 Ffnwneud. My name is Liam McArthur. I'm one of the deputy presiding officers here in the Scottish Parliament and a warm welcome to all of you to this event as part of the 2023 Festival of Politics. Some of you will know we're celebrating our 19th year of the festival providing provocative, inspiring and informing, informative debates on a range of different topics. We're delighted you can join us today to participate in the session on how to disagree agreeably. I was remarking to somebody earlier, there's one or two of my colleagues can't even agree agreeably, but I don't see any of them in the audience this afternoon, sadly. We're doing this in partnership with the John Smith Centre and many thanks to them for that partnership. Later I will be inviting you to take part in the discussion, but for now I will move swiftly over to introducing our panellists. I'm pleased to say we're joined by Sheila Webster, Peter McCall and Claire Hannah MP. Sheila Webster is the President of the Law Society of Scotland for 2023-24 and is a partner and head of Davidson Chalmers Stuart Dispute Resolution Team. She is described as, and I'm quoting the Queen of Property Litigation in Scotland, a title we all aspire to, I'm sure, in some shape or form. Peter McCall is leading writer and thinker. He is the consultation institute's senior associate in Scotland and was previously rector of the University of Edinburgh. Finally, Claire Hannah MP is the SDLP's spokesperson on Europe and International Affairs and sits on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster. I invite you to give all three panellists a warm welcome. As I say, I'll be inviting you to join in so please have your questions or comments ready to go, but if I could maybe start by just asking each of the panellists whether or not they would agree that we are witnessing perhaps an increased level of polarisation in our political and public discourse in this country, perhaps more widely, and what this does in terms of making it more difficult to disagree agreeably. Maybe can I start with you Peter and we'll move along the panel Peter? Yeah, so I mean I think it definitely does feel like there's a great deal more animation in politics at the moment. It feels like people are a bit angrier that things are, it's more difficult to have a conversation that you feel comfortable about. I'm in some ways, in some ways I think that's a good thing and that's probably not what we're meant to say on this panel, but I think when we look at the seriousness of the issues that are facing us, we've had a really serious shock in the last six months around artificial intelligence and there's some events later in the week on that. I think for a lot of us the climate crisis is reaching a crunch point where we have to take really serious action at this point and that means that people are much more concerned about the issues that we're talking about at the moment. I think that adds to the level of energy and debate, but it makes it even more important that we debate and discuss things in a way that gets us to a resolution and doesn't get as deeper into the set of problems that we're in at the moment. So I think in some ways the first thing we need to do is recognise that there are serious issues and there are serious issues that need to be dealt with so we have to acknowledge the things that are of significance to us as a society, as a world, but also we need to find ways in which we can discuss and agree on those things in a way that allows everybody to feel that the right decision has been made, not necessarily that it's one they agree with but that it's been a process that they've followed, that they've felt allowed them to have their viewpoint heard and there's a concept that we've talked a lot about at Young Academy of Scotland which is called losers consent. If you work through a process where you try to ensure that the loser will consent to the outcome then you'll have a better process. That's not to say you shouldn't discuss serious things in a way that deals with the seriousness of the issues but you should have a process where everybody feels that whatever the outcome that they've been able to be part of that process so I think yes we do have more contention but that contention is commensurate with the seriousness of the issues, what we need to do is find ways to discuss, to talk about things and to be together in a way that gets us to conclusions not that deepens the schisms that we have. Thanks Peter, clear. You may be reflecting on some of what Peter said but also that point about where issues become quite binary and it's quite easy to get entrenched that that point Peter was making about it not being a case of winner takes all that actually there needs to be some accommodation of those who may have not necessarily won the argument but can't then simply be marginalised as a result of the outcome of whether it's an election or a referendum or whatever it may be. Yes absolutely and I think so many of the big political issues have been and sort of almost existential I mean I'm obviously a politician from Belfast and for years have lamented the state of our politics and trying to normalise things instead we've just sort of ulsterised politics everywhere else and everywhere else has become kind of extreme and binary and unfortunately we do seem to be in a period where for many and in many cases you know the mileage seems to be in the problem and in describing the problem and getting people all head up about the problem rather than actually coming to come into a resolution and I mean some of there's there's an increasing kind of expertise in making issues seem very life or death no doubt we have had very profound issues to discuss around for example Brexit and the fissures that that's created in politics but if you look back it's only over a decade you were looking at contests in the US between Obama and McCain and you go out you know I could live with either of those outcomes or between sort of Cameron and Brown and and now it does feel to many people like you know the the future of everything resides on on stopping somebody coming in or coming out and I wish there was a great philosophy for agreeing disagreeably I suppose it's just finding the good faith actors that that that that are there and trying to build as much consensus and reassurance into the decisions that do get made I mean it's it's held as a as a bit of a truism that for all that the siren voices on on the extremes are are very visible in campaigns are very visible through media social media there actually elections tend to be won and lost on the center ground you think that's that's now changed I mean you've given examples of where actually the the the principal candidates in leadership roles on on on both sides are more to the more to the extreme so have we seen a shift in that do you think? Well in the main actually when you look at the number of policy quite often there isn't a lot of space you know it's classic if you're setting up an ice cream stand you go and you set it up beside the other ice cream stand you know because that's where the the market is and in a lot of cases that's what's happening in politics but where maybe the noise and the disagreement and the and the the fight that really is going on is on more tangential issues and I suppose what we would characterize and sometimes it's a bit simplistic as as as culture war maybe the issues that actually aren't fundamental and and people weren't anticipating would or should be you know the the core things that we need to decide on and agree on for running the region or running the country you know there there there may be um you know just issues to say that people believe that they can get mileage on and believe that they can set a trap for their for their opponent on. Sheila you come from a background where in a sense I suppose um you agree um or you disagree agreeably all the time you're within the framework of the law um you you argue your case but but in a sense um everybody seems to understand the rules and all the rest of it is it are you sort of concerned by what you see in terms of that wider public and political discourse? I am uh I'm just checking whether or not my mic is working or not we've got a backup here um but you know I can speak a little bit um that's absolutely right I think my background is as a litigation solicitor that's what I've done for my entire career uh so inevitably that my job is about disagreeing um I am both concerned and saddened um even in my profession that I perceive there to be an increasing amount of disagreeable uh issues just the way people approach things it seems and I think this is probably within the last decade that I see increasingly people personalising things in a way that is not appropriate to my mind I mean I I think we do a job um our job is to present a case for a client it is not to take on that client's persona and be the client we're not the client we're there to represent clients and to present a case in the best possible way and it bothers me that we see that same thing that in wider politics both in this country and indeed across the world uh but that same thing is happening in our profession that people seem to want to personalise things which I don't think is helpful at all um for me it's about listening um I think you know it's a bit of a cliché but you know we have two years in one mouth and that proportion is probably appropriate and I do question whether or not we listen well enough to people um so for me that's it's becoming a big problem I think I think it becomes difficult then to manage a case certainly in my profession to manage cases and manage argument it's what we do but you can do that in a way that doesn't become the extremes and actually create more problems rather than try and work towards a solution it's possible to work towards a solution and to my mind that's what we should be doing I mean that point you make about listening I was it's unusual to promote events that have taken place but but indulge me I there was in conversation with Dame Evelyn Glenn this morning and