Posted: Wed 22nd Apr 2015

Wrexham.com General Election Q&A Videos 2015

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Apr 22nd, 2015

Wrexham.com has conducted a Q&A session with every candidate standing for Wrexham in the General Election, asking unseen questions to get their views!

A video teaser is below of what to expect, with each candidate having their full length video published on Wrexham.com starting from tomorrow morning. Each candidate was asked the same set of twelve previously unseen questions, with their replies and reactions filmed for you to see.

We are randomising the order of publishing based off the Wrexham Council notice of poll, asking Twitter to be our random number generator (below) with the first video tomorrow being Carrie Harper from Plaid Cymru.

Of course this means that some will get their videos online for longer, but there is hopefully balance by those at the end being more relevant as the election date draws closer. Similarly we wanted to ensure that every candidate had the full weight of a ‘day’ on Wrexham.com

We are pre-empting some questions about this exercise so have put together a FAQ below…

Q: What was the aim of doing this?
A: We wanted to put more information out about each candidate, and felt a debate would be less digestable and technically difficult plus videos add more colour than plain text. Therefore unseen questions would put candidates under light pressure, but also mean they have to answer, evade or pass on the question. The aim was not to catch anyone out, but give a platform for views and also allow Wrexham.com’ers a chance to see more about their candidate than just an election leaflet.

Q: Where are the videos of all other candidates?
A: We have a video Q&A with all candidates, and each will be placed online randomly one per day for fairness and our election page will have them all listed in one large video at the end.

Q: This is biased because of X or you gave X more time!
A: We have done our best to be as even as possible. If you are complaining you probably wont believe this, but it is true. Every candidate had the same guidelines and was treated the same, some took longer than others but one persons delight at detail is anothers preference for brevity.

Q: You asked one candidate a different question?
A: Good spot! As the 5th question related to the candidates party and an independent candidate does not have a party we asked it about the current government. Every other question was identical for each candidate.

Q: Why did you not give the candidates the questions in advance?
A: We would get bored having preprepared statements read out to us for every question, so would imagine others would too. Plus it is more fun this way!

Q: Why did you not ask X?
A: We had a list of around 30 questions that we had to whittle down to something that would be more digestable. There were some crackers we had to leave out, but we think what we have asked is a reasonable selection.

Q: Why did you not force them to answer the question or ask follow ups?
A: We hold great faith in Wrexham.com’ers to spot when questions have been ignored, spun, not answered or humans being put on the spot and answering off the top of their heads. The aim was to give a platform for views to be expressed and to give an insight to the candidates immediate thinking.

Q: Why is this just Wrexham, I am from Clwyd South / Eddisbury / Oswestry / Chester or Alyn and Deeside / A N Other Constituency ?
A: Sadly we do not have the resources just yet to cover all the different constituencies that Wrexham.com’ers live and work in. This probably frustrates us as much as it frustrates you. Press your local media to do this type of thing, as they have the time, money and resources to do it if they wanted.

Q: This was filmed at The Bank Bar in Wrexham, that seems like an advert?
A: They donated the space for a day and a half so it is only fair to say thank you! Plus we are Wrexham so you might catch the odd boy racer and church bells in the background for added authenticity!

Q: Who paid for all this?
A: Wrexham.com plus the kind donation of time / effort from a group of volunteers. To be clear the Council nor Candidates or any associated person contributed.

Q: The video is really well filmed, who shot it?
A: The ever excellent Leighton Cox, who can be found on his website here.

Q: This is great Wrexham.com , how can we support you?
A: Feel free to buy an ad, or mention to whoever you work for that they could…

Q: I still think this is biased so where should I send my scrawled abuse using my finest red crayola?
A: As you have put so much effort in to it we think you should keep it.

Q: I work for X and we would like to use these videos, can we?
A: Yes, these videos are free to use by any person or publication as the point is to get as much information to voters as possible. We would like a link back to Wrexham.com if possible, but if you are still in 1998 and that is a sticking point just bang them up! If you visit the direct Youtube video there are sharing options on there which are pretty easy to use.

Q: I have another question that is not answered above?
A: Get in touch in the usual way and if it is not rant written in crayon we will do our best to answer it!

As the videos come out we would encourage you to share them to as many people as possible, analyse and discuss the content and hopefully get people to take part and vote in the election!



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