I went to listen

I love the cut and thrust of political debate.  It is good when people get passionate about what they believe.  But when that spills over into a shouting match it begins to lose its gloss.  And so it was last night as I sat in a Hustings in East Dunbartonshire.  The candidates all tuned up (except UKIP:  I think he lives in Ipswich) to debate the issues of the day. 

What didn’t surprise was there were clearly people there as supporters who were not floating voters like many of us there to be persuaded by the candidates, surely the purpose of a Hustings.   Each party had supporters who toed their own political line.  All parties do that. And good luck to them.  

I like it when people debate polices hard.  When there is constructive interaction between the platform and the floor.   But I thoroughly dislike it when some of the audience who are there, not to learn but to give vocal support to “their” candidate, get in the way of those wanting to listen to the answers.   It spilled over into a bit of a barracking match with SNP supporters basically shouting throughout the answers of other candidates.  It’s as if they don’t want others to hear what is being said.  (Just pause and think that one through in an historical context for a moment).  It was certainly a misguided tactic from the floating voters point of view.  The SNP supporters were, putting it politely, boorish.  And didn’t do their cause any good from where I was sitting.

One of the stupidest comments of the evening was made about the Lib Dem candidate giving up some points in their manifesto to make a coalition.  Er, that’s what you do in a coalition; you give and take so that you can move forward constructively.  Yes, even sacred cows can and do go.  But in doing so they seek to do so for the good of the whole country.  And let’s not forget the disastrous state the country was being left in.  Who can forget the infamous note left by Liam Byrne.   Clearly the SNP supporters in the room thought collation is all about taking and not giving.  Mr Miliband is in for a very rude awakening should he find himself leader of the largest party but without a majority.

And so it was that I left with the rather vacuous feeling that this hadn’t been about democracy.  It had been about a small minority mob rubbishing everything the candidates they didn’t like said.  Like Chelsea footballers surrounding the referee when the give a ruling they don’t like.  It was unpleasant.