It’s Question Time

Conservative

Julian Sturdy, who describes himself as a ‘local farmer’, was first to feel the force of our interrogation. We won’t lie; he didn’t get off to a great start. When asked to sum up his university days in three words, he replied with “great fun”. “Sorry Julian,” we remarked, “that’s, um, two words…moving swiftly on, what would be the soundtrack to your university days?” After little deliberation, “hmm, that would have to be New Order” he said, with an unrepentant grin. Oh, and his favourite pub…“Sam Smiths, Bishopthorpe”. Ok, starting to impress us now Julian.

Regarding the serious questions, Sturdy was focused in his attitudes towards politics. He cares about the student body, saying that the new restrictions on student housing was “a delicate issue” and that “politicians must be careful about legislation that might damage the accessibility of university to young people today”. Furthermore, Sturdy is outright in his conviction that British politicians should be held accountable for the debacle that is the expenses scandal. Sturdy said in disgust, “We should get rid of all the MPs that broke the expenses rules.”

We concluded our interview with some election gossip. Julian was quick to point out “the banter” involved between himself and James Alexander. Although poignantly he told us, “it’s a little more cagey with Madeleine Kirk”. On further questioning he claimed that Kirk’s campaign line ‘Voting Labour only helps out the Conservatives’ was a bit “disingenuous”.

Labour

Next up: political maestro, ex-YUSU President and Vision ‘stalwart’, James Alexander. Describing his university days as “fantastic, fun and wasted – educationally that is”, Alexander was quick off the mark to show the student inside him. He told us that his favourite pub is Pivo; swiftly adding to the comment with copious lip-licking, that this pub has “excellent beers”.

When we quizzed him for the song that would represent his university years, Alexander wasn’t ashamed to admit, “Rhythm of the night, definitely”. When Vision asked James about his presidency, he stated that it “was three years of accelerated life, you make some of the best friends of your life, but boy do you make some bastard enemies.”

On politics, altruistic Alexander believes that organ donation should have “presumed consent”. With regards to the housing legislation, he was a little less sympathetic to students concerns, claiming that the new legislation will create more diverse neighbourhoods, adding that more “responsibility should be placed onto landlords through tenancy agreements”.

We completed our interview with the same request for election gossip, as we had asked Sturdy. Alexander, however was rather more reserved, he claimed that Kirk’s slogan was “fine”, suggesting that he would “probably have done the same”. One can’t help but feel his response was a little bit canned, after all Alexander seems the most political of this bunch.

Liberal Democrats

Our three minute interview with Madeleine Kirk was as well received as Zippo the clown would be at a wake. We began our questioning, with Kirk stating “I don’t know how we can have an in-depth discussion in three minutes”. This, we thought, is not going to be easy.

With clear indignation of our three word request of university life, Madeleine Kirk barked “mature student- different”. We tried to break the awkwardness that accompanied her emotionless responses by asking her what song was the soundtrack to her ‘mature student’ days. Her reply followed the same blunt pattern, “Erm, motown. ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’.” Feeling that we may have touched a few nerves, we moved on to more familiar territory: politic

Kirk was in support of the new legislation to restrict student housing, claiming that “in built up areas, it has the potential to be useful in that it restricts multiple tenancy houses.” Probing her views on British politics in general, we asked her what she would change, “implement proportional representation”. In fairness, she had some extremely useful policies that would benefit students, one of which being “promoting the Liberal Democrat policy to abolish tuition fees for third years”, we liked this!

Kirk was quick to justify her tagline ‘Voting Labour only helps out the Conservatives’, claiming that it was a fact and that “voters are not unintelligent, they can work out [who to vote for] for themselves”. Kirk concluded that “Labour cannot win this seat”, although she swiftly added, “we’re not confident – don’t print that”.