A very modern Q&A

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Traditionally at Labour Conference, the Q&A tends to be the leader being interviewed by a friendly journalist and taking questions from the assembled delegates – this year, we’re told that Ed Miliband wants to do something a little bit different…

The party will be using a hashtag (watch this space for the details) and invite questions from all over the country. Miliband aides are keen to stress that these questions are to be real, often tough, and not like some of the questions in the past. Hopefully that means an end to the “why are you so wonderful” type of questions that sometimes pop up in these Q&A sessions.

In fairness to Miliband this is similar to what he did in Nottingham a few months ago at an open event for Labour supporters. It wasn’t commented on much in the mainstream media at the time, but the difficulty of the questions and Ed’s candid answers were a template that the party should seek to replicate.

Another innocation will be “video questions”, which will be pre-recorded by some of the members of the public who have been invited to this year’s conference. Again, Ed’s team are keen to stress that these questions won’t be easy. We look forward to some tough questioning og the Labour leader at conference, both from party members, and the wider public.

This is certainly much more modern – and outward looking – than anything the other parties are doing (and compares extremely favourably to Nick Clegg’s Q&A format earlier this week). The risk is in how Ed and his team handle what are sure to be a significant quantity of difficult questions. We’ll certainly be submitting a few of our own…