University of Sussex Local Election Question Time – April 17th – My feedback…

‘The Parties Know Best!’ might be a good summary of this event. On the panel were:

– Daniel Yates, Labour Party – Joe Miller, Conservative Party – Hannah Clare, Green Party – Duncan Moore, Liberal Democrats – Nigel Furness, UKIP

Held on campus at 4pm yesterday the low turnout was attributed to the sunshine and easter holidays. I don’t know about you but the disillusionment with party politics might have had something to do with it? (Why am I in a tree? Forgot to take a pic in the ‘Hail the Old Parties!’ hustings so jumped in another hollowed out old relic right outside)

I asked this question:
We are witnessing the disintegration of the Westminster political parties and public faith in all of them is at an all-time low. If this city is to suffer 4 more years of futile party political fighting would the panel not agree that Brighton is better served by genuinely independent councillors exclusively dedicated to constituents?

This is how the four main parties answered. Its interesting how the four answered in more or less the same way (separate post coming on the Ukip answer which was substatially different):

Hannah Clare (Green Party): ‘Obviously I think political Parties is the way to go. One of the best things about Brighton and Hove is that we have such a diversity of parties who could lead the council in 2 weeks time – and that, for me, gives a plurality to politics thats really interesting. [ ] So, no, I dont agree with [Adrian Hart] that we should all be independents.

[Note: I didnt mean to suggest an overnight miracle-shift to a council made up of ALL independents btw]

Daniel Yates (Labour Party): ‘I’m lucky because I represent 2 parties – I’m a Labour councillor but I also represent the Cooperative Party. One of the reasons why I’m a member of more than one party is that I do believe in plurality. I believe politics isn’t always about having a single view. [ ]

My concern about having a significant number of independents (mumbles…) is, what you need to understand is its very difficult when you’re deciding how to vote – and I say this as a voter – to vote dor somebody thats not going to tell you what they’re going to do [they say] what i’m going to do, I’m just going to go away and take power and have power and control over what’s delivered.

I think one of the values of political parties is is that they have philosophies, they something that sits around their values and principles. If you dont know exactly how [an independent candidate] is going to act you should know roughly what direction they’re going to take the city…[ ]

So I’d say no, there’s enormous value in political parties.

Jo Miller (Conservative Party): ‘I dont necessarily think that having lots of independents on the council would give it the leadership it requires. I mean independents would also be of independent mind and sometimes you do need a plan in order to deliver for the city. And I think all of the main parties do have a plan to deliver… be they different and be they different principles but all of us want to improve the city to make it a better place for us to live and work in.

To be honest 99 percent of the time we do that…you know I go to meetings along with Daniel Yates and there is a party political element to it but actually we act in the residents best interests the majority of times – we work together on numerous things. [ ] Officers advise us on a decision and we generally scrutinise that and amend it…or (mumbles) an agreement from the parties on what the best way forward is. And I think you’d lose that if there were independents in the city and we’d lose a lot of the leadership thats required.

Duncan More (Liberal Democrats): ‘My view is that political partiesare necessary for the vast majority of local councils because they give the voter base an idea of what they’re voting for if they’re not plugged-in to knowing from the point of view of knowing every single candidate… There are places that have independents running the local council [ ] but they’re places where everyone knows each other. I think for a city its just not practical. And there’s also the problem in an independent administration that they …(mumbles) (lack?) accountability. For example there are plenty of independents who are nothing of the sort [ ] Genuinely independent people are found in very few parts of the country and are very special candidates and don’t tend to get very far in council politics unfortunately .

[Me (interuppting!) – ‘but would you be pleased to see them?’]

To be honest there’s not enough accountability. I think we need to be running on political parties where we can see Manifestos and see a clear plan and see very issue that could come up – one person is not going to know off the top of their head every single issues.

[Me: (cheekily interupting again) ‘But they’d be ward councillors accountable to their constituents….in touch with them, listening to them…]

At this point the chair was eager to move to another question.