves to be successful in stopping terrorist attacks, as it may have done already, with many threats being discovered before they are carried out, it is difficult to see how successful arguments can be formed against it.
The topical question of "Will Brexit mean there are less opportunities in future?" was clearly what the candidates, and most of the audience, had been waiting for. Here the gap between the left wing candidates and the right wing candidate was most evident. While the Green, Lib Dem, and Labour candidates emphasised the idea of friendship with Europe, and the unfairness of the Brexit vote, the Conservative candidate focused on the negotiation process. During the election campaign, which now feels very long ago and like Britain is eager to forget about it, the Conservatives concentrated on the mechanics of Brexit and the negotiations. While this may well be the more sensible and constructive path, opposition to any plan is part and parcel of the democratic process, and therefore the opposition parties have taken largely an anti-hard Brexit stance. Arguably they haven’t taken it far enough: simply opposing a hard Brexit isn’t particularly effective as a hard Brexit is unlikely to happen even under the Conservatives, because many people who support Brexit would prefer a Brexit deal which includes access to the single market and the various perks of EU membership - aspects which would only be maintained with a soft Brexit deal. Therefore, a more effective campaign method would perhaps have been to question the legitimacy of Brexit; a huge constitutional change which was put to the general public in a vote with two non-specific answers. A referendum is not legally binding, and, while it may have been unpopular among some groups, a unique line for a party to have taken would have been to oppose Brexit in its entirety. But the Lib Dems instead decided to take a half-hearted line, proposing a second referendum on a final Brexit deal but accepting that Brexit would happen. In doing so, the Lib Dems, who have always been the most pro-Europe party on the UK political field, lost part of their identity. Of course, this as a method of campaigning was largely made impossible by the irresponsibility of Theresa May in triggering Article 50 before the election, and by doing so ensuring that if she lost the election Brexit would still go ahead.
While the Labour candidate called Brexit “incredibly sad”, the Green party candidate lamented the fact that people were made to vote for “a deal that people didn’t know what it was” and talked about “Britain no longer being a big deal”, an issue that many Britons seem to struggle with, perhaps harking back to a time when large swathes of the world was pink and Union Flags flew above ports all around the world to show British occupancy.
The Lib Dems admitted that the UK would not fall apart after Brexit, but would undoubtedly be in a weaker position, speaking of “forgotten opportunities in Europe”. Forgetting the function of the EU and what it stands for was a big issue in the Brexit campaigns, with people seeing the Union as simply a bureaucratic machine rather than a union of countries with similar interests to ensure peace in Europe.
“The best negotiating card is the EU citizens in the UK,” said the Conservative candidate, adhering to the idea that the remaining countries in the EU will give the UK a better deal regarding trade if the futures of their citizens in the UK are at stake. While to many this may seem like a good strategy -the ultimate bargaining chip,- the use of people as ammunition in negotiations has been said to disregard humanity. However, Huw Merriman said that holding back on granting EU citizens the right to stay in the UK would cause the Polish to put pressure on the French and the Germans to give the UK a better deal, as the futures of a large number of Polish people in the UK would depend on it. The first of the meetings between the UK and EU negotiating teams in Brussels, which took place on 19 June, did not show promise for the UK. The UK team already caved to the EU’s demand for a ‘divorce bill’ before trade talks, as had been warned.
Next came the question of reliability: “How can we trust that what the parties say will happen is actually doable?” The idea of politicians being unreliable when it comes to carrying out campaign promises is nothing new. However, it is worth noting that often politicians may lean towards populism, and promise things on the campaign trail which are very desirable and which are vote winners, but are impractical or even impossible to put into motion once in government. A case in point is Nick Clegg’s infamous broken promise to lower tuition fees in the coalition government of 2010-2015. In the 2017 election campaign, this was most evident from the Conservatives, with Theresa May repeating her claims of a Brexit which maintains the single market access while stopping free movement of people (a deal which seemed unlikely) and from Labour, with Corbyn talking of renationalisation of the railways and privatised utilities.
While the Lib Dem candidate spoke, perhaps a little ruefully, of “broken promises being a big issue”, the Conservative accepted that promises cannot always be kept, saying that “we can’t guarantee anything right now” because of the natural caution which surrounds the negotiating process. The Green candidate proposed that the UK will be “back in Europe within 20 years”, or would at least be attempting to get back in. He said that people have “complex identities” these days and that “Britain is a global country.” Parties who say that a success can be made of Brexit may well be wrong. The Labour candidate took a strong anti-Tory line at this point, and argued that they shouldn’t be trusted as they have “manufactured conflict situations to prove toughness”, for example the brief argument over Gibraltar, with claims of a war with Spain over the British territory.
