Uproar at St Andrews Church as Mark Pawsey criticises vicar

There was uproar in the closing stages of last night's hustings at St Andrews when the conservative candidate, Mark Pawsey, criticised the vicar, the Rev Imogen Nay, for her management of the debate.

The hustings had started very calmly, if somewhat boringly, with the candidates reading out prepared answers to questions they had been given days in advance. Five of the six candidates were present including our own Ed Goncalves. The Rev Imogen Nay chaired the meeting.

As the evening went on the audience became more restless and started chipping in their own questions. Mark Pawsey's constant reference to the "last five years of conservative government" when referring to the good things about the last five years like the reduction in unemployment and the "liberal democrat/conservative coalition" when referring to the bad things annoyed a lot of people in the audience and even the green candidate took Mark Pawsey to task when he started to claim that the increase in the amount people can earn before they pay income tax was a conservative idea rather than part of the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto.

However matters came to a head with a question on food banks and what could be done to end food poverty in Britain. Mark Pawsey spent a lot of time praising the volunteers who worked in food banks and the generosity of the ordinary people of Rugby who contributed to them - at which point members of the audience started to encourage him to get to the point and answer the question about ending the need for food banks.

By the close of the meeting Mark Pawsey was clearly unsettled and pleaded for more time to finish his closing speech saying that the "meeting should be properly managed". His attack on the chairing of the meeting proved very unpopular with those attending it and was immediately called out by Ed Goncalves.

Opinion

In Britain's cities MPs are frequently involved in bitter arguments. Here in Rugby we have a somewhat different view of their role. Our MP is generally looked up to by the community and frequently invited to open events and buildings as a figurehead for the whole community. In return we generally expect that our MP will speak for all of the borough and not just their own party.

But when Parliament is dissolved MPs cease to be MPs. They become candidates competing for our votes. A candidate trying to secure our vote should not expect automatic deference rather they should seek to explain why they should be trusted with our vote.