Hexham Abbey hustings

Today's main event was the hustings at Hexham Abbey, preceded by a beautiful service which put me in just the right frame of mind to address a mixed audience including many churchgoers.

One of the questions concerned rural deprivation and poverty, which allowed me to remind the audience that the single most effective measure in recent years to reduce rural poverty was the National Minimum Wage -- which the Conservatives of course voted against -- and that Labour propose to undo the damage the Tories caused to pensioners' incomes by breaking the link between earnings and pensions by restoring that link from 2012.

One question concerned promotion of Fair Trade products, which resulted in the interesting admission from the LibDem candidate that his wife does all the shopping. Our household is a bit more egalitarian that that, as I do all (ok, nearly all) of the shopping! Fair Trade tea, coffee and chocolate are the order of the day.

One question concerned how to pay down the national debt, and I didn't have time to make the point that we have been paying down the national debt incurred by our forefathers for literally hundreds of years now without any problem. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with incurring debt on either an individual or national level provided it is incurred for a good purpose (eg, keeping the economy afloat) and there is a reasonable repayment plan, which Labour has with its plan to halve the budget deficit in the course of the next 4 years.

On Afghanistan, there was broad agreement among all speakers that although we would like to see British troops back home as soon as possible, the work in Afghanistan needs to be seen through. Far worse to pull out prematurely only for another atrocity planned there to occur in the West, requiring us to go back in a second time.

On marriage, the Tory candidate spoke in support of the Conservatives' plan for financial support for married couples (£3 a week - whoopee!), even when the couple concerned don't have children, while the LibDem and Independent candidates and I stressed the importance of the state not interfering in people's private lives. I wonder whether anyone else in the audience noticed the irony of an unmarried man praising the institution of marriage, while three married men gave it more qualified support - the benefit of experience over hope, perhaps?