Always looking to push the boundaries, the Lunar Society was proud to host its all-online hustings event in the run-up to the 2024 General Elections.
More than 200 guests joined the live stream to watch our Honorary Chair Charmaine Burton put their questions to candidates from across the political spectrum.
We were joined by the following candidates, who spoke about how their respective parties’ manifestos would impact on the West Midlands:
- Garry Hickton, Conservative candidate for Perry Barr
- Gurinder Singh Josan, Labour candidate for Smethwick
- Richard Dickson, Liberal Democrat candidate for Rugby
- Max McLoughlin, Green Party candidate for Solihull West and Shirley
- Pete Durnell, Reform Party candidate for Smethwick
A variety of topics covered
The audience, some of whom appeared on screen to ask a question, really put the candidates through their paces, with questions on local authority funding, the role the UK should be playing globally, the prevention of violence against women, and much more.
Making sense of the manifestos
Honorary Secretary Charmaine Burton said: “The General Election has dominated the headlines in the past few weeks, and some may be feeling overwhelmed by the media coverage of the main parties’ key manifesto pledges.
“That’s why we wanted to get candidates from different parties together to answer questions from our audience about their manifestos, and specifically about the impact they would have on the West Midlands.
“We’re really grateful to the candidates for taking the time to part, and of course the excellent questions we received from our audience – I hope the event helped make some minds up ahead of the big vote!”
We’d like to thank our event sponsors Bruntwood SciTech for providing us with the iCentrum venue in Birmingham and Civico, whose tech helped ensure the live-stream worked extremely smoothly.
