The Common Good
Background
For several general elections, Churches Together have co-odinated an Election Hustings to allow townspeople to question their prospective MPs face-to-face.
On many of these occasions, we have compiled a set of key questions, which we put to all candidates in advance of the hustings, so that answers to identical questions could be compared if these questions were selected at the Hustings. This document has been entitled "The Common Good", which speaks for itself.
At the last General Election, we were able to publish these questions and candidates' answers online, so that attendees at the Hustings, and the wider public, could have a preview of the responses and perhaps bring a follow-up question.
This is the plan for this crucial election in the life of the town and the country.
The questions will be published as soon as the document is completed and the responses from individual candidates will be published as they become available. Hopefully, there will be a full set of responses available in advance of the hustings but this is up to the candidates.
It is anticipated that several of the candidates will be new to the town as candidates, so this approach enables both candidates and electors to familiarise themselves with the issues most important in the town and how they propose to address them.