John Harris is spot-on in his comments about how “hopelessly rigid and formulaic the political mainstream now is” (Brexit, Farage, Corbyn all sparked passion – but there’s no sign of that at either party conference, 29 September). I’m fortunate to have seen speakers including Michael Foot and Donald Soper, whose handling of heckling added a vital touch of spontaneity. You knew they were confident of their ideas and argument. Speeches written by special advisers and robotically read from the Autocue cannot offer this.
“Heckling is good,” wrote the Guardian’s political editor Michael White 18 years ago. Allowing members of an audience a brief opportunity to express a view should be considered an essential part of a democracy. This includes at conference. Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer may lack sufficient confidence in their scripts to depart from them, but bundling hecklers out of the hall gives only temporary relief. The questions remain.
Mike Sheaff
Plymouth
• John Harris is clearly aware that the British two-party system is not in rude health (“we have just been through an election in which the two main parties received their lowest ever combined share of the vote”), so why does the headline on his article refer to “either party conference” – as if there are only two of them? There are not. I am sorry that Harris did not enjoy his time with Labour at Liverpool and I am sure he was right to expect nothing better from the Tories in Birmingham, so why did he not head for the seaside instead and watch the Lib Dems in action?
There he would have seen a leader confident enough to talk of closer engagement with the EU and electoral reform (subjects kept off the agenda in Liverpool and Birmingham) and a party prepared to debate Gaza on the main conference stage. There is passion in politics – you just have to know where to look for it.
Jonathan Allum
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
• John Harris is totally correct in his outline of changes in party conferences. As one who, in the past, was in part responsible for Labour’s conference organisation, who also attended as an elected councillor and as parliamentary candidate, not to mention fringe chair on Labour and the arts (Arts for Labour), I can pinpoint with precision the causes of changes in these gatherings.
Though it will never be admitted by the media, they are largely responsible for the dumbing down, trivialisation and boring stigma on not only conferences, but politics in general. The public in today’s world only know and perceive politics via the media. Over the years I have understood that the behaviour of the media – keen on sex scandals rather than citizens’ involvement in the governance of our country – is responsible for much, if not all, of the dire state of British political benightedness. The Guardian, I may add, is largely an exception.
Dr Ian Flintoff
Oxford
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