and she was she offered some really kind of thoughtful insights into how we learned to listen much more deeply and profoundly and it does seem to to be the case that a lot of the debates we have now are about the exchanges of preconceived ideas as opposed to responding to the nuance of the detail of the argument that's being being put to you by the other side other than the kind of anticipation of what the argument would be and therefore the kind of pre-prepared response lines to that I mean how do we kind of move away from that to to to inculcate a greater sense of of importance in that act of listening as well as communication I think we have to recognise that the language we use can be a huge influence on that you know I was reading an article by someone who's very well known in this field John Starwick who wrote an article and you can find it on his website it was a letter to our first minister when he took over at the end of March and he talks about if we approach things as an opportunity rather than as a threat and the lack and if your language reflects that you know how can we fix this rather than here's my thought and can I just tell you why I'm right and you're wrong if you approach things in that way then it seems to me that if we if we start by recognising that we have the language that we use in politics in elsewhere I mean the world generally and one of them has to think of twitter or x with whether you've given over to the x name or not I'm not I'm sticking with twitter um but if you you know I think if you think about that and the kind of language we see on there is that really listening and how are we if we if we approach it as a threat in an accusatory language then this will this situation we're in just now and you know I don't in any way step away from what Claire and Peter have said there are some huge issues before us all in the world in politics and even just day to day life there are so many things that are really controversial and that we do need to face head on but do we have to do that in an accusatory threatening way because that is unlikely to find a solution and to be able to build on that for all of us to try and come to solutions you know I'm no expert in climate change and I don't wish to suggest that I am but those that are um you know it is clearly something we have to think about we have to address this now um but we're not going to do that if all we're doing is throwing brick bats and over the counter at each other that's not going to find a way that we can all agree as to how we can improve the situation the world's in and the challenges we face when you quote John Sturrick there I mean his background is obviously mediation arbitration and things like that which is I suppose the the art of of trying to broker agreements so you're you're hunting down the areas of agreement rather than amplifying the areas of disagreement I mean is that is that something we need to do more absolutely and give people space and I suppose to the extent that it's possible give give people wins I mean in terms of obviously you know this year in the last few months we've been celebrating a quarter of a century of the Good Friday Agreement and one of the the mantra is one of the lead negotiators Seamus Mann you say you know you've got to make sure that others have their bus fare home basically that people have something that you're not annihilating somebody in the argument that that in that case when you're trying that was a classic example of trying to get as many people on the same page as possible imperfectly but if you scalp people utterly and leave it so that they've nothing to go back to their support base base width but yes absolutely because that's the thing you know you you work in the common ground not everybody in in most places is going to have exactly the same world view but fundamentally and fundamentally most people in in politics which obviously the area I'm operating in have gone into it for honourable reasons and are are are seeking to do the best by the people they represent you know by their own lights you know in in terms of the way the way the way that they see it and actually so many it is it is actually almost easier sometimes to find a consensual position and not to be chasing the bit where you can catch catch each other out one or other but I suppose it is you were saying Sheila about just people not a sense that there is an effort to persuade because it's almost seen as a failure to to change you know you didn't say that last year you had a you had a different position it's almost seen as a failure if you say well actually you know in the compromise position I've realised that actually you know it makes sense to do um x y or z but you know it is it is perfectly possible and sometimes some of the the much bigger issues do moments to get resolved in that in that fashion no it's interesting you made that point about having your boss fair home I remember or the arson your trousers actually I was using the nicer version I'm sure I was I was certain I would be able to lure that out of you but I mean the other the other thing I've heard described was that um actually avoiding a situation where any any of the participants were seen to be too related with the outcome so having too much bus fare um to get them to get them home was almost a problem as well I mean that point um peter about um personalising the debate and when we I confess we see that quite a bit here where in a sense you're you're playing the man not the ball and you're not engaging necessarily with the nuance of the or even the broad sweep of the issue you're actually just looking to take out um the the the the participant I mean is that is that something you've seen get worse and it's clearly not helpful in terms of finding a way to disagree agreeably when I think there's an there's an interesting thing here which is about the structure of rewards uh and the reason why people behave in the way in which they behave is sometimes because they can't control themselves but very often it's because of the rewards that are set out for particular ways of behaving and uh I mean the the chamber here is set out so that you're not really meant to be able to shout at one another uh people do really do manage it and I mean I mean it's taken on some of the characteristics of confrontational parliaments where you know you're you're separated by is it two sword widths um and uh and and the reason why that that happens is because if you want to get on the evening news then what you do is you come up with a zinger and you hit your opponent with that and you'll and you'll have that reported the structure of reward which is you you get attention and you get profile is around who is making the most controversial statement and I think uh for all sorts of reasons Donald Trump has been able to um I don't like the word hack but he's been able to hack the system so that he gets so much attention for what he says and what he does that nobody else can get any oxygen in the room and and and what we need to do is start structuring our rewards so that we don't reward that sort of behavior if there are sanctions for that sort of behavior instead of rewards then I think you will begin to see behaviors changing because if you reward people like that you end up with everybody getting pulled into that same model of behavior and you end up with a downward spiral and I and I think that's that's really what what's happened and that's that's how we end up in this situation and I mean I think US politics has ended up with it in in in an almost in an almost caricature of that sort of that sort of policy I mean you get people to talk about disagreement and politics and of course you end up with two people from Belfast but I mean you know the ulsterisation of politics elsewhere I don't think it's anything to do with Ulster at all well I mean other than the foundation of the United States but maybe come back to that later but but I mean I think American politics has ended up in that in that in that very polarized position because of the structure of of those of those rewards you get more attention you get more media time if you say something that's that's completely out there people will report it it'll be exciting and I mean Liam you suggested that elections were one in the middle and I think I think actually elections are one in two different places sometimes they're one in the middle but sometimes they're one by energising people in different spaces and I think that's that was the thing that Donald Trump unlocked he didn't go anywhere near the middle ground so the republicans had a review after the 2012 election where they said we need to appeal to a wider range of voters and Donald Trump said I'm not going to appeal to a wider range of voters I'm going to excite a narrower range of voters and that was very successful for him and that's that there's a reward there um no he does it on things that I profoundly disagree with it's not to say that you couldn't do that about things that might not be a bad thing you know at times there there there might be things that you would want to excite voters around but if you structure your rewards around that excitement then that's what you will get and that and that I think is where we've ended up politically is is around issues of high resonance and and people really exploiting those issues in a way that is often problematic and I mean I remember very clear the 2017 local authority elections in Scotland which ended up being about your position on the union now that wasn't really the question that was at hand and it was very difficult to get the question at hand on on to people's minds uh so it's a it's a question not just for people sitting in the Presiding Officer's chair I think it's a you know a question for for all of us how do we focus our politics on the things that really are the question being put rather than on what gets you excited and I think there's a there's a level of discipline there there's just one final thing I want to say about this which is that I think very often we do debate like running for