Sittingbourne Election Special 2015
So what happens when you invite our parliamentary candidates to be interviewed by a group of 16 year old's.
We thought it would be an interesting experiment to look at the elections from a young person’s perspective. So we asked a whole range of younger people to come up with a set of questions which we would ask each of the candidates.
Interestingly, the topics raised covered much of the ground which an adult might have come up with, albeit with a more local focus, but inevitably there were a few questions which caused the candidates to think very hard before answering.
Finally we had to persuade some of those young people to undertake the interviews, which wasn’t easy and after a few false starts we were very pleased to feature Ashley, Lewis and Steven who are all students at the Sittingbourne Community College.
Liberal Democrat Candidate Keith Nevols
Conservative Candidate Gordon Henderson
UKIP Candidate Richard Palmer
Green Party Candidate Gary Miller
Labour Candidate Guy Nicholson
Comments
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Forgive my cynical apprasal of the excercise, but these do not look like a true representation of the average 16 year old from Sittingbourne. They look like the grammar school top of the class type, and although these people are more likely to vote later, it is the "Real" 16 year olds who should be asked about politics. You would need to erase the XXXX off etc but underneath you just might find out what really matters to the people of the town.
Last note - Has the Labour Candidate been shipped in from a well to do area per chance, he should go back there, S&S is about local people not toffs who have been forced on us, by the Labour Loony Hierarchy !
Oh dear - if Gordon Henderson's understanding of housing economics is similar to that of his councillor colleagues then there's little wonder we're in a mess. Building more houses does NOT bring down the cost of houses - we've had thousands built in Sittingbourne and Sheppey and the prices have continued to rise. As for a case of supply and demand, that doesn't work when the demand is higher than the supply can ever match - especially when the national population grows faster than the national housing supply. Leaving house building to the market, as Gordon advocates, simply means building as many larger houses for those who can afford them, with little concern for identified local need.
If the point comes for a while that house prices begin to stabilise the developers simply stop building - they can afford to land bank for years if need be, and turn their attentions to more lucrative areas for their building as and when they become available.