Comments on: Changing the topic: questions for aspiring political leaders

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:12:19 +0000

I think more interesting than the answers are the reasons behind them. Are they able to give a well thought out arguement to support their position or are they (as normal) trying to please the media or their boss. What worries me is the vacuous nature of many politicians brains, but then, when the population votes for MP’s based on a party leaders smile the whole idea of democracy is doomed to failure.

By: Darren Reynolds

Darren Reynolds — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:12:48 +0000

The answer to the question, “Under what circumstances would you vote against your party?” is, “When I have a wafer-thin majority and my electorate wants me to.”

I’m not sure how we might get answers to these questions. Now is a good time to try asking, though I suspect the response rate will be below 25%. Sitting MPs are more likely to respond if questions are put to them either by constituents or by a recognised organisation representing significant numbers of individuals (thousands not hundreds). Candidates should be fairly keen.

Darren Reynolds
Chair, Burnley Lib Dems

By: Martin Budden

Martin Budden — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:54:05 +0000

Interesting questions. A blog post that gave your answers to the questions would also be interesting. I’m toying with the idea of doing such a blog post myself.

I have some questions I’d add:

a) How important do you think it is to fund ‘pure’ research?
b) How should we fund higher education?
c) What kind of things can we do to improve primary and secondary education?

(These questions are motivated by the belief that the long term future of Britain is dependent on a good educational system, at all levels.)

d) What would cause you to change your mind on a subject?
e) What is the last thing of importance that you changed your mind about?
f) Under what circumstances would you vote against your party?

(These questions are motivated by the belief that it is more important to have independence and an open mind than any particular viewpoint.)

If I only had the opportunity to ask one question of a politician, it would be (f). One of the hard aspects of being an MP is dealing with the tension between their own views, that of their party and that of their electorate. It is this tension that enables good decisions to be made and any politician that hasn’t seriously thought about this tension doesn’t deserve office.