Gavin Williamson no-show for Stone Husting event

Update 11:49am – 18th June: Gavin Williamson has confirmed that he will be attending the Stone hustings.

Gavin Williamson, the Conservative candidate for the upcoming general election, won’t appear at the ALBOS husting event after offering us a date and then making other commitments.

For those who don’t know, A Little Bit of Stone is a one-man operation by me, Jon Cook. I run A Little Bit of Stone alongside my day job and family, and I do it for the love of the community that we moved to in 2005.

Democracy is very important to me, drilled into me by my mum from a young age – “I don’t care who you vote for, just make sure you vote.” Since its inception, A Little Bit of Stone has been non-partisan, giving an equal platform to all parties. It’s important that we get as much information out to the electorate and we pride ourselves on being a platform that can reach the majority of Stone.

For our 2024 election coverage, we were asked by our readers and followers to run a husting event; as we had done such an event for the 2019 election.

I’m going to set out the timeline here of the communication that we’ve had with Gavin Williamson and his team, using their official campaign email address, Gavin Williamsons public Facebook account and the Stone Coversvatives Facebook account.

Communication Timeline

28th May (11:28am) – After conversations with a number of venues across the town, we emailed all candidates explaining we would be running a husting and offered 4 dates for a husting in Stone. 11th June, 18th June, 25th June and 1st July. We asked for the candidates to indicate which dates they could make so we could try and find a date where everyone was available.

29th May (10:21am) – With feedback from a number of candidates, but no response from Gavin Williamson, I used the A Little Bit of Stone Facebook account to comment on a post on Gavin Williamson’s Facebook Page from a recent visit to Stone.

29th May (12:50pm) – I sent a follow up email to all candidates who I hadn’t had confirmations from to ask for availability by the end of the day.

29th May (4:58pm) – I received an email from “Gavin’s Team”:

“Dear Jon,

Thank you for your email to Gavin.

Gavin would love to hear some more details about the hustings and was also wondering if you had an independent chair in mind for the event?

Best wishes,

Gavin’s team”

29th May (5:10pm) – I replied to Gavin’s Team:

“Hi there, more details were provided in yesterday’s much longer email. 

I will be chairing the husting, as I did in 2019 – https://alittlebitofstone.com/2019/11/18/2019-general-election-facebook-live-husting-your-questions/

I’ve got a venue in Stone sorted; I just need to know the date to book. Please advise ASAP on the availability.

Best wishes

Jon”

29th May (5:43pm) – Gavin responded to the Facebook comment we had left:

29th May (6:17pm) – To which I responded:

3rd June (11:59am) – I sent the following email to Gavin and his team as I still had no availability details:

“Please can I get the availability for the proposed dates? I’ve got to give the venue and security firm enough details to arrange.

Regards

Jon”

4th June (10:39am) – I sent another follow-up email:

“Please can someone come back to me on this? Happy to have a call if that’s easier?

Jon”

4th June (4:52pm) – I sent an email to all candidates, releasing an additional 15 dates for them to consider as even without a response from Gavin, it was clear that we didn’t have a date from the 4 that worked for everyone. On releasing the additional dates, I asked:

“Please can I ask that you ALL either complete the form or reply back with your availability by 10pm on Wednesday 5th June? As I’m sure you can appreciate it’s a lot of work, and cost involved, in hosting a husting and I’m keen to ensure we try our best to get a date when all 6 candidates can make it to Stone.”

4th June (5:09pm) – I commented again on Gavin’s Facebook post that I’d already commented on:

4th June (6:51pm) – We commented on a post on Stone Conservatives Facebook page about Gavin’s priorities for Stone.

5th June (1:18pm) – I commented on a post on the Stone Conservatives Facebook page, asking them if they could give him a prompt.

5th June (1:30pm) – An email was sent to us by Gavin:

“Dear Jon,

Thank you very much for your further email. 

I am actually unable to do any of these dates, and I have tried to move things. I am actually only available on Monday, 17th June in the evening. 

I do hope that you will consider appointing an independent chair. 

Yours sincerely,

Sir Gavin Williamson “

5th June (1:32pm) – To which I responded:

“Good afternoon, thanks for coming back to me.

In the email I sent yesterday I had opened a whole host of other dates, can you do any of those?”

5th June (9:58pm) – Something also wasn’t right, as I recalled that the Brewood husting, was scheduled on the 17th with Gavin down as confirmed. I emailed back:

“Good evening Gavin,

From what I understand, according to the attached poster, you already have a husting with the other candidates confirmed for the 17th.

As I say, I’ve put out 19 dates on the spreadsheet I shared the link for earlier. I’d be grateful if you could indicate available / unavailable for each day so we can look what all candidates can do.

Regards

Jon”

6th June (9:29am) – A response was received from Gavin:

“Dear Jon,

Thank you for your further email.

I am only able to accommodate the 19th and 21st June.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Gavin Williamson”

7th June (11:06am) – With everyone’s availability now known, we still didn’t have a date available that worked for everyone – there were 2 dates that we had either the Conservative or the Labour candidate available, so I sent the following email to them both:

“Good morning, Gavin and Jacqueline. We’ve finally received the feedback on husting availability, and there isn’t a date when both the Conservative and Labour party candidates can appear together.

