I’ve been to a wide variety of meetings about politics in my time, and now organise regular Manchester Salon discussions. This event at the City Inn hotel in Manchester appealled because it was being organised by Total Politics as a Question Time event ahead of the forthcoming general election. The format was a traditional three way head to head between Labour (Tony Lloyd MP, Manchester Central), Conservatives (Graham Brady MP, Altrincham & Sale West) and Liberal (Mark Hunter MP, Cheadle) with the fourth panel member being David Ottewell, chief reporter at Manchester Evening News. Shane Greer, executive editor of Total Politics chaired the event.

Arriving at the City Inn for the Question Time, we were greeted with free flowing wine or beer and delightful canapes with a 70s theme served by a large number of very attentive and well organised staff. Prepared by the invitation reminder, I came armed with a couple of questions to ask, but no announcement was made about what to do with these. Thankfully I was stood by the person who had the pile of written questions, so I got to know where they were being collected. Collating questions behind the scenes without encouraging anyone on the night to write them seemed to miss the chance to engage the audience and encourage the widest scope of questions. More alarming was the fact that the pile of questions weren’t actually being looked through or read by anyone ahead of starting the Question Time, which came across like going through the motions of ‘involvement’ in the way ‘listening’ councils ask you what colour you’d like the ‘No Alcohol Here’ signs to be.

The first question, predictably, was whether the investigation into the way MPs claimed their expenses was a waste of money. To his credit Graham Brady just said that the claiming of expenses was a way of boosting salaries endorsed by the infrastructure of parliament and it would just have been better to be open and honest about paying MPs more. But both Mark Hunter and Tony Lloyd then went on to say that they as politicians didn’t want to have the responsibility for deciding on MPs salaries or expenses themselves and would like someone else to do it for them. Lloyd insisted he believed the political process was the most efficient way of changing the world, and yet he’d prefer some unelected technocrat to decide on his own pay because he doesn’t trust himself to make the right decision. And they wonder why people don’t trust politicians.

The next selected question on whether taxing bank to bank transactions could help deal with climate change began to irritate some of those who felt somewhat alienated from the political process in general and in this rather anodyne meeting, with questions being shouted out and suggestions that the all male platform was dull. Alas, it was all a little thrashing about in the dark, literally given the subdued lighting, but clearly there is a frustration with the way in which we are all being disenfranchised -  the public and politicians alike. Although Total Politics and these Question Time formats are responding to this depoliticisation, the overly posh approach that emphasises style over substance, with politicians rather desperately trying to win approval through self-flagellation, isn’t going to solve it. Alas it will need some real politics and a sharp and critically honest assertion of self interest and how best we can achieve it.

For instance, the dull Question Time format with managerially-focused questions could be replaced with a more critical assessment of the process of what’s happening to democracy today. The naughty-but-nice mini burger canapes we were served after the Question Time with yet more free booze were as good a place to start as any. Nice partly because it’s flavoursome but also nice because it naughtily kicks against culinary correctness. The Junk food: myth and metaphor discussion organised by the Manchester Salon in February was premised on the idea that such orthodoxies need to be challenged explicitly. And our immigration debate in March will open up a discussion that’s been closed down by politicians too scared of their own shadow, and attempt to pose a positive case for open borders without blaming the public for nationalist rhetoric or racism.

With the election campaign gearing up to be narrower and more timid than any other, the Manchester Salon is lining up a series of critical discussions that aim to get to the heart of why politics is in decline and totally transform it. To join the Manchester Salon mailing list, contact us and suggest the topics you feel passionate about and want to have opened up to a more critical debate.