The five men hoping to represent North East Fife at Westminster in the next parliament came face to face with each other and the voting public at a hustings meeting at Elmwood College in Cupar.
Around 70 people attended the event, organised by The Courier in conjunction with the Federation of Small Businesses, and they were rewarded with a lively but almost wholly civilised question time session which saw no real punches landed but no embarrassing gaffes made.
Most questions were answered directly, although the occasions when fudge and potential conflict with political affiliations crept in were not missed by members of an audience which had a substantial representation from the parties.
Questions posed from the floor, and followed up Courier political editor Steve Bargeton, covered a variety of topics which were local, national and international.
They included the MPs’ expenses scandal and its aftermath, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and differences between them, and the reason why the candidates chose to stand for Westminster instead of Holyrood.
There were questions about how the candidates reacted to Fife Council’s scrapping of concessionary rail travel for the disabled and elderly, and whether or not they would be party to reviving a bill which would have had substantial tax implications for the owners of furnished holiday lets.DissolvedThe bill, which would have had effects in a busy East Neuk self-catering market, fell just before Parliament was dissolved.
The candidates are Miles Briggs (Conservatives), Sir Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrats), Rod Campbell (SNP), Mark Hood (Labour) and Mike Scott-Hayward (UKIP).
The most pointed questions were asked during the session on MPs’ expenses, when local councillor Roger Guy asked if the scandal had been satisfactorily resolved.
The first to answer was Mr Campbell, who said openness and transparency should be the name of the game, and it was deeply unfortunate there had to be a Freedom of Information request before everything came out of the woodwork.
Cosy clubs like Westminster, he claimed, do not like openness and transparency, and he was sure people had not heard the end of the issue.
Mr Briggs said no party had come out with credibility, and all had been hit in different ways.
He also made the point obviously aimed at Sir Menzies that MPs should be full-time, with just one job.
Sir Menzies said he had made no secret of the fact he did a minimum amount of legal work apart from his role as an MP, but pointed out that almost half of the people who came to see him raised legal matters in one way or another.
On the question of whether Afghanistan had become another Iraq, there appeared to be a view the two were different.
The discussion was peppered with references to Iraq being about regime change while Afghanistan had to be dealt with as the place where terrorists who committed outrages had been harboured.StrategyMr Hood said that after the election the situation would have to be constantly reviewed and strategy would have to change and move forward.
Mr Scott-Hayward said there is a distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan, with Iraq being about George Bush, lies from Tony Blair and illegal regime change.
The troops could only come out of Afghanistan, he said, when the terrorists are neutralised.
The debate ended with some humour when another local councillor, former Olympic runner Donald Macgregor, took the opportunity to heavily plug his forthcoming autobiography with a question about how the various party leaders would fare in a race of “indeterminate distance.”
Needless to say, according to the various answers, they would all have won.
Next week the roadshow will stop at Montrose on Tuesday, where tickets will be available for the Angus hustings taking place that night in the Park Hotel.
On Thursday it will visit Dunfermline ahead of the west Fife event at East End Park, while on Friday the roadshow will be in Dundee City Square before Dundee candidates are grilled at the Apex Hotel at 6pm.
The final hustings is at the Rothes Halls in Glenrothes on Tuesday, May 4.