Caroline Lucas (Green), Purna Sen (Labour), Clarence Mitchell (Conservative), Chris Bowers (Liberal Democrat), Nigel Carter (UKIP), Howard Pilott (The Socialist Party of Great Britain) and Nick Yeomans (Independent).
(details – http://www.meetup.com/ORG-Brighton/events/221341373/ )
The meeting was organised by Open Rights Group (org)
Last night meeting was, I hope, something to learn from…
* I think the setup of a podium of politicians eager for power functioned like a beauty contest instead of getting into a potentially meaningful conversation about the issues.
Personally, I think that perhaps a different setup, eg a workshop to do with freedoms that politicians come to hear and listen, followed by a brief – what did You pick up from the workshop kind of statements – could be much more beneficial and meaningful.
After-all, perhaps if we fancy politicians listening to voters concerns, it might be an idea to place them in a listening situation rather than one where they are being asked to answer..
* Another difficulty that I think popped with the podium sort of set up is that people’s time for questions is limited in these settings. Hence more complex questions are not raised. Questions have to be short and so the replies. I hope something can be done to better that – particularly in settings by a group that is seemingly concerned with people’s participation in political processes to do with rights and freedoms.
…and
* The “chair” seem to have confused himself with a host – instead of assisting the smooth roll of discussions, he inserted himself into the proceedings. Shame as it wasted scarce time.
Perhaps not a very positive sounding reaction – however, would you fault honesty..?