The hastily rearranged Finchley and Golders Green Residents' Forum turned out to be, by all accounts, a rowdy affair. I had another engagement so could not attend. I have seen a number of emails flying back and forth which give the impression that residents were very unhappy with Barnet Council.
Topic 1: To deal with Britain's increasing deficit, what kind of public spending should be cut? And how these cuts would impact or help, if any, the ordinary local Chinese people?
Chris Bramall, the Liberal Democrats' prospective candidate for Stourbridge says:
Of course the BBC were right to give the BNP a place on TV. At this year's European elections 11% of voters in Dudley Borough voted for the BNP. It would be an insult to these voters to say that their votes in some way didn't count. And it was right of the BBC to let members of the audience and the other panellists "have a go" at Nick Griffin for his appalling views. But at the same time it was wrong of the BBC to allow the programme to proceed in front of a studio audience that so clearly failed to represent the balance of opinion on the issues concerned. Democracy means taking people's views seriously even when you fundamentally disagree with them.
I was interested to see G.H. Downing's challenge on your Viewpoint page on 15th October ("Let's ask our questions face-to-face"). I was surprised to see no reply in your issue of 22nd October, either from Dudley Council, or from the Stourbridge Area Committee, or from the Stourbridge Township Council, or indeed from Stourbridge's MP. So let me please reassure G.H. Downing and all your readers that, as prospective Liberal Democrat candidate I would be very happy to attend an open question-and-answer session in Stourbridge Town Hall with all the other candidates, either now, or during the general election campaign, or both. I've never been interested in being controlled by any party whip - and I don't think our Liberal Democrat whips are in the business of preventing an honest exchange of views between residents and candidates. At each of the last three general elections there has been a public question-and-answer session organised by Churches Together in Stourbridge. At the last general election the candidates
Kent County Councillor Tim Prater has written to County Cabinet Transport Spokesman Nick Chard asking Kent to take the responsibility for administering the National Bus pass scheme within Kent into County control.