The next question on grammar schools showed a more united panel, with the question “How will you ensure that funding into schools reaches our needs?”. The Labour candidate declared that “the cake is getting bigger but the slice is getting smaller”. Record levels are currently being spent on education, as claimed by the Conservatives, however the actual amount of money per child is decreasing. The Labour candidate finished with a small anecdote about her own school days in Hastings, and said that “it is a waste to spend money on new grammar schools.”
The Green candidate claimed that having debt from student loans is “like being shackled”, and that grants should replace tuition fees at university. Whether this is economically workable is questionable, but it is certainly a popular line. He also suggested higher taxes on the highest earners.
Here the Conservative candidate distanced himself from his party and spoke of how he had challenged his own party to put more money into education, saying that a number of Conservatives were pressing for more money for this area. He also highlighted the idea of unfair funding across the country, which is true in many different ways, with some of the most densely populated areas receiving some of the lowest education funding.
A second question on tuition fees saw the Labour candidate scramble to defend the costing in the widely criticized Labour manifesto, saying that if the income tax on the top 5% of earners is increased then there can be more money channeled into young people. The Lib Dem candidate, learning from his party’s past mistakes, said that “scrapping [of tuition fees] isn’t the most efficient way”. Speaking against the Labour point on raising corporation tax, the Conservative claimed that companies have the ability to up and move, and that they will if corporation tax was raised under a Labour government. The election itself may have come as a relief to some UK corporations in some ways, as corporation tax is unlikely to be raised under the conservatives, but a hard Tory Brexit could equally push them out of the UK.
On the question of “How should you pay for your pledges?” the Green candidate said that “people will pay for excellent services” and said that the problem was that the current public services were not excellent and so people were reluctant to pay for them. Their pledge to tackle homelessness would be [aid for by allowing councils to keep all the money from council housing, therefore allowing more to be returned to the housing of vulnerable people. The Labour candidate repeated the idea of rising corporation tax to pay for public services, and said that they would “not raise taxes on the lowest 5%”, pressing for a collective and fair system. The Lib Dem candidate suggested, more pragmatically, that corporation tax be kept the same but a system be put in place to “ensure multinationals pay this.”
The Conservative candidate here took a vastly different approach to the other three, saying, in reference to renationalization of the railways, that “government is not set up to run everything”, suggesting that government does not have the capabilities to efficiently run all public services. He insisted that the state should be kept small, and warned against a “big brother” system, whereby the state has too much control over personal freedoms, an interesting antithesis to the Tory stance on the surveillance.
The Verdict?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with it I can say that, personally, I do not think that the performances of these four candidates at the hustings correlated to their parties performances nationally. I was most impressed by the Conservative candidate, Huw Merriman MP, and the Lib Dem candidate Joel Kemp. On election night, the Lib Dems saw their vote share fall, their old leader Nick Clegg lose his seat, and gained a mediocre number of MPs. The Conservatives lost their majority in the most embarrassing win in history. Theresa May’s bluff was called, and she lost her nerve, her majority in parliament, and her credibility. While Labour did lose the election, they proclaimed victory, possibly because the bar had been set so low, with Corbyn being expected to lead Labour to certain defeat. The Greens failed to gain any seats but increased their hold on Brighton Pavilion by a large number of votes, the seat held by their one MP, Caroline Lucas.
June 8 2017 will not be remembered with fondness by many. A resurgence on the far left, a Tory party forced into talks with the hardline Protestant Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland to secure their majority, and a cold-blooded massacre of many talented politicians, with Nick Clegg and Angus Robertson losing their seats to name but two.
However, it was also the day that 18-25 year olds, a historically low turnout group, cast ballots which disrupted the political norms. An unheard of turnout of 66.4%, up from 43% in the 2015 election, showed young people ready to take part in the democratic process. The unappealing nature of the robotic, uncharismatic, wheat-loving Theresa May pushed young people towards an extreme left candidate, an exciting socialist who managed to grab their attention by being different from the dull figures we are used to seeing in politics.
If the election proved anything then, it is that we, the young, hold the key to the political future, and must use it wisely.
Emily Evans, Y13