As a good “citizen journalist“, I took notes at the Edinburgh leadership hustings to type up later. I don’t think that’s going to happen – I’m still full of cold and not up to long posts. Stephen and Richard were there and have written good summaries.
Two aspects of the hustings I will mention. The first was the turnout. The room was so full that the Dyanmic Earth fire regulations meant there had to be an overflow room and the candidates repeated their speeches to the people who couldn’t get in the main hall. In an age of apparent political apathy, it was great to see so many people – some of them not even party members – turn out to hear politicians speak.
The second thing that I noticed at the hustings was that it wasn’t a pro-Ming rally. I had, perhaps naively, assumed that Ming’s home town would be lined up behind their local candidate, but there seemed to be a good split of supporters in the room, along with many people who were undecided. I felt that Chris Huhne’s speech won the biggest round of applause, which came as a pleasant surprise. Ming did his “I’ve got a speech but I’m not going to make it” turn, which seems somewhat less sponataneous when you’ve read other reports of it – he did it again last night.
The candidates were pretty well matched when it came to questions and I suspect that, as the hustings have gone on, they’ve adopted some of each others policies and turns of phrase to fill in gaps of their own. None of them scored a knockout blow, although I was pleased to see that Huhne has started reference Ming’s U-turn over Iraq. Huhne stickers appeared to be shifting well after the event.
I went to help me decide how to cast my second preference. Cracking a few jokes and being fairly genial, Ming was good enough to convince me that he does deserve to be my second choice. Simon did well on the day, but he did nothing to convince me that my concerns about him are unfounded.
Having voted, I worked out today that I could offset my disappointment if Huhne loses by betting on both Simon and Ming. I may not have got the best odds available, but with Simon at 16-1 and Ming at 3-2, I’ve placed my bets in such a way as to ensure a profit if Chris loses. And if he wins, I’ll be too pleased to notice. 🙂
The fun of betting against the wanted outcome. Always good if your team are playing some rubbish low league team in a cup. For £10 you can turn the embarrassment of losing into a good night out.
Yeah. I meant to bet on Bush in 2004 to soften the blow but didn’t get around to it. It only works in this election because Chris has the shortest odds 🙂
Actually Will Huhne stickers weren’t shifting quite as well as Hughes cards, no sign of Mingers after the event; I know they did all of theirs at the start. Although that waspropably because the three of us who were handing out Hughes cards knew almost every attendee by name.
I even managed to hand one to a certain Will Howells without even leaving my seat. 😉
Ah, but flyers are much easier to give out as people – like myself – who were interested in seeing the literature from all canddides will take flyers but will only wear a sticker if we’re backing the candidate in question.
To be fair Will there were a number of people who disapprovingly removed the Huhne stickers after they were forced upon them.
Haha. Fair enough 🙂