Hustings

I have just attended the hustings for our local constituency MP candidates.  We have five very strong contenders for the position, so it was a good chance to hear their views of various subjects such as fracking, Trident, TTIP and home rule/independence, as well as what each of them think they can bring to the job and what they think their strengths are.  They have all sent out campaign materials over the past few weeks, but I always think it's good to see the candidates in person and to see how they come over.

We have four male candidates and one female.  I'm not in favour of having quotas for women for these things.  I think that we should be choosing the best candidate for the job regardless of their gender.  It's true that there are fewer women in politics than we would ideally like, but I think the answer to this lies in mentoring and training rather than quotas. 

After hearing all the candidates speak there are two strong contenders in my mind, and I think it will be a very close-run race.  Our constituency currently has a Labour MP with a majority of over 10,000, so we have a lot of hard work to do to overturn this.  Still, we have about 1,000 new members in our local branch, so with a bit of organisation and a lot of work, we can do this.