Parliamentary candidates listened…

Audience member posing a question to parliamentary candidates at the Reading Quakers' general election hustings November 2019
Contributions from the audience

…and responded to questions and opinions from 60+ community members at Reading Quakers’ election hustings on 28 November. We focused on three topics:

  • Parliamentary candidates from the Labour and Christian People's Alliance parties at the Reading Quakers' general election hustings November 2019

    Labour and Christian People’s Alliance candidates

    Our future relationship with Europe – including how long it takes to complete a trade deal, and what are the most positive values associated with the EU;

  • A fairer society – including making tax and benefits fairer and giving mental illness equivalent support to physical illness;
  • The climate emergency – including whether UK international aid money should support fossil fuel use (a clear ‘no’ from all), and how individuals can avoid being overwhelmed by the scale of the emergency.
Parliamentary candidates from the Liberal Democrat and Green parties at the Reading Quakers' general election hustings November 2019

Liberal Democrat and Green candidates

 

 

Candidates shared the platform with courtesy and good humour. Audience feedback was appreciative of the respectful atmosphere, the time given to contributions from the floor, and the opportunity to meet candidates afterwards.

 

 

 

Section 2.12 of Quaker faith and practice (our Quaker guidebook!) says “… The right to speak is a call to the duty of listening. Speech has no meaning unless there are attentive minds and silent hearts…..” (Pierre Lacout, 1969). We hope that the evening gave space for listening, within the clamour of the run-up to the general election.

Note that all parliamentary candidates for the two Reading constituencies were invited to take part in the Hustings. We were pleased that four candidates for Reading East (Yemi Awolola- Christian People’s Alliance, David McElroy – Green, Matt Rodda – Labour and Imogen Shepherd-DuBey – Liberal Democrat) and two for Reading West (Rachel Eden – Labour and Jamie Witham – Green) accepted our invitation and took part.  We also received apologies from Conservative candidates Craig Morley and Alok Sharma, and Liberal Democrat Meri O’Connell. We had no response from the Brexit party candidate.

 

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Posted By AW in , on 28, Nov, 2019

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