ELECTION QUESTION TIME

DEMOCRACY was in rude health in Tiverton on Wednesday night (April 21) at a special Election Question Time event organized by Tiverton Voice, the town branch of the Senior Council for Devon, with the support of Age Concern in the Tiverton and Cullompton areas.

Some 130 people turned up at the Tiverton Hotel to watch and listen to the five candidates hoping to become the next MP for the Tiverton & Honiton constituency after 6 May.  Over a lively but largely good-humoured hour-and-a-half period, under the chairmanship of Cllr Bob Deed, the five had to deal with ten questions from the floor, on subjects ranging from the EU and public transport to maternity services and pensions, and from youth policy and welfare reform to dementia research and the war in Afghanistan.

All candidates were united in saying that public services should be more accountable to local people.  Neil Parish (Conservative) said the Tories would pass a Sovereignty Act, which would automatically trigger a referendum before any more powers were ceded to the EU.  He emphasized the need to get rid of the national debt and get the economy going again.  Cathy Connor (Green Party) said that she had her three children ‘in quick succession' at Honiton maternity unit, and she would fight to keep it fully operational. Scotland provided free residential care for older people, and the Greens would do the same in England.

Vernon Whitlock (Labour) said the state pension had almost doubled in the 13 years the party had been in power, but it was very difficult to raise the pension because people were living longer and were more healthy.  He felt that the voting age should be reduced to 16 in an effort to get young people more involved with politics.  Jon Underwood (Liberal Democrat) said people had to be encouraged to save more.  The failure to save lay at the root of the economic crisis: the nation consumed too much and saved too little. Money for dementia research was ‘woefully inadequate', and a poll had shown that more people aged 50+ feared dementia than cancer.

Darryl Stanbury (UKIP) agreed that the UK needed to bring back the culture of saving. By leaving the EU £106 billion would be freed up, some of it for public investment. UKIP would increase career choices for young people, by increasing the value of degrees through the closure of some universities, and investing in vocational skills centres.

Bob Gollner, of Tiverton Voice, bowled the candidates the winding-up question. He defined ‘politics' as ‘poli - many' and ‘tics - blood suckers', and asked the panel how they felt about possibly being elected to the group of the most mistrusted people in the country?  Once the laughter had died down, the candidates rose to the challenge and their responses can probably best be summed up as ‘we will work to win your trust'.