the bus when you don't do any other exercise uh we only do debate where we absolutely need to do it so we only do it on things that we really really care about we very rarely debate things that we don't care about so we don't get the practice of understanding what it's like to lose on something you don't care about and I think very often it I think we need to do more of that and one of the things that Academy of Scotland has been involved in is debating in schools that's not on the old debating model but that's on a on a debating model that does create those those rewards around more reason to debate and actually addressing the issue at hand and I think we need to do more of that not just in schools but but as a society we need to do more play debating more more talking about how we might disagree about things we we were believe it or not we were talking about Harry Styles before we came in here um talking more about why you do or don't like Harry Styles might be a really useful thing in helping us to understand the structure of debate and what you can do in debate to try and win other people over in a reasonable way would you find people who don't like him though to put his minimum I'm sure we could guys you've put on the record I was excluded from that debate clearly my views on Harry Styles were seen as beyond the beyond the pale um no I your point about the horseshoe chamber is is is absolutely correct I mean you can be pretty hostile to somebody that's sitting behind you believe it or not and and interestingly actually some of those who's you say in terms of that reward can be most aggressive in the way they put across their argument are often the ones that are quickest to complain when the when the tables are turned and and they become the the subject of that more aggressive behaviour right we've warmed you up sufficiently I think that we can we can open the floor to uh questions and comments if you could maybe keep them um relatively brief um then we can get through more of them we have a roving mic um which is being waved around in the air so if you stick up your hand and I'll point to you and wait for the mic um and then fire on so the lady there in the middle middle row yeah hi um is the genie out of the bottle is there any way to go back from this highly adversarial approach that we have in politics now clear going to come to you first with that I think there is but we really we do have to change your behaviours and it's right it's it's correct that you're rewarded for the job and and and kind of and I know that you have you post something on twitter um and it's you know a nice nuanced points that you've made about some aspect of public services and nobody cares but if you sort of own somebody else in the chamber the the likes and the retreats it so we do I think that's a very good point about about uh changing um the rewards and I think we have to force some of that nuance back into debate and maybe some of that is around broadcasters as well to the extent that people are still consuming their media in that way to sort of be a little bit more forceful and saying I'm going to take a minute to to set this out you know in rather than being some of the programmes being set up right I'm going to put these two cats in a bag and and let you go and I think to the extent that people who are participating in the programmes do cooperate and pushing back on that and not always take the bait and not always kind of savagely go after the person the presenter wants you to go back but it is difficult because actually all of us as as electors as well have an insatiable demand for for simple answers for people we all we all want things to be presented to us in the 32nd sound right we all want to know that there is a you know nobody really wants to hear that actually this is quite a wicked problem and it's going to take you know we're not all going to get um all that we want so it is sometimes it does feel that it's slipping further and further away and if you look at other places if you were talking about us where where there appears you know a real um uh you know like a slipped into a very conspiratorial place in terms of the politics you wonder how on earth um that will ever be I'm not answering this a promise I'm putting it on I'm doing it on the store but as I should have done um you're you're you know how will that ever get back into that place but I think it does just it takes people to to take their roles seriously as as as kind of policy makers and contributing to the public debate and not trolls essentially in in in the public arena should are you an optimist you think the genie can be put back in the bottle do you think there's an appetite um genuinely then to to see that I believe we have to make that appetite I think I agree with a lot of what Claire said so that I think the difficulty that we have I'm particularly concerned about the younger members of our society children and the appalling I mean Twitter's an example but it's not the only thing uh they are being taught it seems to me possibly without us thinking that we're teaching them but we are teaching them that that is an acceptable way to behave and there are so many examples out there and we'll all be reading the press and you read the stories of children who have done some really terrible things to themselves because somebody is using Twitter as a weapon against them and and that kind of thing cannot go on we're letting our children down if we allow that to continue we have to do something about this I mean I think the last time I was with Liam was in relation to a debate that the Law Society of Scotland sponsors um one of our things that we do in outreach is to work to sponsor a a debating competition called the Donald Dure debating competition every year and the the final two years ago the children are amazing the you know that their ability to debate at really quite young ages is absolutely astounding and it gives me great hope for the future but equally I remember that night there were some really fairly ghastly things said about a very famous author you can guess who um and I found it really quite frightening that these children who were around you know somewhere between 12 and 16 were prepared to say things out loud and they clearly thought that was an acceptable way to present an argument and you're going where's the I mean I debated at school I debated at university we were taught to persuade not to just shout abuse at the other side and I think we're letting those that group of children down if we continue to behave in a way as adults that demonstrates that that's unacceptable the way to behave so I have hope that we can do something about that I think we have to look deep as adults at our own behaviours and what we are teaching that our youngsters to believe is an acceptable way to behave I think it's terribly important that we all recognize as an adult society what we're doing and whether or not this what it's going to do because if we don't stop it now these children are going to grow up to be adults and they're going to believe that this is the way and they're going to teach their adults and then then I have no hope and I don't want to believe that I believe that actually we need to really work very hard as a society to stop and think about whether this is the way to persuade people people you know all the things that that that peter was talking about about rewards all of that's absolutely right we have to try and understand that you know people need to leave and I'm a mediator as well as a lawyer a court lawyer and you know the difference that one can make to a dispute if you can work towards that middle ground to try and understand that yes you want x y z but they want abc so what can we do to try and get to that middle ground where we both get something out of it because if we both okay you'll both probably walk away slightly unhappy but there's a difference between slightly unhappy and absolutely it daggers drawn and never deal with the other one again the the reference to property litigation for me that's a big part of my career the difficulty is if you're going to have a relationship between say a landlord and a tenant which continues how is it helpful to get to a point where we're all screaming at each other they hate each other and they're just looking for the next debate is it not much more important that we try to pull them together so that there's a bit of a win on each side there is a reward for each side of some sort a recognition that we have to change whatever it is in our relationship to make it work better and I see it if it's done properly it works and you can go on to so what to watch that relationship between say landlord and tenant grow I can see that happen it absolutely works if we work at it but if you go in and if mr Sturrick were here he would tell you that you know don't go in with a bottom line it's not helpful go in with an open mind to listen to the other side and to work out what you can do to get something in the middle that works for both of you it might not be perfect for either of you but if you have a continuing relationship then that is going to be important that's a big part of the problem if you don't mind me just cutting in it is that in politics and in media in there isn't a mediator facilitator there isn't somebody who is trying to seek consensus basically and it is it is set up to be as as you as you put it winner takes all and again sorry to keep bringing it by it's just the experience that I've in in Northern Ireland when we hit a thorny problem we do always go we needed international mediator and it does that's that's where you somebody who's job it is to go right I'll I'll collect that bit up you know you all seem to agree on that and to capture it whereas that doesn't really exist in and even in a as a presiding officer that that maybe is what people perceive the rule might be but that's not what the rule is to sort of to sort of broaden out and find the ground and the people so building those back in because if you can't have them in you know a judge or an mediator type type type