Take a snarling audience, add politicians and stir it up with a chairman who half-jokingly compares himself to Jerry Springer, and you have a recipe for a US chatshow.

Although the accents were Glaswegian and the issues did not include transexual mothers-in-law, the hustings meeting hosted by Glasgow University's Joint Union Committee in the Kelvin constituency resulted in a few flushed faces and frayed tempers.

The disorderly proceedings began with a question that covered the gamut of education issues, most of which were unaddressed at the end of the hour.

Kelvin's Labour candidate, Pauline McNeil, was put on trial by a panel intent on abusing the government's tuition fees policy. "The Labour Party should be hanging their heads in shame," cried Scottish National Party candidate Sandra White. "You, Tony Blair and Donald Dewar all went to university and never had to pay a penny. It's an absolute obscenity!" With a filthy look, Ms McNeil quietly corrected her accuser. "I never went to university," she said, concealing her alter ego as former NUS Scotland president.

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Tommy Sheridan, the Scottish Socialist Party's candidate and the crowd's darling, sympathised with Ms McNeil as the shrieks of indignation at student debt levels rose. "I'm sure that Pauline doesn't agree with all she has to say, but that's all part of the job, isn't it?" This was one of his few remarks to go unapplauded.

"Right, I'm the chairman here, so I decide who speaks and when," shouted Bill Stewart, Glasgow's Association of University Teachers president, as the SNP candidate ducked a question about further education. The undergraduate persisted as Ms White dodged: "I want to know what you think about the Kennedy report."

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Cue Mr Stewart: "Are there any questions for Assad Rasul?" in a valiant attempt to involve the Tory candidate.

In Springer's "Final Thought" kind of way, the panel urged the audience to vote wisely on May 6. "There really is a lot of common ground between the parties," Ms McNeil offered. "Use your second vote for who you want. That way we'll have a rainbow in Holyrood," Mr Sheridan said poetically. The SNP candidate's vision was bleaker. "We don't want Westminster Revisited," she warned darkly.