Tuesday, March 30, 2010

All for Charidee

Last night at the City Inn, I compered a political quiz night in aid of a homeless charity. There were 17 teams and we raised £2,000 to help the Acton Homeless Shelter. I set twelve rounds of questions including three rounds with audio clips. There were a variety of teams from the world of politics, lobbying and the media. The one everyone thought would win, from Sky News, featured Adam Boulton and his wife Anji Hunter, Niall Paterson, YouGov's Peter Kellner among others. But they only managed to come fourth. The winners put the rest to shame - they were from Indigo Public Affairs but only had two members in their team, one of whom was David Boothroyd who is a regular commenter on this blog.

Out of the 120 questions I set, I think there were only four which caused some controversy - and three of them had been sent to my by others. That'll teach me! The one which I still can't decide whether I was right to relent on was which of Fine Gael or Fianna Fail is more left wing. I said it was FG, but others disagreed.

Anyway, a good night was had by all, and hopefully the quiz will become an annual event. Well done to Vanessa Canzini for organising it and thanks to the City Inn, InHouse PR and APCO for their sponsorship.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any chance of posting the questions for interested non-attenders?

crayola said...

Fine Gael are in the EPP whereas Fianna Fail are in the ALDE in the European parliament.

Iain Dale said...

That was the argument put forward last night. Not sure it holds water. The ALDE contains the FDP, which is a Thatcherite party and very right wing on economics.

Unknown said...

While both are centrist and populist parties and both valuing electability more than ideology in their candidates, Fianna Fail would be slightly more left wing than Fine Gael, but only by a pinch.

James Chard said...

It's a bit arguable. Crayola has a point but Labour have historically been more inclined to coalition with Fine Gael for example.

To be honest it isn't a very good question if the answer's a moot point.

harold said...

Harold
When asked Charlie Haughey said the difference between FG&FF was the same as that between shit and shite

Penfold said...

Why was a taxpayer funded organisation sponsoring this quiz?
What right does ACPO have to mispend money in this way?
ACPO is a disgraceful QUANGO that needs to be disbanded, it is a political mouthpiece.

Iain Dale said...

George, yoou have made a bit of an idiot of yourself. APCO is a PR company. If it was indeed ACOP you might have a point.

Unknown said...

FF would traditionally have seen itself as being on the side of the small rather than big farmer, the farm labourer rather than the farmer and the labourer rather than the professional classes. Whether it delivered for them is another thing, but it's core vote had been more left leaning than FG's up to about 15/20 years ago due to the very successful clientist nature of their TDs.

Pat Rabbitte's (the leader of the Irish Labour Party at the last election) comment was that the challenge for Labour was "to get those who think Labour to vote Labour" and that was seen by all as aimed primarily at those who had previously voted FF.

Both FF and FG are broad church centrist party with left and right wings. The right wing was a larger part of the FG vote than in FF. I would say the left voter has gone more for FF has been historically larger than for FG. The left voter who doesn't vote FF votes Labour, SF, Socialist party before voting for FG. And the right leaning voter had been a larger component of the then much smaller FG vote up to recently. I'd said FG's policy stance has tended to be more from the right than FF but it has been in power less and then in coalition with Labour and so the policies implemented might be more left.

I suspect you're bored now.

Botogol said...

you should sell your questions - and answers. Also for charity of course.

Richard Patient said...

We were delighted to put you all to shame.

Richard Patient
Indigo Public Affairs

Penfold said...

Wotcher Iain,

Whoops.
Read it as ACPO, (Assoc of Chief Police Officers).

I'm orff to SpecSavers

Conor Ryan said...

Fianna Fail are probably more left wing on economic policy (even if their present policies suggest otherwise) whereas Fine Gael are more liberal on social policies, but both are a broad spectrum. Labour probably achieved most in the FF-Lab coalition from 1992-4, but their preferred partners have been Fine Gael, though this reflects traditional political arithmetic as much as ideology. I once asked the late Brian Lenihan, a prominent Fianna Failer who liked to call himself a socialist, who his European political hero was. His reply: Andreotti.