The Deep Fried Debating Society

Well, we had another good day on Monday with new people coming forward to give their time to help with our campaign.

We started the day in the south of the constituency visiting some of the small communities around Mevagissey. It was another beautiful day which showed off the National Trust coastline at its stunning best, even if James found some of the narrow roads a challenge to negotiate in the Campaign Bus.

It was then back to the office to touch base with the campaign team and check up on how the distribution of our latest piece of literature was going. It’s so good for me to have such good people working with me to take care of all this so I can just concentrate on meeting people. We have also had lots of people offer to put up posters on their properties, which is great. These will all be going up in the near future, if you would be willing to put one up for us then please get in touch.

Whilst at Fraddon I also checked in on the latest with some of the participants in the Incinerator Public Inquiry at Kingsley. This is such a major issue for St Dennis and mid-Cornwall and I am keen to show my support for it as often as I can – I will be taking part myself next week as one of the public speakers to the Inspector.

Then in the afternoon we headed for Bugle.

We met a large number of Portuguese people living there – many of whom spoke very little English. This has obviously brought challenges to that area. One of the things I have noted in the Liberal Democrats’ immigration policy is their intention to place immigrants into the less populated areas of the country. Clearly this could include Cornwall and would have an impact on our communities. If elected I would oppose this as strongly as I could. Cornwall just does not have the capacity or infrastructure to support any more significant immigration at this time.

We then visited Roche. Here we found lots of undecided voters – many who have voted Lib Dem in the past but are wondering if it is time for change and to vote for an MP in one of the main parties – it is 35 years since St Austell had an MP in the government! People keep telling us that there is a great deal of apathy amongst the public – certainly not the case in Roche. I found lots of people wanting to engage in debate on the real issues.

Then I had two Shadow Ministers come to visit – one for his first visit. This now makes 24 Shadow Ministers who have come to visit this constituency. I have really appreciated their support and it clearly demonstrates that Cornwall will certainly not be forgotten as it has been by Labour with Lib Dem representation. We need a Conservative Government with Cornish Conservative MPs to get the support we need.

First Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, paid a visit. Jeremy’s responsibilities include tourism and heritage and it was good to hear him talk about the importance Cornwall would play in his department should he be in the new government. He acknowledged how much our county has to offer. It would be great to work with Jeremy, if elected, in order to get real support from the government for our tourist industry.

Then Mark Prisk, Shadow Minister for Business and Enterprise came to visit. Mark is originally from Cornwall and has paid many visits to give his support to me over the past 3 years. We headed into St Columb, my home town, with another new team of local people who helped us knock on doors and talk to more local people, listening to the issues that concern them. We had a great response once again. We ended the evening by getting some fish and chips from the local chippy only to find our work was not over. We were soon engaged in some great discussion on the real issues and what needs to be done - the Deep Fried Debating Society was born! Almost an hour later I finally got my chips!

Then it was time to head home to catch the Ten O’clock News and log on to find I had 130 emails to answer. All in all another fulfilling day, meeting lots more people and hearing about the issues that concern them –which is exactly what politics should be about.

Looking forward to the launch of our manifesto today.