role we need to I suppose and we used to have those in terms of you know the global order there used to be bodies and organisations who were designed to to bring people together and and and to to create consensus and and I suppose the degradation of those in the lack of respect for them but but they don't we need to build them into more parts of of public life where we can I mean that that sort of presiding officer function within the parliament it'll be similar that the speaker in the House of Commons is trying to make sure the debate remains within the broad parameters of being but but gouging or using your sword and but it is about generally a respectful tone but but the assessment of what constitutes respectful is going to vary from from parliamentarian to to parliamentarian we don't have a list of prescribed proscribed language terms but but in a sense even within that broad framework there can be some very very heated exchanges which are them as as you were saying geared towards the the social media clip or the or the broadcast media clip I that point about and the way in which social media is may be causing the the debate I mean it was it was long held that people would behave in a in a social media context in a way that they would never behave if they were in front of you in a in a public meeting or in a one-to-one encounter I'm not sure that's as true now as it was I is there is there a sense that actually what social media is allowed to happen is a is a kind of radicalisation of of what is acceptable that is now manifesting itself back into those face-to-face encounters and engagements Peter so I mean a big part of the the project on responsible debate that I've been involved in was was looking at the role of social media in in this and we had a we had a a person came in and talked to us a guy called Kai Turnbull who'd set up his own website called change my view and I find it fascinating I find it slightly tragic that he couldn't make any money doing that it went out of business just about the point that Twitter was being bought for I think it was 44 billion US dollars and Twitter is structured in such a way that it amplifies effectively the loudest voice in the room and the person saying the most unreasonable thing and it remains something of a mystery to me why so many people are still on Twitter why people were on Twitter I'm on Twitter so do as do as I say know as I do but but I think there's a really interesting the thing is is structured around disagreement around you making outrageous statements and that's what you get rewarded for you do not get rewarded for reason debate or for persuasion or for helping to change somebody's mind now I think that this is a little bit like a child who's discovered refined sugar it's it feels absolutely fantastic and you can get I mean you I'm quite sure that the neurological parallels between taking a lot of sugar and having your tweet retweeted a lot of times approvingly are very similar and I think part of the problem is that part of my optimism in this actually is that people do realise that taking a lot of sugar is probably not a great thing for you to do and they learn not to do that and I think we as a society need to learn not to go for the sugar rush of that that outrageous statement that I got wound up by is fantastic and the person trying to have a reason to be it is something I'm just going to ignore and and I think as a society we need to take a collective decision to not allow ourselves to be wound up by this to not be the the slave of our passions in this way and I think that's that's that's where the optimism for me lies is that we're being exposed to this we weren't exposed to it before and therefore it wasn't it was like society before we learned how to refine sugar uh we now have to understand what what what this is going to do to us i was going to rot our teeth and it's going to make us fat and that's that's really problematic and we need to find ways uh to debate things without that invective that's not to say that the issues shouldn't be seriously debated and I think part of my issue with some of the debate around this is that everybody going into the room and agreeing with one another is not a responsible debate it's not uh a disagreeing agreeably we need to be able to continue disagreeing we need to be able to continue having uh arguments with one another but we need to do it in a way where we're not coming out uh thinking the other person has lost their humanity in this and and that that's for me what's really important can I just say that the bsl interpretation of twitter is a sugar rush he's a bit addictive as well by myself drawn we've got a couple of questions in front row and then the and then the second row there start with the gentleman in the front row yeah hi guys my name's brice goodall um pronunciation i him um i'm your divergent your diversion as somebody who's got a disability it's really quite difficult to cut through knowing basically like to get to really to get some like afford to to like and really to get some going through a decision making process is quite difficult for me and i think that um just to touch upon what peter was saying about like social media i think that what i have seen within because i'll work in social media communications and stuff like that and in politics and what i've seen is there is a huge emphasis on basically likes follows influencers and it's and there is actually some the going back to the science one of the scientific things we found out from a research character that research was that facebook um there's a new study coming out but i don't really know how how good it is but i think the previous study was much more peer reviewed was it said that i had the similar effects of crack cocaine on the brain and it was such an addictive an addictive space because it was it was it was fermenting the anger in it all that and i think i like to ask is that and also i've come from an experience as a climate justice activist is that i've been in spaces like climate camp scotland where basically there's like the consensus based decision making process where basically it works much more collegially much more it works to works to effectively get to a good decision and i just want to ask is i think on the parliamentarians who are in the room here today is that i think i'd like to ask where would you like to see social media on on on on how do we get to that point of regulating that because the problem is is that when instagram for example before it became taken over by meta was instagram actually um was going to take the likes function off it basically to try and be able to try and to try and dilute that power and try and do that and it was some popular figure out Nicki Minaj for example who said that she would remove herself completely of that platform because she needed that likes she needed that that that that social currency and she needed to see the followers and stuff like that and i think that's really difficult when you've got these big figures who are trying to who are trying to remove them who are just who are going to we're going to boycott a platform with that and to the law is i think that can we look to see if we can be able to make like the process of law less adversarial within the courtroom and more inquisitorial because i read for example the book by the seeker barister and i found out the hell the law is broken in england and wales and i think it's so important how can we look to trying to be able to get a model where access to justice and access to to really to get that process which you're talking about more accessible especially for disabled people like myself because as somebody is disabled i need a that i can i find navigating the law quite difficult so i think that that is something i just want to lay my lay my plane on it i just want to know i usually want to know what was the one direction of of of of the harry stills debate by way i want to i want to i want to know i want to know what happened thank you so much in the green room stays in the green room and we've come to you clear in terms of that regulation around social media i mean it is something we've wrestled with and nobody really has come up with absolutely not and there's a piece of vegetation going through the west moment has become unwieldy because we were trying to do lots of things so it's really in a lot of ways that's a very interesting concept about it coming back up the pipe and i do recognise that but it's almost you know the way people are behind the wheel and they're like in the horn whereas if you actually you know if you sort of nearly bumped into somebody on the road you'd both be like sorry sorry you know if you're in if you're in person but somehow people change their personality entirely when they're when they're in a car and some people are doing that in social media and i had an experience quite recently or was it just a community meeting about a relatively minor issue and i was making a point about a planning issue and somebody actually made a horrific very aggressive you know counter you know very i thought quite overblown and i was really taken aback and i thought you know this is this is us falling out for life and then you meet the person at something else a matter of two weeks later it's like hello and people just that's maybe how people perceive that they're supposed to perform that's how you you you express your opposition you know express it in very extreme and a and a sort of ways in terms of the in terms of the regulation it's going to be very difficult to get around i think the first priority is protection of i suppose young people and maybe people where they are after most vulnerable sometimes in terms of exposure to to very harmful content there's a wider conversation as well about about media literacy and social media literacy and and encouraging particularly from a very young age people to understand you know what's real and what's not real and also how you discern kind of good content from bad but i suppose it is unpacking the algorithm and the way you talked about Donald Trump