House Meeting Brownsover

Continuing my series of meetings in the homes of people who are kind enough to act as host, I joined a small group in Brownsover for a discussion of topical issues. If time passing quickly is a measure of the effectiveness of a meeting then we did well, since after starting at 7.30 and covering a broad range of issues I looked at my watch to find it was 10pm! I was challenged about my reasons for wanting to become an MP which led to a long discussion about expenses; two strong characters in the room felt that we are not being strong enough about the seriousness of the country's financial position and laying the blame for this on Labour's actions in Government while another person was put off by the adversarial nature of politics - which shows how difficult it is to get the message just right. We spoke at length about the trends that are causing some people to think about supporting the peripheral parties; and the opportunity that we will offer to Parilament of a free vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act. We spent more time on national issues than at previous house meetings and I enjoyed our discussion. Many thanks to Alma for making her house available to us.