Brown in Manchester

Brown in Manchester
Originally uploaded by AnthonyMck.

Last Wednesday at New Century Hall next to the HQ of the Co-operative in Manchester, Gordon Brown was ‘in conversation’ with Oona King.

The format was a Q&A session hosted by Oona King that started off with a few general questions on Gordon’s background and a few of the policy areas that have been flagged up so far in the campaign.

The event then moved on to questions from the audience and in the 35 minutes of so set aside for this, they managed to get through a huge number of topics including education, make poverty history, Europe, city regions, peers, party structure, Geoffrey Archer, NHS, along with many more.

On the issue of the leadership election, during Wednesday’s event he welcomed a contest, even though as it appear now one was very unlikely even then.

In front of the 400 of so in the audience Gordon came across quite well, and seemed to be trying to connect with the audience better than I’ve seen at similar events in the past when he has come across quite serious and a little dull, in fact there was even time for a little humour with a response from him on addressing large meetings, getting the response that he was used to it after just having talked to the deputy leadership candidates.

Other reports of Wednesday’s meeting that I have seen are available at Politics for People blog, Withington Co-operative Party blog and the Chorlton Park blog.