being able to figure out how to push buttons and and feed people stuff that will either enrage them or excite them but it is just a fact and you can see it happening on the platform formerly known as twitter at the at the moment that um some you know the most the most you know in this for you anybody who does use this the content that's being served to you're like what made you think i would be interested in this and there's lots and lots of evidence um that whistleblower who who spoke in congress about basically in facebook within two or three clicks you can you know get people to very radical content if they if they maybe look at a page that has some divergent view on something like covid or whatever you then get served something that's you know kind of virulently and that's the wrong word but aggressively anti-vax and the next thing they're getting cute and all and stuff very very quickly so i suppose you know regulation of that how we do it i'm not i'm not tech savvy enough but i think it is as i say protection from content media literacy but it is all of us trying to and i know myself when you're when you're putting out tweets are you looking at tweets that have hundreds of retweets and you kind of like to get in on that action but the only way to get in on that action is to say something you know ideologically pure and completely true that will resonate fully with with one group of people when actually you need to you know use it to try and move a debate on a wee bit or to sort of as i say all of us in a role to kind of educate and deepen each other's understanding so it does as peter said we have as a society have to decide to use it better but i tell you those companies have a tremendous power in our lives you know we talk about this digital town square and it really truly is because if you think of something like twitter where many of us in in in these lines of work do spend a lot of it and you think you know i hear it but i don't know what to do without it and the fact that really you know quite quite mendacious actors actually just basically somebody who has the dough can can control really what has become the platform for a lot of information and public bodies are saying well check twitter for updates or whatever or having to drive people to this platform that is in hands that you know aren't entirely aren't entirely high-minded is very very concerning and the only way that we do do it is to regulate and i think the european union are kind of leading on a lot of that and really have the type of legislators who are prepared to spend days getting you know in on the algorithm but we all have our own responsibilities as well sometimes feel my biggest problem with the algorithm is since i hit my mid 50s it just bombards me with adverts for weight loss and orthopedic shoes which i probably need but i don't need reminded um i the gentleman the second row i think maybe and we'll come back to to the panel um hi so we're here talking about you know disagreeing agreeably and we're here with the john smith centre which promotes trust in politics and public service how do you think the current discourse of political debate affects trust in politics but also people's decisions to take part in public service more broadly let alone politics itself yeah very can i start with you maybe peter on that yeah i i i think there's there's a really interesting thing here in the broad movement across europe uh i'm going to make a political point here which is i think there are some people for whom it is advantageous if most people opt out of politics so the worse you can make politics the more undesirable you can make the debate the more personal you can make it the more unpleasant you can make it the better it is for them and that is that is hugely problematic and i think and i think that's something that we see in a lot of debate and i mean i think it's you know i think it's the donald trump approach is make politics so unpleasant that people who want to achieve change around issues that they believe to be important don't consider this to be a place that they want to be and the problem is that we don't have anywhere else to disagree on things and i mean a point i often make to people is that if there were a way to resolve something in another way we wouldn't end up discussing it in politics those are not the issues you discuss in politics the issues you discuss in politics are the issues you can't agree on and people don't tell but why are you always disagreeing why are politicians always disagreeing with one another well it's because it's that's the place where those issues go to be resolved by definition and and then some people will come along come along and say well they all disagree with one other can't they just all get along together and and there's there's a there's a real attack on politics and on the space of collective decision making and i think that's that's that's one of the greatest threats to our society at the moment because we can't decide together about where we go in future then we have an absolutely massive problem and it's people with other bases of power who are making that uh making creating that situation and it's something that i'm really conscious that what i've said is that uh you that we need to go and do things uh and that the only way in which we can deal with these things is not really through regulation i think it's really difficult to regulate on uh social media and you know i've thought a lot about what you would do and there isn't really much you can do uh other than taking ownership out of the hands of um idiots uh and and i think i think we all know who i'm talking about there um i find it absolutely hilarious that Elon Musk thinks his app is going to be where people do their financial transactions after his amtics when i wouldn't trust the man with my money ever um but so i think i think there's there's something around uh making sure that we find spaces to discuss things there's there's something and when it comes back to the Scottish Parliament i find it fascinating that it's First Minister's Questions that gets broadcast every week and First Minister's Questions teaches you almost nothing about anything uh and yet there are committee hearings uh for much of the rest of the parliamentary week in which if you pay attention you can learn an awful lot that's that's where the actual work of parliament happens and that's where people become expert around things and is the broadcast media interested in it? Not really and i think what we need to do is find the space where where we can have discussion of those issues that people know things about people are interested in where they share information and and knowledge and expertise and and we get to resolution on some of those issues rather than uh the bishbosh of uh First Minister's Questions, Prime Minister's Questions that that's sort of very confrontational politics which as anyone who's been watching this parliament or other parliaments for for any number of years will know achieves almost nothing i i had i learned i didn't realise that i wasn't a big parliament watcher before i was elected and i didn't realise that those aren't exchanges of information you're not going to ask a minister you're not actually trying to extract you're like writing a little vignette you're trying to you're trying to write a little mini play or something almost because i remember going well i could ask and they were like somebody else said no you asked that in a written question what you want is to and it is you're almost trying to entrap them or you're trying to cram as much into your your sentence and it is it's it's entirely unproductive and it's the bane of the president's office of life those preambles let me tell you make 17 quick points before i go it's the yes it's the number of sub-closies to anyone in one particular question that that um i think really gets the at that point about trust and actually who it's it's um either leaving within politics but within public life more and more generally or those that it's attracting in i mean are you are you seeing that in terms of of your own profession in terms of the roles that that people are prepared to to take that it's it's too much a hassle to be um a kind of a target for the sorts of of of abuse or attacks that you're likely to take in in those leadership roles i think it is it's quite interesting that it's something that we've been talking about just social culture in my office about why has politics got to this stage why have we got too many not all but too many politicians who appear to have whether it's deliberate or not i don't know i have a feeling sadly that peter is right and it may be deliberate but why why i have all the politicians that we respected when i was growing up and i'm obviously old but you know 20 30 40 years ago people coming into politics seemed to want to provide public service to do public service i'm no longer convinced that is the primary objective of some and i think one without naming names one can look perhaps south of the border at one particular politician who appears to have forgotten where the constituency that they represent and i'm not giving away who that is but you know there is they seem to have forgotten where it is um if the paper's press is to be believed and i'm you know there's a big caveat there but you know if the press is to be believed there is an issue why are people going into politics it it really slightly scares me that politics does seem to be somewhere where people are going in too often for their own benefit rather than for public service because because it's often it's often said but actually if you look back through history some of those that we respect enormously and across the kind of political spectrum where in their private lives and to some extent in their political public lives absolute bloody scandals but actually the level of scrutiny of their actions was considerably less than it is at the moment in a 24-hour media environment and a social media age actually much more of that hinterland is laid bare is part of that the problem