A Date With The Deputy Prime Minister – Nick Clegg
02 Apr 2011 8 Comments
in Comedy, Political Events Tags: cinema de lux, condem, election campaign, government, leicester, liberal democrat, nick clegg, Q&A
Campaigning ahead of a local by-election, Nick Clegg recently visited Leicester where residents were ready to give him a warm welcome –
As a part of his visit, I’d discovered that he was due to hold a Q&A session at a city centre cinema which would be open to anyone on a first-come, first-serve basis – providing that people had registered beforehand to facilitate security checks.
What a fantastic idea! I’d love to attend a Q&A session with the Deputy Prime Minister! It would be really exciting to see how Mr Clegg would deal with questions from members of the public.
I duly filled in the form for the security check – I have no criminal record so I wasn’t worried at all about this check. There was also a space for a question to Mr Clegg and I filled this in too. I didn’t think the question was too critical …..
Unfortunately on arrival at the cinema, I discovered that my name was missing off the pre-registration guest list. Did my proposed question offend the organisers? I also noticed that the guest list had everyone’s IP addresses listed. Using this information to profile me, had the organisers been offended by some of the articles featured on this website?
Dejected and disappointed, I joined a rather large group of people whose names were also missing off the list. We were all young, decent looking folk – but not as decent as the well-suited, older, rich looking folk who were quickly being admitted into the Q&A session.
It didn’t appear as if the Q&A session was open admission at all. Anyone not on the pre-registration guest list was promptly ejected from the cinema where the entrances were quickly blocked.
With no option but to leave the cinema, I joined the protestors outside where a reporter from the local newspaper was taking photos -
The protestors were also being motivated by several people with megaphones -
Mr Clegg arrived via the back door, where he was greeted by a friendly bunch –
I was very disappointed at not being able to attend the Q&A session with Mr Clegg. Maybe one day he’ll have enough courage to actually face real questions from members of the general public?
Apr 02, 2011 @ 12:41:01
Maybe you live in the wrong constituency or is this visit directly to do with the recent ‘standing down’ by the Labour MP for Leicester South? Either way it could be that he was inundated with requests that the Cleggeron couldn’t cater for every mortal’s plea etc etc
Apr 02, 2011 @ 14:30:59
The Q&A was promoted as a first come, first serve (providing u had pre-registered) event. I was one of the first people in the queue – so technically should have been allowed in…….
Apr 02, 2011 @ 18:47:17
I wonder if the IP addresses are the key. Maybe you are not so much the ‘wrong sort’ of person but rather you have the ‘wrong sort’ of IP address. Did you register from a University domain? If so then perhaps all registrations from such IP addresses were barred as part of an attempt to avoid a large student presence in the meeting.
Does this match with what you see of other people being barred despite have registered?
Apr 02, 2011 @ 20:34:33
Nope, I didn’t register from work and I wouldn’t have expected the location from which I did register to be a negative factor. Either way – good standing people were censored for a reason. Maybe it was our lack of donations to the Liberal Democrats?
Apr 02, 2011 @ 21:36:58
Strange. It certainly does seem suspicious. It would be interesting to know if the cinema was even full.
Also watching your video it seems slightly disturbing that the police feel the need to video a small peaceful protest, presumably adding the likes of yourself to the regular faces they watch out for. Hmmm Democracy in action…
Apr 03, 2011 @ 16:35:11
Unfortunately Mark, there has been FIT teams (The police with cameras and orange shoulder slides) at every protest I’ve attended.
They are often very rude, with pairs of them going round, one pointing at people and saying “him” the other quickly snapping up photos.
Apr 12, 2011 @ 10:54:34
I actually got into the Q&A since I arrived very early. There were several other people round my age (I’m 20) who got in and plenty of times questions regarding Tutition Fees and cuts were asked so it wasn’t entirely amicable. I heard that the police had decided to stop letting anyone in without a VIP invitation (local Lib Dem members). So it did end up being fairly quiet though with only a hundred or so people actually in there, they were all people who arrived early or people who’d had seats reserved for them (Lib Dem mayoral and Bi-election candidates for instance). So overall it was somewhat more supportive than you might have expected, but I don’t think that was done purposefully, only as a consequence of the protest.
As for your not being on the list, the cinema had several different lists, they seemed a bit disorganized, I had to be checked on three lists before they’d let me in and I was an hour early, if you got there closer to the time with the protests underway they’d probably been overwhelmed.
The answer that Nick Clegg would probably have given to your question would have been that if MPs weren’t well paid it would confine the job to people of independent means, those like him with millions in the bank already. If you have a family and the choice of working as a GP, Manager, Civil Servent, Lawyer on £30,000+ maybe even £100,000+ or as an MP on £20,000 you’d get a lot of potentially good MPs not running. As it is, most MPs are qualified enough to get jobs that pay several times their wages. You could argue that maybe Clegg and Cameron could unilaterally give up their wages, but then you’d have the press harassing every MP who didn’t, even if they’d struggle to afford to. Though maybe he’d give a different reason I’d not presume to speak for him.