No stars in their eyes as political junkies converge on Holyrood

LUCK is a fundamental part of politics and, so far, the Scottish Festival of Politics has seen precious little of it. Twice the organisers have booked big-name stars to appear, and on both occasions the high-profile figures have pulled out.

First it was Sir Sean Connery. He was scheduled to appear in 2006 in a public interview with George Reid, the then Presiding Officer. Mr Reid said he would not shrink from asking difficult questions, even about domestic abuse – Sir Sean has had a long battle against claims he once said it was acceptable to hit a woman – and the actor pulled out in fury.

This year, the big star was Annie Lennox, probably Scotland's most successful rock musician, with 80 million record sales worldwide. She was booked to talk about HIV/Aids in southern Africa, a cause that has become a personal crusade for her. Then, just last week, she was hit with terrible back problems at an Aids conference in Mexico and had to withdraw from the festival.

Both cancellations have been unfortunate and both hit the organisers hard – even though only one was self-inflicted.

But, with this year's Festival of Politics starting today at the Scottish Parliament, should the focus be so much on celebrity names? Is that the right way, or indeed the only way, of generating interest in politics?

James Mitchell, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, believes the celebrity names represent a mixed blessing, both for organisers and for the celebrities themselves.

"One thing personalities can do is reach beyond the usual political crowd and draw in people who would not have bothered talking about politics before," he said.

But he added: "They have to be very careful because, if they keep going on about politics and if they have made their money from, say, music, there is a danger that they will lose some of their existing fan base simply by going on about it so much."

The Festival of Politics has never relied only on figures from outside politics. It has also tried to bring in big names from inside politics, too. This year Denis Healey, the former Labour chancellor and Douglas Hurd, the former Conservative foreign secretary, will be at Holyrood.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, believes big political personalities are important to attract people to the more dry area of current affairs in general. "The soap opera of politics is always of consuming interest – it's of consuming interest to journalists, let alone the rest of the public. To that extent, it dominates on a day-to-day basis," he said.

"On occasion, we get key issues that really do begin to engage the wider public – the demonstrations over Iraq were an obvious example. But it is easier for a large section of the population to be informed by their reaction to Brown and Blair than by schedule 5, sub-clause 2 of the boring regulations of 2006."

Prof Curtice said politics was, at its heart, about communication, and one key way of communicating effectively with the electorate was by charisma and force of personality. But he said that, for most of the population, politics was not something they cared about and only paid attention to the news when it broke into other things they were listening or watching.

Prof Curtice said about a third of the population was interested in politics and two-thirds did not care about it at all – even though they were deeply concerned about the results of politics on their schools, hospitals and local services. He went on: "It is, however, crucial that they have the potential to get involved when they want to, to put pressure on the government and to vote them out when they want to, at election time.

"But, most of the time, it is only a small number of people who are really interested."

This does seem to be the experience of the Festival of Politics. Over the past four years, it has been hugely successful in appealing to a small but passionate audience.

In 2005, the take-up for events that charged entry was 68 per cent. In 2006, this had risen to 97 per cent. Last year was problematic for the organisers because of the election, and take-up for events was down at 74 per cent, but it is expected to head up towards sell-out status again this year.

With somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 people expected to attend events this year, the festival is not short of an audience. But is it simply attracting the addicts, those people who are so obsessed with politics they don't watch only the BBC's Question Time, they stay up past midnight to watch Question Time Extra too?

Prof Mitchell believes this may be true. He said: "These political junkies are essential to any democratic process. But the only hope of widening the interest in politics is if they bring along somebody else to an event and they start thinking more deeply about politics."

But he added: "At the end of the day, we have to be realistic about festivals of this sort; they are not going to transform our politics and we should not expect them to. We should, though, give them credit for trying."

One thing the Festival of Politics has done is innovate and make apparently dry subjects seem interesting. Two years ago, for instance, the BBC's Evan Davis presented a Dragons' Den-type show where MSPs had a couple of minutes to sell their party's economic message to a demanding audience, which then voted for the winner.

The lesson from previous festivals seems to be that most people do not care much for politics or politicians and would certainly not consider going anywhere near a Festival of Politics, let alone paying for the privilege.

At the other end are the addicts, the "political junkies", who are so passionate about politics they would wait in the rain for a chance to listen to a debate on the "West Lothian Question" or a new theory on the Barnett Formula.

In the middle are the interested observers, some of whom may be attracted by big names and celebrities but who would probably prefer to spend their money on comedians at the Fringe or concerts at the Festival itself. If the organisers can attract even a small number of these, then they will probably deem the festival a success.

What the Festival of Politics has done, though, is show that festivals do not have to be about fun, the frivolous, the arty or the sporty. Festivals can be weighty, serious and discursive – and they can be successful.