Today's campaigning was tinged with a hint of farce. Our favourite lunchtime stop turned out not to be serving food today. At our second choice a table collapsed under the combined weight of cutlery and canvass cards! and to cap it all they had the nerve to run the Grand National before we'd finished what we wanted to cover.
Joking apart, there were some interesting conversations. Many people are concerned about immigration at a time when the economy is struggling. I was pleased that people do genuinely seem to think that those fleeing conflict, torture and so on need to be given sanctuary. What worries them is uncontrolled migration and they seemed reassured that we would have a quota system based on regional needs.
Lots of people say they are still undecided as to how to cast their vote. People really do want to know what makes us different and are trying to work out which party will bring improvement most quickly and least painfully.
We also took the opportunity to show Jacquie Bell the sad state of Witham House, partly demolished now thanks to Labour & Tory governments taking some of our rent money to subsidise housing in othe boroughs. Lack of money for maintenance and replacement led to stock being transferred to Erimus Housing who now say they can't afford to replace the building in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, older people in Eaglescliffe who want to rent sheltered housing can't because it's not available. They can buy, but what's available is expensive. How is that fair?