"A Conscious Effort to Listen"

As chair of our local Churches Together, Marion our curate organised the General Election hustings at another local church today, an interesting occasion in what is a Remain constituency with a sitting Tory MP. It had already caused her enough of a headache when the Town Council decided the Mayor should not chair it and she had to find someone else. A sufficiently independent local figure was located and an alternative venue after the original one couldn't manage it after all. So yesterday afternoon arrived and virtually as soon as the doors opened Marion watched the local Conservative Association pile in and fill all the front seats. She read the Archbishops of Canterbury and York's letter about conducting the election respectfully. 'Very well said!' a Tory councillor told her. He presumably thought the prelates meant someone else, as the Conservatives then proceeded to heckle and jeer whenever the Liberal Democrat candidate opened his mouth. One woman scrunched a plastic water bottle loudly during his answers to questions from the floor until Marion gave her a Hard Stare and then she pretended to drink from it. Shocked by the childishness of it, Marion said she did feel constrained to say that as a floating voter she wasn't favourably impressed. I pointed out that, to be fair, she hadn't been floating in that direction anyway.