Who's your MP?

[T_i_B]

8. Went to a local debate last night

My thoughts on the candidates are as follows

The Tory candidate was poor. He just kept saying that we shouldn't vote for him if we want government to solve everything in answer to anything. I appreciate that it's difficult standing for the incumbent government party but all the same, the Tory candidate in 2010 was a lot better.

The UKIP candidate stood in 2010 and came across as a total fruitloop who was rather too reliant on quoting the UKIP manifesto verbatim. This time around he wasn't reliant on simply reading out the manifesto, and came across better for it. But all the same UKIP's platform is for too reliant on immigrant bashing with little else besides.

I had my suspicions that the Liberal Democrat was little more then a paper candidate and he proved this by not showing up. In his place was the Liberal Democrats East Midlands president, who said nothing of any real note during the debate.

The Green Party candidate was actually quite impressive. If he was a member of another party and didn't have a ponytail you could see him going places. But I personally still have issues about much of their platform.

There was an Independent candidate, and he was quite left wing. So much so that somebody from TUSC was attempting to woo him over to them after the hustings. He did talk some sense but I felt that there was also a certain element of what he said that wasn't always realistic.

And the Labour MP Natascha Engel also performed better then she did at the election hustings in 2010, but she still has a tendency to waffle, and my experience is that what she says she'll do at election time is not the same as what she actually does once elected.

So on the whole a much better hustings meeting then the one I attended at the last election. More relaxed, without candidates reading verbatim from their manifestos. I'm still not decided as to who I'll vote for though.