rather than necessarily the the makeup of politicians changing i think it might be i mean i think we seem to have lost a little of our ability to build trust between politicians and the public generally there just appears to be something has missing it could well be back to social media as a problem and i have no more solution than anyone else to how do we regulate it other than through our own behaviours um but i do think because i mean it seems to me it does need regulation but i don't think i have any clever answers to that any more than anyone else does but it does worry me but i think you know i'm just thinking as people were talking there about my own profession and watching two different people both of whom i view with some respect one of them's me but that i watched two people and they're very different reactions as president of the law society since i became vice president i am on twitter i don't tweet very often i tend to use my twitter feed now to more promote things at the law society or is doing and things like that and that's probably one of the only reasons that i don't just come off the thing because otherwise i regard it's pretty toxic but my equivalent as leader of the advocates in scotland the other half of the legal profession and since there's more than that but let's just keep it simple the two halves the solicitor profession and the advocates profession um the advocates led by the very learned dean of faculty roddy dunlop he has gone out there and and fought some of the nonsense on twitter um you know so when people come out with truly outrageous things he challenges them he's prepared to go out and say no no no and he's quite willing to get involved in what i would call twitter spots and that frightens me i mean the thought of and why would i want to do that why is that helpful for me for the profession i just don't understand why i want to do that but but it means that we are on two completely different levels now i wonder why is it that i don't and i think that is because i have a slight concern about putting my personal life in any way in in public you know i have a professional role to play but i don't want to involve my personal life in that so i step back others with a different view will step forward but unfortunately i think more and more of us are sort of looking at on my kind of position and saying do i really want to do that and that will mean less people come forward that's going to be true in the legal profession but it's going to be true in so many other professions including importantly given the role politicians have in all our lives politics if people don't want to put themselves out there as a target for whatever troll wants to have a go at them people will not want to come forward and i just think you mean i don't know what that says about the difference between roddy and i but you know i wouldn't put myself forward the way he's willing to do but that's quite a big ask to put yourself out there and have people you know throwing things at you on twitter or otherwise i just wouldn't want to i don't want my face that well known i don't feel that that's helpful for anything i have to think about my own family and my own life and and if it's not going to benefit my profession and the role i have then i won't want to do it and i'm sure there must be a whole lot of other people and who would otherwise have put themselves forward for public service who would feel the same way and that you know to that extent i really admire those that are prepared to put themselves into politics and to you know put their lives on the line a little bit it's uh i think it's just sad we seem to have lost the trust because i think people put themselves out a lot to do the jobs they do in public service and it's it's sad that people are now stopping themselves doing that because of fear about what that might involve for them personally there is a third way between you and rhodi and i've i've hit upon it you get yourself a springer spaniel and then you put up a k9 shield between you and the rest of the social media world it's it's a failsafe right i've got time for a few more questions need to be reasonably quick and i'll probably only go to maybe one possibly two panellists um i'll start with the gentleman there in the redden gray shirt thank you you've talked a lot about trust and i don't know whether it just feels uh that we're in an era of much less trust in politics than we have been before but um you know what peter talked about loses consent it's very difficult to consent to things that you don't agree with when there's been a whole load of lies uh in the in the argument um i'm thinking about the Brexit bus with uh you know how much millions for the NHS every day and the day after the referendum i remember hearing Nigel Farage saying well nobody that wasn't true nobody really believed it yet the media continued to interview politicians standing in front of that bus so how do we how do we deal with these bad actors that lie to us if we're if if we're not to get upset and angry about the outcome okay peter you love that one out there so you deal with that one so i think losers consent is something that participants in a debate need need to be aware of and i think actually uh the people who advocated for Brexit are a great example of what happens if you don't think about that when you proceed through an argument i don't think there was very much thought given to what might happen if they won and how they might reconcile themselves to people who didn't agree with them so i think i think that's really important for me one of the really big things i still haven't got an answer to and i don't know i'm not meant to sit on the stage up here and say i don't have the answer to this but i don't have the answer to this which is and claire's talked about it as well which is what do you do with bad actors what do you do with somebody who's in the process acting in a way that is not authentic they're not authentically seeking uh an outcome from the process that the outcome that the process is designed to deliver and i don't really know how we deal with that other than that sort of social opprobrium that that we might uh deal deal with that in in in other cases um there's a sort of metaphor for twitter that it's like a party you know you go into different rooms people are talking about different things and i think somebody reworked that to say this is a party where all of the interesting people have left and now the people who are who remain are the people who are shouting their opinions at you uh and and i think that's a lot of where we've got with public debate and some of what i think we need to do is go back to the issues and i think you know we talk with great affection about people of an earlier generation who i think were more concerned about the issues and less concerned about politics as a spectator sport and if if there's one thing i could i could unwind it's the idea that politics as a spectator sport where you get a jersey in the colour of your team and you say that your players are the best players ever and the other teams players are all rubbish it's an absolutely terrible way to make decisions about things we need to focus back on what the issues actually are not on whose team is winning and whose team is losing and just one one final thing in in relation to what what i think we've been we've been talking about before which is i often feel that politics now looks to succeed in politics you have to go through what is analogous to a trial by fire you have it it feels like the people wanting to participate in it are having to hold on to a burning iron and the person who holds on longest gets gets to succeed and then people wonder why you don't get normal people in politics uh and and the answer is because you've put them through this process or a traumatising process we need to stop that we need to we need to focus i think on the issues we need to focus on who it is can advocate well on the issues rather than this sort of trial by by fire or trial by by media very often as one of the abnormal survivors we're still holding on to the um burning iron and your reflections on i mean that that's very about trying to get people to go into politics and and i you know you do you meet pretty you meet people in in in voluntary community sector who you know would be brilliant and people who immediately go i wouldn't go near it and it is in very large part and particularly for women and some of the abuse that they they perceive that they're going to get and that they they they vary off not that question about about bad faith actors is very because as i said at the start i genuinely when i was in local government before when you you people do seem to be less you know quite well motivated basically it isn't quite you don't have to be quite such a weirdo frankly to to hang on you know people can have a normal life as well and are or or by definition quite connected to their community um and you know when you're in you're looked at decisions and you do try and just train your brain you know that person hasn't proposed that cut because they want to see children going hungry they've proposed that cut because they think that the money is better spent here but that has become very difficult in the last few years and and i must say in a in a period around about last summer and particularly again pertaining into issues um in in northern Ireland and a couple of prime ministers ago um i i i did increasing leaf and i for me the last taboo was i wasn't going to use the word evil uh you know i was really i was really trying to find but i it got to the point i think last summer whenever i really i was struggling to participate in debates or in media without you know without swearing essentially without i was i was i was finding it very difficult to explain and to try and keep a lid on the anger and the frustration that people i represent um we're we're we're feeling who were who genuinely felt this was a very targeted you know somebody playing with their playing with their lives and you're trying to convey the seriousness