"Any Questions?"

by Kris Kingsland

Less than 24 hours after the General Election, St Peter's Church on Kensington Park road was filled by hundreds of local residents including one Jonathon Dimbleby, host of Radio Four's 'Any Questions' for which we were assembled.

An atmosphere of anticipation pervaded the air as people trooped in and submitted their questions to the panellists. Many were tired from the events of the day before. Nor were we alone in this, as the warm-up artist informed us. The panellists had not slept in 24 hours and we were encouraged to be all the more challenging. When Mr Dimbleby admitted to not having visited this, his local church, the congregation duly obliged with catcalls and hoots. Booed in a church - poor guy!

As the eight o'clock pips and the news headlines faded, Jonathon welcomed the million or so live listeners to the program, described the church with its famous stained-glass windows, the panellists and called for the questioning to begin.

The panellists were a distinguished lot:

Chris Patten - ex (last) governor of Hong Kong, ex-Conservative Party Chairman, and currently European Commissioner for External Relations.
Sir Paddy Ashdown - previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, was Yeovil's MP for 18 years, an army Captain and ex-SBS.
Baroness Jay - Labour peer & recently retired Leader of the Upper House, oversaw the abolition of hereditary peers & introduction of 'people peers'.
John Bercow - Conservative MP for Buckingham, previously special advisor to Jonathan Aitken and Virginia Bottomley, and a qualified tennis coach.

The ten questions selected from the hundreds submitted, had been typed up and the question posers moved to the front of the audience, where the microphones could reach them. Surprisingly no one asked the obvious question - whom the panellists thought would make a good new leader for the Conservative party. Jonathon did when prompted by a similar question, and we all watched the panellists squirm. As I recall the only person willing to be forthright about it was Paddy Ashdown, who citing the need for a unifying presence suggested Kenneth Clarke.

There must have been TV cameras present because Chris Patten's line about the Conservative party "mistaking a hearse for a bandwagon" made the ten o'clock news. It was interesting to see whom the audience warmed to, and whilst there were a few loyal supporters who cheered undaunted by isolation, general trends emerged. Chris Patten and Paddy Ashdown came across as the strongest speakers, dividing the lion's share of the applause between them. Next John Bercow came across strongly though clearly the least popular, whilst Baroness Jay's contribution simply did not shine forth. A little surprising given her reputation, but perhaps not all politicians thrive on challenging forums.

Question: Given the success of the Labour party in yesterday's election and that the House of Lords is currently the only effective opposition, what reforms would the panellists like to see in the Upper House and how would this encourage younger voters to participate?

Unlike the example above, few of the selected questions seemed to target the burning issues foremost in the minds of those nearby. The impression being given was that (with the possible exception of Paddy Ashdown) the panellists were not going to say anything that might get them in trouble later on with the party leaders or whips.

Whilst it might make sense in a business, politics should not primarily be about market shares or business branding. Indeed gagging the personal views of politicians seems counterproductive to the democratic cause. Not every opinion expressed will be pleasant or even tolerable, but locking them away to be debated out of sight of the public smacks of 'Big Brother' control mechanisms (Orwell lived in Notting Hill). Speaking afterwards with the show's producer, we both lamented that Big Brother (as seen on TV) generated more interest amongst the 18 to 30 year olds than the election itself. Perhaps if politicians were elected by Big Brother style voting, where their day-to-day performance was scrutinised by the masses, we would actually have something resembling a democracy.