{"id":1105,"date":"2010-07-25T00:25:56","date_gmt":"2010-07-24T23:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2010-07-25T00:25:56","modified_gmt":"2010-07-24T23:25:56","slug":"nick-clegg-visits-abingdon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"Nick Clegg Q&A in Abingdon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nick
\nThe Deputy Prime-minister, Nick Clegg, was in Abingdon for the first of a number of question and answer sessions he will be doing.
\n\"The
\nThe Abbey Hall (the modern annex of the ancient Guildhall) was full to overflowing – even though the event had only<\/strong> been announced a couple of days ago.<\/p>\n

There were questions on: the NHS (getting rid of admin layers, and nurses loosing lunctime break), Academies, Banks, Cuts, Benefit Cheats, Taxi charges locally, a bridge \/weir near Witney, building planning regulations, should he sack a colleague who had an affair, and one about a recent Daily Mail cartoon where Obama says to the Prime Minister on parting “”Goodbye, Dave. and give your partner Clegg my best wishes for the birth<\/em>.””<\/p>\n

Nick Clegg said this was something politicians have to expect – when they are trying something new and different. Now he is in power I was very much aware of security people round him, especially coming out between building and car. Not something you expect round a Lib-Dem leader. He engaged well with the audience – like during the leaders TV debates he would remember previous questioners and acknowledge them again when re-raising a previous point.<\/p>\n

Nicola Blackwood, the new Conservative MP for this area, was in the front row. Dr Evan Harris, her Lib-Dem predecessor was at the side. Nick Clegg came representing the coalition at this Q&A session, but at the same time, the choice of Abingdon – a very marginal Conservative seat – shows that the contest for votes in future elections is still very much on between the coalition partners.
\n\"People<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deputy Prime-minister, Nick Clegg, was in Abingdon for the first of a number of question and answer sessions he will be doing. The Abbey Hall (the modern annex of the ancient Guildhall) was full to overflowing – even though the event had only been announced a couple of days ago. There were questions on: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}