of that but without whipping people up some of it is around the political structure the political systems as well and it's in two things one first pass the post and again back to that phrase you use winner takes all it is not productive at all and i mean um pr stv in different you know uh ways aren't aren't ideal but if in first pass the post in general you know if you can as you say motivate um a small maybe 30% 40% of the electorate you know you're you're home in a boat i represent a seat that's that is a four way marginal in fact it was a five way marginal the only five way marginal in the UK and it is one that four parties in normal elections get in and around a quarter of the vote so i almost you have to behave in a PR way you have to busy campus off too many people you have to you have to try and keep a coalition and that is very very healthy but you see in seats where people only have to get their bit of the electorate out and they don't have to make so much of an effort and similarly actually political systems that that encourage coalitions can um can be it takes out a lot of the opposition for oppositions sake if you look at the Republic of Ireland that actually tends towards coalition a few years ago anybody watches it closely will know that two of the the two dominant parties or the parties that had been dominant dominant for the last century fin of oil and fin of gael they're quite similar but they actually had they went into a confidence and supply situation in i think 2016 and quite quickly the noise and politics dropped because they didn't feel that they had to mark each other on every point because they were actually trying to so some of it is about the systems that we use but there are just bad articles in that that in there and i wish i knew i wish i knew how to deal with them other than amplifying the people and as I say finding the people in other parties as well that you know we're in it for the right reasons and and trying to convey your respect for them and your understanding of where they've come from um has just a little bit of a way um to stop everybody fault you know falling into that and and perceiving that the other side doesn't understand my view at all but but I wish I knew and unfortunately some of them are drawn into the light you know whether it's it's the thing that can make a lot of money out of it and some people it is just pure ego and attention I suppose yeah good bad actors in abnormal weirdos and we're taking self deprecation to to kind of stratospheric levels I've got um lady next to the gentleman who's just asked the question in the middle row and then I saw another hand there or there about okay thanks Liam just as a small point to pick up on Peter the parliament was never meant to have first ministers questions for the very reasons he outlined and it's a great pity we've got them but there were two things we hoped for with the parliament one was that new kind of consensus the new politics and the chamber was meant to represent that and it's no surprise in some ways given the global context that we haven't got as much of that as we liked but the thing I've been most disappointed by and it's increasing you've referred to Liam is playing the man not the ball when we set out this parliament was about the issues but it seems that it's almost because there's less that divides people on the issues they have started to personalise it so we plead to you and your colleagues as presiding officers maybe to start nailing some of that bad behaviour and name calling because I think that trust issue and the issue that Sheila raised about young people I brought my children up to criticise behaviour not the person and if what they see in parliament is what they're seeing right now why on earth in their 20s well they'll look at their mother and not think she's mad what was she trying to teach them and one of the things we used to say was this parliament only offered one threat and it was the threat of a good example so for me the more we can do to bring that civility back to the debate in parliament because the committees are invisible to the most of the public but I do I do understand the pressures you're under and I do wonder how much of it you think is about the social media the 24 hour media cycle and the fact that our journalists are still behaving as political hacks not parliamentary ones so they look for that divisive story rather than report on what's actually happening so the question is you know do you think the media is a big part of that okay um I would certainly I would I would accept that um but I think too often um as politicians we can blame the media we can blame social media but it allows us a I get it a free um jail card in terms of our own behaviour and as I say some of those who are quickest to to condemn are often the quickest to pull the trigger in terms of their their own um fairly kind of vicious attacks and believe me in terms of playing the man and not the ball in the debate within the chamber it is relatively easy for somebody who's not terribly creative to look as if they are attacking the ball not the not the man and and I think you go down the route of prescribing language and and being too interventionist in terms of behaviour at your at your peril um because as I say the tolerance of of what is respectful debate is going to differ from one member to another um I think my favourite sneaky line is I think you're too intelligent to believe what you've just said you know so it's your both playing the ball and the man at the same time. Well it was Dennis Skinner wasn't it famously said half the Tories are liars um was was up braided by the speaker um asked to apologise and said half the Tories aren't liars um so there are ways around it whether you're creative or not. Do you use Ulster Scott's vernacular I try to use as much you know you're not allowed to call Boris Johnson a liar but I've got a way of calling him a spoofer I don't know if the speaker knew what I meant. I think this is descending into a tip session. Aim to be helpful at all times. I'm conscious of of um running out of time shortly so have we maybe got a couple more questions or comments gentlemen there on the far end of the fourth row. I think that row is definitely winning it in terms of the number of questions. Hi there's been quite a lot of discussion about promoting more nuanced debate and perhaps longer more ratio based debate but how do we maybe encourage um the average person on the street that doesn't want to devote the time to looking at nuanced issues maybe they're not interested they don't care how do we perhaps promote engagement and interest among just Joe Blogg off the street because that can maybe help encourage better voting choices. I want to come to clear I mean there's quite a debate at the moment about deliberative democracy and citizens assemblies etc for trying to find a way of engaging people um on their terms and and in ways that that as you say kind of engage in interest without requiring them to have a deep-seated knowledge of parliamentary procedure or indeed a detailed knowledge of of of individual often quite technical issues clear. Yeah I mean one it is about realising and and politics as you say Peter was making a point about sometimes people want to get a smaller number of people involved but people you know feeling comfortable that the democracy isn't just once every four years that I'm going in and and casting the vote and that that you know they should have ways of holding people accountable and that they should you know feel confident to turn up and yes you're right deling down a lot of the process I don't even when I was in the council I didn't open my mouth for the first year because I was terrified somebody go standing order you know as they would and people try and close down debate by basically you know you've raised this at the wrong part of the agenda and so on and it is on all of us as as politicians that again I wish I had that answer to to figure out ways to communicate better to people I think for the time being and the plaf that the it is social media and it is trying to find ways to condense complex stuff and into into relatively accessible because people either don't have time or necessarily the sometimes the inclination to to read and understand a little bit more and it is also trying to broaden out the number of people who are who are involved in it because I would say I'd say far less than 1% of the population is involved in the boring business of democracy you know of actually you know going out and delivering leaflets and knocking doors and trying to persuade people and that is a problem that it is seen seen as something for somebody else and it's also a problem them and parties go to try and find candidates they're they're picking from the weirdos you know the people who have who have got active in politics and I think people believe because of the behaviours they see from politicians and political activists they believe you do have to be that kind of you know total total activist person and people who go well I would but I don't think I could do this or I don't think it could be on Twitter seven nights a week or I don't think you know I don't agree with you in in in one little area so I couldn't be involved in politics I was saying to people it's a bit like choosing a partner in life you know you don't have to agree with absentee you don't you don't have to find the absolutely perfect one you find one close to your values and you spend the rest of your life trying to improve it and that's the same with with with with political parties but it is it's just it is constantly seeking ways to try and make politics feel a wee bit more normal to people and that they don't as I say it isn't going to be something that can that is necessarily going to become their whole life and they're not going to have to hate the people in the other party because that just doesn't you know it gets the wrong people I'm trying not to be unsettled by the fact that every time you say weirdos you turn around and look at me Sheila your take on getting more