Dave Reynolds attended yesterday’s Politics Society talk with current Conservative MP and Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Lansley. Here’s what he made of it all.
Andew Lansley, current Leader of the House of Commons and former Secretary of State for Health gave a talk yesterday named “Life in Government”. Lansley is a former Politics student of the University of Exeter. He was also elected President of the Guild of Students during his time here.
Photo Credits: Politics Society
He talked about his experiences as one of the most important members of the cabinet. He cited the media, judicial reviews, the strength of the civil service and Europe as the main reasons why politics has changed so much since the 1980s.
Without naming names, he believed that some politicians were in it purely for themselves but he wasn’t one of these. In an unrelated story, in the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009, Lansley was accused of flipping his second home, claiming thousands of pounds of tax payers’ money on furniture. All of this however, was well within the rules at the time.
While shadow health secretary, he accepted a donation of £21,000 from the chairman of a private healthcare provider. Such companies stood to be the largest beneficiaries of Lansley’s NHS bill.
The talk wasn’t the real reason why everyone attended. The Q&A session was always going to be the fun part. When asked for his views on the European Union, he categorically stated that he would be voting to stay in the EU in the proposed 2017 referendum. He stated that Europe being involved in our policy making process was a positive and that it would be wrong to make policy in isolation. However, he was sceptical of any more political integration between European states. He does not want to see a United States of Europe.
If he wasn’t a politician, he said that his preferred job would be as an archaeologist.
Responding to one of the questions regarding the NHS, Andrew Lansley told an audience member to read the Conservatives’ 2010 Manifesto. While this may be possible, it is very sad that the Conservative Party have deleted all press releases and speeches between 2000 and 2010 from their website and have also been hidden from search engines. At the time of writing, Labour have announced that they plan to do the same. All a bit odd!
Throughout the questioning, it must be said that Lansley remained a calm and collected speaker, answering confidently on a wide range of issues.
Audience reaction from the talk was mixed. 3rd year Economics and Politics student Nick Best thought “…the talk was really good. He dealt with the questions on the NHS from the members of Labour students with ease.”
VP of Politics Society Duncan Steadman said, “It was a great talk and I really enjoyed it. Hopefully we can get some more high profile speakers down to Exeter soon.”
John Chilvers was not so complimentary. He said, “[Andrew Lansley] didn’t answer the questions correctly. He tried to get around every question by avoiding the core issues. There’s a video of him saying that he wants to reorganise the NHS and yet today he says that he didn’t say that. It’s very good of him to come down here but unfortunately he didn’t answer any of our questions and he was very patronising to the audience.
Scott Pepe thought, “… it was a very interesting talk. It’s great to get an Exeter alumnus down and a government minister. It was good to hear a full diversity of opinions represented in the audience and as President of DebSoc that obviously is what I really like to see”.
A big thank you to the Politics Society for organising the event. They are delighted to announce that you can now buy Winter Ball tickets online. Follow this link to the Guild website.
Dave Reynolds
Did you attend the talk? Is this a fair version of events? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or write to the Comment team at the Exeposé Comment Facebook Group or on Twitter @CommentExepose.
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