Pupils Quiz Parliamentary Candidates

It was clear that the election was drawing near last week when the three main party candidates for the Kingston and Surbiton seats took part in a Kingston Youth Council Question Time event. Ed Davey MP for the Lib Dems, Helen Whately for the Conservatives and Max Freedman for Labour were quizzed by students from schools across the borough with various councillors including Cllr Patricia Bamford attending.

The event kicked off with the candidates being questioned on issues such as youth unemployment, university tuition fees, transport and youth crime. When asked about the rising cost of university tuition fees the candidates all expressed desires to cut the fees but were sceptical as to whether they would be able to with large spending cuts required by the next government. This set the tone for the rest of the evening with the candidates being incredibly honest about what they would and wouldn’t be able to achieve.

A good example of this came from Labour’s Max Freedman who, on the issue of tuition fees, said he “was sceptical” as to whether Lord Mandelson should have implemented a £1bn cut to university government funding. Helen Whately was also honest about her party and said she was “sorry” that Boris Johnson had to increase the cost of youth travel in London.

The event was more relaxed and informal than the BBC’s edition with party politics and political points scoring playing a minimal part in the debate. It is fair to say the candidates were there to give advice and talk about youth issues rather than campaign for the election. This is most probably because much of the audience couldn’t vote so there was no need for rhetoric and party-combat.

At the interval the candidates spoke with audience members who were free to ask any question they wanted and many sought advice from their MP Ed Davey on issues such as poor bus routes and the quality of disabled access around Kingston. I spoke to Cllr Patricia Bamford who is the councillor responsible for Children and Young People’s Services about the success of the event and she was establishing whether it was a valuable exercise that could be replicated.

It certainly is a shame that these honest, open discussions do not occur more often, and that much of the general voting public has to make do with rhetoric and political points scoring that is so prevalent in the media. I certainly think that the image of politics and politicians needs repairing, and events like this could go a long way to doing this, as well as giving local residents a rare, honest insight into their candidates views and ambitions.