Latymer School Political Question Time

The British general election is unlikely to be called until 6 April at the earliest, but already the phoney war is in full swing. This afternoon, Latymer School in Edmonton – which has a lively politics society — put on a 4-party Question Time in their splendid new studio auditorium, attended by a couple of hundred pupils, teachers and visitors from around Enfield borough. Labour and the Conservatives were represented by local MPs, Andy Love (Edmonton) and David Burrowes (Enfield Southgate), alongside me as the LibDem (as Chairman of London region), and Douglas Coker, Chairman of Enfield Green Party. The economy figured large, not surprisingly, given yesterday’s budget, but so too the issue of political funding and cleaning up politics. I was disappointed that David Burrowes — a Christian ‘wet’ on most issues — obeyed his party’s whip to boycott the parliamentary committee looking into the Ashcroft affair, though at least he did not try to defend the peer’s protracted obfuscations about his tax status. Andy Love did defend the expansion of Heathrow airport, which I imagine won him few friends in the audience, but the interesting thing was how much all four of us agreed on most things (though not on nuclear energy). It would have been interesting to have had a straw-poll of the audience both before and after the debate, but if attitudes are at all similar to those in East London where I live, the political mood amongst the electorate at the moment is distinctly fluid.

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