The unbearable lightness of hustings

26 September 2005

It's tempting to conclude that all the hustings meetings will be as full of lightweight platitude and generality as the one held last Thursday at St John. In fact, Thursday wasn't the worst we've seen, but the vacuous and the non-specific did certainly feature.

But we at Elect Jersey 2005 are optimistic. We think the 2005 round of parish hustings meetings are going to progressively improve as candidates feel the pressure of the electorate to tell, in some detail, what they actually intend to do if elected.

The hustings remain for many an important part of the process of choosing our representatives, and it's the shared responsibility of the electorate to make them as useful as possible.

Good questions were asked on Thursday (click here for our report) and some candidates even answered them. We saw others using the politician's trick of answering the question they want to be asked, rather than the one actually asked, and hoping that no-one would notice. Trouble is, in our increasingly media-savvy society, people do notice. It would be refreshing if the candidate said, "I'm afraid I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to answer intelligently," and then sat down. Even more so if they subsequently researched the subject and published a statement of policy or position. We don't think the reasonable voter expects every candidate to be an expert on everything, and the humility and honesty to admit as much would likely be an attribute admired by hustings audiences.

Whenever possible, we'll be reporting on the performance of the candidates in answering questions effectively at the hustings.

If you're going to a hustings meeting, ask a question. Challenge the candidates on the big issues. Help to keep the standard high. At a time of great challenge to our government we can't afford to elect the mediocre.

In the meantime, now is an excellent time to revisit Michael Rothwell's prescient blog entry from 2 September which amply illustrates the pitfalls of the traditional hustings process. Click here to read it. You might even want to print it and take it with you...

The next hustings meeting is tonight at St Lawrence Parish Hall starting at 7.30pm. Click here for a full list of the meetings.