Thanks to @starman and @robin.orton for raising this issue:
For those that aren’t familiar with the term, ‘hustings’ is an opportunity for the local community to hear from, and ask questions to, a number of candidates in the election.
Before organising anything I am interested to know if people would want to have a local hustings.
0 voters
Yes - it’s a brilliant idea. Would be happy to help organise if you need a spare pair of hands.
Great idea, @Michael - I’ll help with promotion via our social channels if this goes ahead.
YES! whoever I vote for I’d like to have had the opportunity to see/meet them and hear them answer questions before I do.
Hell to the yes! Particularly as we are unlikely to have a debate at a national level.
Michael, have you made a decision on this yet?
I would urge all members of the forum to vote on this poll to help with the decision of organising it or not.
There may be no other way to find out if any of the candidates have any policies.
We’ve had a leaflet from Labour’s Ellie Reeves today which has no mention of Brexit and no mention of any specific policies whatsoever. Same for her website, but she may not have had time to get that organized?
Probably. Though her blog post on the site says.
One of the things that has come up on the doorstep is the question of hard Brexit – people really want to see Labour showing that we are opposed to the hard Brexit that the Tories are pushing through. What we are saying is that on day one of a Labour government we would guarantee the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in this country. We would also seek to negotiate remains part of the Single Market – because that’s the way we are going to secure jobs and prosperity for people in Lewisham West and Penge, and it’s a message that really resonates here.
OK that’s some policy
We could compare to our Conservative candidate’s policy.
Do we know anything about our Conservative candidate’s policy other than that it will be strong and stable?
Let’s keep the editorial in #politicos:general-politics please. Facts in this topic, when we know them.
I had a look in the Conservative office today, but didn’t see anyone.
I’ll pop by each day to see if I can get an update.
Believe manifestos are to be published between 8th and 11th so presumably we should receive a lot more info about specifics around that time!
Was FH Society involved in organising the one in 2015? I gather Jim Dowd did not participate in this one in the end.
Yup, he went out for a meal with his wife instead 
No. FH Soc was not involved in organising that hustings. We did try to organise the hustings but it fell apart for reasons that I won’t go into if we are trying to organise one this time.
Please organise this time Michael 
Although this was widely interpreted at the time as a political statement,a boycott rather than him generally snubbing the hustings. Whether you agree that was the right approach or not is a separate matter to the organising of hustings for GE2017.
It will be interesting to see which candidates might want to participate in hustings this time round.
I have some experience organising these things if anyone wants any advice…
@Michael I got Karen Wheller (Green Party candidate) phone number incase you want to contact her about attending if this goes ahead - let me know if you want it & I’ll email it to you
A post was split to a new topic: Election 2017 Candidates - John Russell (Lib Dem)
It was my understanding that the 2015 hustings organised by the Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society fell apart because candidates refused to appear alongside the openly racist candidate from LibertyGB and because the church venue couldn’t accept that candidate because LibertyGB does not accept religious freedom
Would a planned hustings invite all standing candidates or only those candidates representing parties with more than 1% at the last general election?
I’m not a fan of hustings that include all candidates. For instance, at a 2015 Camberwell and Peckham hustings I attended, I don’t think the participation from the candidate for Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol (CISTA) made a great contribution to the event. And while the Whig Party candidate was well-spoken and funny I would’ve preferred to hear more from the main candidates rather than a party that polled near to 0%.
Agreed. From what I recall of the hustings at the Honor Oak, it got really sidetracked challenging the bigotry of the LibertyGB candidate which meant we missed out on substantive discussion of other issues.
I agree with you and @starman but could a hustings that excluded some candidates face a threat of legal challenge? I’ve no idea - just concerned.
If organised perhaps by a public institution such as the BBC. Perhaps yes. But a privately ran one? I doubt it.
I checked with the electoral commission after being challenged on a 5% threshold for hustings and they confirmed that it is perfectly acceptable. That would be the threshold so there would be a maximum of five candidates. Other groups may choose to hold hustings with more or less candidates but the 5% threshold is what i would recommend.
So based on the previous result? I guess there must be some degree of flexibility in regard to formation of new parties. Could you imagine in the same rule was applied to French En Marche party?
If there was a massive shake up in British politics (or local politics) these criteria might not be valid. But the five parties with >5% are the main parties in National (English) politics as well as having demonstrated their appeal to the local community.
Incidentally, it wouldn’t matter if I picked 5% or 1% the candidates would be the same this time. The criteria we used last time was in fact 1%, so I should probably stick to that figure of 1%. But having more than five candidates in a panel discussion limits the ability to get answers from the candidates.
OMG yes!
An American solution in the past has been to have a separate debate/hustings for those minority parties.
It’s your event, invite who you want. Only national broadcasters have to obey rules on balance of reporting as anyone who has picked up a newspaper has probably noted. And that’s only during an election campaign.
If you want to have an “objective” criteria, perhaps a 5% threshold would work. You could either base that on previous results (which are only 2 years old, so probably reasonably current) or national polling. What I will say is that having an objective threshold decided in advance won’t stop the excluded from complaining, but will at least give a fair answer if contacted by the press.
I think this is perfect for a local hustings, hope you go ahead with it
Of the parties who polled in the top five in 2015, all but UKIP have selected their PPC for Lewisham West & Penge. Is now a good time to try and arrange the hustings?
As I don’t rate any current Party Leader, this time round I will place my vote for who I think with be the best representative for the constituency. So would love to see a lot of local content included in the hustings.
I don’t disagree with you, but deciding hustings questions probably merits its own topic in #politicos:local-politics
Are the hustings at the Banquet Hall on Perry Vale on 23rd May separate to hustings being discussed here? Or have they superseded those? Either way, I’m pleased to see hustings happening. I love hustings.
Hi @helensulis - where did you hear about those hustings, please? I’m interested to attend and can’t find any information online.
Oh sorry, that would have been helpful of me, wouldn’t it! I’m on the Sydenham Society email list. Bizarrely, they were described as the “Sydenham West” hustings, which might be why a google for the constituency name hasn’t helped.
