On 19 July, we were proud and privileged to host 80 students from Canterbury schools at a pre-Hustings Schools Workshop. In this blog, Amelia from The Canterbury Academy 6th form, reflects on what they learnt at the workshop and the General Election Hustings. Amelia considers the benefits of coming together with other young people to discuss important issues, considering how a community of interest can amplify political concerns and be more effective in pressing for change.

Our politics class had the exiting opportunity to attend the general election hustings hosted by Canterbury Christ Church University and a previous workshop aimed at curating various questions that us, as sixth form students, thought were important and relevant issues that we could challenge the candidates on. The hustings were an amazing opportunity to experience politics in action and participate as young people interested in politics.
Previously to the hustings, we participated in a workshop which gave us the opportunity to create several questions that we would narrow down to two questions to ask the candidates. It was interesting to work with other sixth form students from different schools and to experience a rather dynamic environment of young people who are passionate to voice their opinions.
I enjoyed how we were able to be involved in creating the questions. This was an excellent opportunity to express what we felt were the most significant issues in contemporary society.
Even though Rosie Duffield was unable to attend the hustings in person, we were able to have a zoom meeting with her where we were able to ask our questions and hear her response. I found it particularly interesting to hear what Rosie’s opinions were on the topics that we had selected to discuss considering she has been the Canterbury MP since 2017. However, it was disappointing that she was unable to attend the hustings at the university due to certain circumstances. I believe it would have been compelling to evaluate the contrast between Rosie’s views and opinions to those of the other candidates especially the Conservative candidate, Louise Harvey-Quirke.
Listening to the candidates was fascinating to hear the different viewpoints and different approaches to improving Canterbury for its constituents. I thought it was inspiring how the candidate for the Green party spoke passionately about what he believed in, which engaged me as an audience member. However, I feel as though some important questions were asked and candidates were not able to express their views in full extent due to the restrictive time limit in which the candidates had to answer in.
Overall, it was intellectually stimulating to compare the different viewpoints of the candidates.

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