Ed's Groundhog Day

I shared a video on Facebook yesterday. It was a video of Ed Miliband repeating himself rather than listen to the questions from an interviewer. I would have left it there but I got a comment that the reason why poor Ed had to repeat himself was because of bad interviewing typical of right wing media.

Here is the clip and the responses. You can make up your own mind.

My initial comment was:

I am saddened by this video. W.S. Gilbert told us over a century ago that politicians leave their brains outside the House of Commons. It's still going on.

The reply:

Interviewers ask questions but don't listen to the answers. This is typical of the right wing media. Hence poor Ed having to repeat himself. There has been reckless and provocative government action but the interviewer still doesn't get it!

And my reply:

The first question was about Ed's leadership. The second was about the Tory Party's private and public image. Ed almost answered the third question about whether he has spoken privately with union leaders but then goes on to repeat himself. The fourth question is whether Ed, as a parent has been personally affected and again Ed almost answers the question before repeating himself. I remain saddened and it is Ed who should put aside the rhetoric.

This video is from 2011 and maybe the most surprising aspect is that I haven't seen it before. How did this ignorance and repetition not make headlines? I don't think Ed will have improved with age. In fact he is being backed by his supporters even now. They will say that the tape is obviously fake. Well here is the original BBC video.

It looks like we live in a world in which a potential prime minister can act like a broken record and nobody notices.

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Hustings

The election campaign has started and leaflets are being delivered, mostly by the post office. So if you get more than one leaflet from a party then the chances are that they have used their free delivery service and they have gone on to pay a lot of money to get their message over to you twice.

There is another way that you can hear about the views of your candidates and that's at a hustings meeting. No individual party can organise this as all the others would refuse to attend. Often these meetings are organised by Churches Together and unlike the TV debates you usually only get one chance to listen to local candidates.

If you live in Morecambe and Lunesdale then your chance is at More Music in Morecambe from 7pm on Tuesday 14th April. I'll be there and so will many of the party faithful of all the candidates. That's the trouble. These hustings don't reach out to the electorate. In fact the sitting MP didn't attend in 2010 probably because there must be a feeling that there are no votes in it.

It is worth attending the hustings meeting as however important this meeting is to the candidates it is the only chance that the electorate gets to see through the party propaganda and let's them make their own mind up.

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