The closest we have are the 19th of June, which the labour candidate can’t make – and the 1st July, which the conservative candidate can’t make.

I know full well that our audience would like to see you both in attendance in Stone. Are either of you able to make the dates you’ve previously marked as unavailable?

Please could you both please respond ASAP with your answer, if we can’t reach an agreement then I’ll explain the situation to our audience and offer them the decision on whether to go ahead with an empty seat (I’ll probably live stream a coin toss to ensure transparency on which date is selected) or to not hold a husting for this election.

Best regards

Jon”

7th June (12:47pm) – The labour candidate emailed to say that they could free up the 19th, cancelling a pre-planned trip so the husting could go ahead.

7th June (1:17pm) – I emailed Gavin to confirm that we had managed to secure the 19th:

“Further to my email this morning, the labour candidate has made the 19th June available so this will be the date we will setup for the Stone husting.

I will be in touch in the next few days with regards to the husting location etc.

Regards

Jon”

7th – 9th June I was in correspondence with the prospective venues, audio team and security teams to get things booked in – it was only when we were booked in that I knew the venue we would be using.

9th June (10:14am) – I emailed all candidates confirming the venue, and further details:

“Good morning. The 19th of June is now confirmed with the venue and security for the A Little Bit of Stone Husting—thanks for everyone making this date possible. The event will take place at The Sanctuary Dance Venue on Stone High Street and is scheduled to run from 7pm to 9pm, with the venue open from 6ish to get people in and settled.

We will have a capacity of 100 people in the room, and will live stream the event on our 29k follower Facebook page.

For security reasons we will be using an online ticket merchant to ensure that we keep control of the numbers.

From the 100 audience, I will reserve 10 seats for each party to distribute to their own supporters – please email back if you’d like to take this option up. The remaining tickets will be available for the public to reserve, 2 tickets per reservation.

The format will be a mixture of questions that we’ve been sent in to our recent “Stone Matters” initiative – Stone Matters – what are the important issues for YOU? > A Little Bit of Stone – , and there will be questions from the floor too.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best regards

Jon”

9th June (12:13pm) – I received the following reply from Gavin:

“Dear Jon, 

Thank you for your email.

As I had not heard from you regarding the confirmation for the hustings, I have now filled my diary for the 17th and 19th with other events.

I can cancel some things for Thursday, 14th June, but would need to hear back from you within 24 hours in order to do so.

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. Sir Gavin Williamson CBE
Conservative candidate for Stone, Great Wyrley, and Penkridge”

9th June (4:54pm) – I replied back to Gavin’s email, explaining we had confirmed:

“Gavin, can I first say that I’m incredibly disappointed with this response. It’s been a non-stop battle for me to get dates and availability from you and your team in what I hoped would be a key town for you to secure.

You offered us the 19th and 21st in your email on the 6th June, with no timescale for us to proceed.

After this led to a clash with the other candidates I emailed both you and the labour candidate on the 7th June to see whether the labour candidate could make the 19th June, or you could make the 1st July – the only 2 dates that all candidates could be available.

When the labour candidate confirmed they could cancel some plans so the 19th could go ahead, I replied back to you on the 7th to say that we were on for the 19th June – just over 24hrs after you’d offered those dates.

Could I ask that you reconsider your availability for the 19th of June and get back to me this afternoon?

Best regards

Jon”

9th June (5:05pm) – I also emailed the Stone Conservatives, expressing my disappointment with the response that we received. I did explain to them that I understood that this wasn’t in their remit etc, but I wanted to give it my best shot at seeing if Gavin could be persuaded to honour the dates he’d given – and for which I’d worked so hard to try and organise.

10th June (10:18am) – Sir Gavin sent the following further update:

“Dear Jon,

Thank you for your further email. 

As you can imagine, it is an incredibly busy time and I am holding many events across the constituency. 

Can you confirm if you’ve found an independent chair to hold the Hustings event? 

I cannot move my commitments on the 19th. I am aware that Stone is an incredibly important part of the constituency, which is why I am holding “meet and greet” events, and have been incredibly active since I was selected. 

Yours sincerely, 

Sir Gavin Williamson. “

10th June (10:31am) – To which I gave my final response:

“Many thanks for your reply, I shall move on with our event on the 19th. If you have a statement you’d like us to read at the event, I’d be grateful if it could be sent over by Monday 17th.

Regards

Jon Cook”

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As far as I’m concerned, we had confirmed the 19th of June with Gavin, just over 24hrs after he offered it to us. You can read through the timeline and draw your own conclusions. I also followed up as explained in my email with details of the venue etc 2 days later.

It took 8 days to even get the first response about availability despite sending 10 chasers.

Organising a husting is hard work and incredibly time-consuming. I don’t have a team of people to assist, and I feel like I’ve done my best to find a date that everyone can attend, making it accessible to all.

As I said in my email to Gavin and to the Stone Conservatives, I’m incredibly disappointed in the way this has been handled. I would have thought that Gavin and his team would have understood the importance of Stone and its voters and worked with us quickly and efficiently to ensure he could attend.

We will be empty chairing Gavin Williamson in the husting.