Posted on by zoe.buckton

Being in the QT Audience

By Zoe Buckton

 

I’ve been angry about this election ever since it U-turned its way into the public’s mind. Since Trump’s election, I’ve been very politically engaged. Whilst politics is a pretty negative space at the moment, the countless injustices have served one benefit: motivating the public to fight back.

Whilst watching the leadership debate achieve nothing, like a seven-headed snake with one invisible head, each desperately writhing for more attention than the last, I asked my friends whether anyone knew how you got into an audience at one of these things. Does David Dimbleby scour the web for the most representational people on twitter? Are people kidnapped by Theresa May to ensure each audience member craves nuclear war? Well, no. You just put your name down online. It’s rather prosaic.

I applied at midnight two days before the Leadership special of Question Time was to be aired, and I didn’t really expect to get in. The whole thing was a bit of a laugh, that bisexual arts student that bangs on about robots and socialism and ruins family dinners with political debate in an audience for the Tory PM. Well, here it is:

 

 

I got a call back at 11:30pm the next day, a nice man asked what questions I’d like to put to the candidates, and told me to turn up at York Uni at some point the next day. If you’ve been to York uni you’ll know that compared to York St John it’s a bit of a maze. When I arrived, there were press vans all over the place, armed police everywhere – including, as one old man pointed out, snipers on the roofs of EVERY SINGLE BUILDING. Cue intimidation. When I eventually found my way to the queue having nearly wandered into the spin room by mistake, I met Abigail. You probably saw her on Question Time, she was the first to speak and a UKIP representative. She absolutely destroyed Theresa May with her question.

Since I weaselled my way into the audience, a lot of twitter users have been a bit anti-youth. I’ve been told I am brainwashed, that I’m too young to understand politics. I’d like to confirm that I have not undergone the Ludovico Technique (that I know of), and that I understand perfectly well, thank you. I also got some indirect tweets from disgruntled voters in my hometown, Lincoln. Having seen the constituency flood with labour votes and Karl McCartney finally being ousted after seven miserable years, I feel much better.

People often view student voters as ignorant of older people’s opinions. But attending a debate doesn’t equate to ignorance. Before the debate started there are two full hours of practice debate going on behind the scenes, in which everyone chatted about potential solutions to childhood obesity without any bitterness or dislike. I met conservatives (a lovely woman called Doris having a ball of a time), UKIPper’s and Lib Dems (a young marine biologist called Elle) who were all equally kind and welcoming. Debates like this should be encouraged and participated in (yeah, Theresa) because they enable different demographics to understand each other. Unfortunately, old white men often have the loudest and nuke-eager voices present.

Before the debate you see on television airs the camera crew spend millennia on getting their cameras in the correct places for those who have been selected to ask questions. Unfortunately, only 15 people were selected, so my question regarding the cuts to the arts funding never got asked. While I wish I’d held back a bit and asked my question later, I was eager to take the opportunity to hold Theresa May to account, as she had misled the public. She continued to mislead along the same lines in answer to my question, completely avoiding my accusations to warble about ‘the coalition of chaos’, which she is now forming with the DUP (anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-line dancing).

Rewatching bits of the debate made me very happy. So many questions were posed by young people, and these young people knew their facts, for instance, Abigail knew that May had U-turned and could cite the exact instances in which this happened. I knew for a fact that May had not had the Brexit process ‘frustrated’ as she insisted. I also got a reply tweet from Guardian journalist and ‘Agitpod’ host Owen Jones which made the misery of the political climate a little less glum.

The debate was exhausting, I arrived at five to be searched, have my phone confiscated and sit alone in a crowd of 100 strangers. But I walked back in the pouring rain feeling like I’d achieved something. Whether it was escaping the gaze of May without being consumed in a Dementor-like exchange, or getting my housemates thoroughly drunk on their game of ‘drink every time Zoe is on the screen’, I was pleased. I will leave you with this incredible artwork by @yaqobhyndes , which proved to me that humanity will always contribute positively through art during political turmoil.

 

 

Views expressed by individual writers do not imply endorsement by York St. John University as an institution.