Election campaign day 38: the hustings meeting and UKIP gay haters

On Thursday evening, the one and only hustings meeting of the campaign in Blaydon took place at Strathmore Road Methodist Church in Rowlands Gill. It was my first chance to meet the Conservative candidate Tom Smith, kindly paying us a visit from London! He seemed a pleasant enough person. Sadly, the Space Navies Party candidate was not present, presumably on some interplanetary trek going boldly where no party has gone before. Also not present was the Libertarian candidate. The panel therefore consisted of Labour, UKIP, Conservative, Green and me.

The poorest performer was UKIP. He had to be pulled back by the chair of the meeting on a number of times to the question in hand. The final question we had to answer was what we each thought was the biggest injustice in the UK. The UKIP candidate rambled on about the horrors of "thought police" forcing people to accept "sexuality" and attacking equal marriage. The audience was clearly unhappy with his response but he was then told to end his answer by the chairman as he had overrun his time. "Yes, I'll stop there," he said.

I spoke next and opened my comment with, "Yes, please do stop there." It brought a round of applause. My answer about injustice was about the wealth divide in the country. Tom Smith spoke next and took the Kipper down even further by pointing out that he had married his husband and was very happy in his relationship. That brought a round of applause as well.

Sadly, there are no more hustings meetings in Blaydon. I guess the next time I will see my fellow candidates will be at the count.