Blogosphere: Tom Harris, Glasgow Labour MP, holds a public meeting

Published on Wednesday 28 May 2008 22:01

A COUPLE of years ago I tried out a radical new idea to engage voters. I held a public meeting and invited anyone on the electoral register to turn up and ask me any question they liked, without giving advance notice of what the question was… About 50 people attended (and the only trouble-makers in the audience were all pensioners!). Tonight I'm repeating the exercise.

Setting aside the obvious question (if it's an annual meeting, why did you wait two years for the next one? Hope no-one asks me that), it will be interesting to see if recent events will encourage people to turn up to vent their anger, or if apathy is now so ingrained that people will simply stay at home.

LATER: At most there were about 30 there… The meeting tonight was quite good fun, if being questioned about government policy on cluster bombs, Israel, civil-service redundancies, asylum seekers, interest rates, tax rates, bus policy and (deep intake of breath) MPs' expenses inside a church on a Tuesday evening is your idea of "fun"… But as I explained at the start, I was trying to come up with answers that were honest, not necessarily the ones they wanted to hear.

tomcharris.wordpress.com