people engaged in that discourse that debate I think you know what Claire says about simplifying complex issues I mean people don't have the time or the inclination and what are usually busy quite often at the moment hard lives and they don't necessarily have that time to devote to it but I can't help but think that people would be more interested in politics if we didn't see politicians just shouting abuse at each other and whether that's at question time or in the chambers you know and I'm not picking any particular parliament but I think that's an issue people are not encouraged but I don't know I mean it turns me off I mean you know there are times I've stopped watching a lot of the political programmes you know even things like question time and stuff like that I used to watch question time religiously how many of you watch it now I mean I just you know I I can't beat it I just sit there shouting at the TV because I'm just like oh for goodness sake you can't see that yeah I know but it is it is I think that's right I do think there's an education thing about it I mean I've watched one of my daughters and my husband was involved in one of the constitutional law cases and she completely she's 20 she's studying politics at university but she was completely disinterested what dad did was just dull you know like everything mum does is dull and she wasn't interested but somehow when the whole nation was watching one of those constitutional cases I'm talking about the prorogation case he came out on the wrong side but the the prorogation case just caught her interest suddenly she wanted to talk to dad about it all the time she wanted to discuss it in an intelligent calm way and something clicked in her and I watched that and I thought we can't do this we can get children interested you know kind of that was a 15 16 she's gone on to choose to study politics she can't do this and we can all do this but we all have a part to play every single one of us has a part to play to talk to our young people and those that we come into contact with in a measured respectful way about politicians not to buy into the just let's fling abuse about you know whatever we think about individual politicians and I'm sure we'll all have a few that we can't stand but you know if we behave in that way towards our young people we don't educate them to behave properly and to think about it properly and to actually have a debate whether it needs more formal than that whether or not we should have more you know lessons in schools about about politics and about civic society I mean that probably is one of the few things I suspect America does better than we do there's not many things but in that category but I do think that they do that quite well I've got a very good friend whose daughter has spent her last five years in the education system in America and it's been quite noticeable how much more engaged she's ages with my children but she's much more engaged in it because that is something they teach maybe we need to look at that but I just I think we all have a big part to play in this it's because it is otherwise it's never going to change and that's not good thank you Peter I'm going to give you a quick opportunity to jump in with um some very brief thoughts on this because they then need to move to the the wind-ups yeah so I think part of the problem is in your question you ask how do you how do we get people interested in politics I don't really think we need people to be interested in politics what we need people to be interested in is how decisions are made and I think we need to give people more chances to participate in the making of decisions and I think you know teaching classes in school is is a good thing actually giving students at school the opportunities to make some decisions would be a really good thing to do giving them the right to decide over over some things and I think you know citizens assemblies and deliberative democracy is really great because it's a structured process where you say these are the issues here's the evidence you can hear from all of the people who who've done work on this you can hear their opinions and you can then make a decision and in the Republic of Ireland they had two fantastic citizens assemblies one on abortion and one on equal marriage that solved a couple of problems that that the politicians have been trying to solve for 30 years and couldn't they've had a series of citizens assemblies that have been less successful and I think that's that's really interesting as well but giving that delegated decision making power on on tough issues is the way in which to get people involved because people don't have to be involved or interested in politics but everybody is interested in issues everybody's interested in making decisions about things that affect them that they know about and that's what we should be aiming to do some of those have to be taken at quite a high level and that's why I think we will still need representative democracy but the problem is that representative democracy has filled down into a lot of decisions that don't need to be made in that way and where we could get people to do that really sensible debate about something that that matters to them good thank you very much and a quick plug for the work of the committees that have been lauded the citizens participation and petitions committees currently undertaking an inquiry on that issue of deliberative democracy and how you dovetail that with an elected democracy so you give Parliament its place alongside that sort of process of engaging meaningfully with with people right and we've reached the end of the questions I'm going to ask each of the panelists you have a minute each to sum up how we disagree agreeably I'm going to stick pretty rigidly to those time frames and I'm going to kick off with you Sheila I'm encouraged I think there's like you know I'm delighted to see so many faces here today that people are interested in this topic and I think that gives me some hope that we can fix this I think it's incredibly important that we do learn to be respectful and we remember that our own behaviour teaches those who come behind us and I think that it is encouraging that I seem to be sensing a positive reaction to the idea that maybe we have to work harder all of us I mean we're a small group but I just think it's incredibly important that we do that I worry for our future if we don't start to address this and start to work back from where we are at the moment because it doesn't seem to me that we're heading in a direction that is particularly helpful for society as a whole thank you very much clear I have the advantage here that I operate somewhere else none of you know me so yeah I can pretend like I'm an exemplar of good behaviour so don't ever like water on the tv and watch me like call somebody all the names of the day or something but but I do think there it is it is in all of us to kind of stick to your values by the way and I don't think finding consensus has to mean that everybody's a blamangey shade of brown in the middle you know you can you can be very firmly here and I think actually people want that I don't know in the where I operate people you say look I'm a I'm a centre left you know pro new Ireland politician you can get vote you know you're not trying to pretend you're something that you're not but you're going for and I think the best tip that I got from from somebody who'd been at this longer than me was try and get try and go for the best part of your opponent's argument you know and that they are your opponent by the way you're not they're not your enemy but don't kind of pick the low hanging fruit and the bit where you can turn their words on them and kind of make an agent out of them try and tackle the substance of their argument to the best extent that you can and as I say try to amplify the good actors that are out there because it does sometimes feel like a losing battle because sometimes it feels like there aren't consequences to real terrible charlatans can can can get elected and and potentially get elected from jail and I'm not talking about Peter I think we all know who I'm talking about but but but but it is yeah it's just it's it's being who being who you are finding the good and others trying to find the best in in in their motives and not getting too sucked into the the cutting thrust of it Peter after that character endorsement from Claire and he thoughts I'm hoping the jail isn't coming too soon so I think I think the first thing is when he does the politicians to allow people to make more decisions where it's where it's appropriate to delegate more more more responsibility to people to have more of those participatory processes secondly I think we as people need to stop allowing ourselves to be wind up by people shouting on social media and generating that that energy I think thirdly we need to find ways in which to to really assess evidence and assess different approaches in a serious way in all of those processes and fourthly I think we should rename it Twitter and ban the discussion of anything on there apart from birds or Harry Styles look thank you very much and thank you so much for your participation a couple more thank yous and a couple of promos as well can I thank again the John Smith Center for their partnership in today's event thank our BSL interpreters Shoma Dixon and Heather Graham again for their hard work take the opportunity of a shameless plug and there are many more events in the festival the next couple of days and I would make reference to cheap food and mental health at 4 p.m. today and women of colour in politics and challenging racism due at 6 15 while tomorrow we'll have an in conversation with broadcast and former politician Michael Pertillo and a panel on talking to boys and men about gender based violence so a pretty eclectic but fascinating mix of topics due to be discussed over the next couple of days but finally can I ask you again to put your hands together for our three panellists Peter thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the festival