Glenda Jackson lets the cat out of the bag in public debate

Last night saw the parliamentary candidates of the newly formed Hampstead and Kilburn constituency battle it out in their first public debate. But what did we hear?

We heard Glenda Jackson admit that New Labour only courted the City to win an election and Chris Philp demand that any MP found to be breaching Parliamentary rules on expenses be expelled by their party. Ed Fordham’s speeches suggested a more appropriate slogan for his campaign would be ‘vote Fordham, get Cable’ and Magnus Nielsen of UKIP’s strategy was to blame everything from the Great Plague to the sinking of the Titanic on the European Union.

So, to start with Labour’s Glenda Jackson. She was clear and confident and even managed to use attacks on Labour’s economic record as an opportunity to outline how her party’s policies would help people in need now. However, when taken to task by a member of the audience about New Labour’s relationship with the banks that plunged the country into today’s recession, she replied “of course we cosied up to the City, we wanted to win an election”. In other words, ‘we may have turned a blind eye to corrupt business practices, wasteful lending and the eradication of most of this country’s wealth with knighthoods, peerages and government jobs for the worst offenders, but it was all worth it because we won.’ It went downhill from there as she was forced to attack her own party for fostering greed in society and voting against the proposed reform of the Parliamentary expenses system. She then went on to champion the creation of the Healthcare Commission, which recently exposed the tragic case of Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, even though the government long ago decided to abolish it by 31st March.

As for the opposition, Chris Philp of the Conservative party would have been more impressive had he not been reading from his notes every time he stood up to speak. He seemed incredibly nervous, but nevertheless managed to deliver all his attacks on Labour which sounded eerily like something you might expect to read in a Conservative party press release. All of David Cameron’s greatest hits were in there: “Gordon Brown is to blame for the recession...we would scrap ID cards and use the money to drive down public debt...Labour ministers are corrupt”. Then he said something which ‘Dave’ may not have been all too happy about. While desperately trying to feign an air righteous indignation, he insisted that if he had things his way any Member of Parliament found guilty of fiddling their expenses would automatically be ejected from their political party. Does this mean we can look forward to the expulsion of Derek Conway and Caroline Spelman from the Tory party if Mr Philp gets elected?

Ed Fordham, the Liberal Democrat’s candidate, stood his ground well, effectively laying down the gauntlet to the Conservatives and Labour who would like people to think that there are only two parties in this election. However, he could have used somebody pointing out he had three opponents last night and not just Chris Philp. That said he was at his best when talking about the NHS and his biggest attack of the night was on the lack of accountability of foundation trusts which he angrily denounced as a sham. However, when taking on his opponents over the economy, he relied a touch too heavily on his reverence for the Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable (not that it was at all misplaced) when the audience was literally crying out for clear examples of how he would do things better.

In the event the debate ever got too serious – and there were some heated moments – Magnus Nielsen of UKIP was on hand to provide some light entertainment. His solution to the recession was to stop regulating banks all together and leave it to the shareholders to sort out the recession in accordance with the principles of freedom and democracy (because they’ve done such a bang up job already no doubt). I tried to ask him what the government should do when shareholders start exercising their democratic right to sell, sell, sell as share prices continue to tumble, but alas the Chairman never got around to calling on me. Indeed it seemed there was only one thing he wanted the government to do: withdraw from the European Union. However, the next steps after that were slightly sketchier. Perhaps they are outlined in the book he was very unsubtly trying to plug throughout the debate. Any chance the author was a one Magnus Nielsen? That said, he was still eloquent, personable and oddly likeable, even though I am about as likely to vote for him as I am to score the winning goal in this year’s FA Cup final.

So, an eventful night all in all, but no clear winner. However, the candidates still have plenty of time to capture the affections of the voters before the next election, but possibly not the guy who stormed out halfway through shouting “you’re all f***ing boring”.