We were slightly worried that the Thursday before Bank Holiday would not be the ideal time to attract a crowd to a political meeting. We should not have been concerned. Three hundred people packed into the Marlborough Road Methodist Church to hear Nick take questions from all comers.
He uses no intermediary to pick the questioners. My role was simply to introduce the meeting and then close it, and in the interim try to look graceful. Nick chooses the questioners in batches of three and of course he does not know who anyone is – so he really is putting himself on the line.
He has done nearly 50 meetings like this round the country, and told me this was one of the best ever. The audience was nicely mixed and the questions came fast and furious from a forest of hands – MP expenses, getting young people interested in politics, the future of the health service, drugs, Trident, parliamentary reform, restoring power to local government, Afghanistan, Europe, the euro, what makes a good MP, and many more.
People were hugely impressed with his relaxed approach and his willingness to give straight answers. Nick was hugely impressed with St Albans (no surprise there) and by the quality and depth of the questions. I am sure he will be back soon.
PS My thanks to Gary Shore for the excellent photographs – he is a St Albans based professional photographer and can be contacted at gaslights@googlemail.com
I was there and it really was a fantastic evening. Politics should be more like this–no spin–just a man putting himself and his beliefs on the line for all to examine. Fantastically authentic!
[...] Great turn-out for Nick Clegg in St Albans (Sandy Walkington) The audience was nicely mixed and the questions came fast and furious from a forest of hands – MP expenses, getting young people interested in politics, the future of the health service, drugs, Trident, parliamentary reform, restoring power to local government, Afghanistan, Europe, the euro, what makes a good MP, and many more. People were hugely impressed with his relaxed approach and his willingness to give straight answers. Share this story with your friends: [...]
They say imitation is the best form of flattery….