17:55 Thursday 21st February 2013
\nDrive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire<\/p>\n
[C]HRIS MANN:<\/strong> It’s the last week of campaigning in one of the most closely watched by-elections for years. David Cameron has been in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh, which will be electioning a new MP, after the Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne admitted lying about a speeding offence. He’s just one in a long line of senior politicians who’ve descended on the town to try and win votes. David Howard reports. ============<\/p>\n COLIN BEX – Wessex Regionalists<\/p>\n DAVID BISHOP – Elvis Loves Pets Party<\/p>\n JIM DUGGAN – Peace Party<\/p>\n RAY HALL – Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party<\/p>\n HOWLING LAUD HOPE – Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party<\/p>\n MARIA HUTCHINGS – Conservative<\/p>\n DIANE JAMES – UK Independence Party<\/p>\n DR IAIN MACLENNAN – National Health Action Party<\/p>\n KEVIN MILBURN – Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship”<\/p>\n JOHN O’FARRELL – Labour<\/p>\n DARREN PROCTER – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition<\/p>\n DANNY STUPPLE – Independent<\/p>\n MIKE THORNTON – Liberal Democrats<\/p>\n MICHAEL WALTERS – The English Democrats – “Putting England First!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 17:55 Thursday 21st February 2013 Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire [C]HRIS MANN: It’s the last week of campaigning in one of the most closely watched by-elections for years. David Cameron has been in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh, which will be electioning a new MP, after the Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne admitted lying about a speeding … Continue reading “BBC Sly Dig At UKIP Candidate In Eastleigh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5212"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9356,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions\/9356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newlistener.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJOHN:<\/strong> You get the feeling many here are just done with visiting politicians, just kind of ignoring it, and it’s getting on your nerves.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Twenty four year old John, dodging campaigners with his wife Jess.
\nJESS:<\/strong> Because there’s local elections going on.
\nJOHN:<\/strong> .. going on down there right now actually.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Did you see the balloons and the placards and the banners? On every street corner somebody seems to be campaigning.
\nJOHN:<\/strong> It’s a bit overblown. But there you go.
\nJESS:<\/strong> You do get a bit sick of it, yes.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> And at the swings with her little girl, Emma comes face to face with Labour candidate John O’Farrell.
\nJOHN O’FARRELL:<\/strong> It’s really important people like you vote Labour. We’re fighting for people who are working hard, trying to raise families.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> But Emma tells him she blames all mainstream parties for the country’s current money problems, including his. She’ll probably pick a smaller fringe candidate instead.
\nEMMA:<\/strong> Yes, as a protest more than anything.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> A full list of Eastleigh candidates is on the BBC news website, and in this coffee shop we find 23 year old Mia.
\nMIA:<\/strong> For my future there is no hope.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> An out of work beautician, she’s moved back home with her parents, and is doing shifts here to make ends meet.
\nMIA:<\/strong> To win my vote. I want to have my own place, find a flat or .. you know, mortgage is just at the moment impossible.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Outside again, we bump into Diane James from the UK Independence Party.
\nDIANE JAMES:<\/strong> So it’s going to be a knife edge result I think.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Their big thing is getting Britain out of the European Union.
\nDIANE JAMES:<\/strong> We’ve been absolutely consistent with our message.
\nDAVID HOWARD: That’s because you’ve only got one.<\/strong>
\nDIANE JAMES:<\/strong> Well you could say we’ve only got one, but the key one is we’ve got to come out of the EU ..
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Both Labour and UKIP hope to steal a win in Eastleigh. If they do, it will most likely because they’ve won votes off one or other of the two front runners.
\nMIKE THORNTON:<\/strong> It’s great fun. It’s really exciting.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> MIke Thornton is one. His Liberal Democrats have been in power here for over twenty years.
\nMARIA HUTCHINGS:<\/strong> It can take me half an hour, three quarters of an hour to get a loaf of bread, because I keep meeting people.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> And Conservative Maria Hutchings is the other. At Westminster, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats run the country in a joint Government. In Eastleigh though, they’re head to head in this knife edge contest. That’s a first for British politics, and enthusiasts are watching closely, hoping to make predictions about the UK wide General Election probably in 2015.
\nTERRY:<\/strong> Every party always promises all these great things.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong>\u00a0Twenty four year old Terry, doing scooter stunts at a skate park outside town.
\nTERRY:<\/strong> You never actually see anything happen.
\nDAVID HOWARD:<\/strong> Like many here, he’s not an enthusiast. And he’s not at all sure that all this national interest in Eastleigh will make anything better for him.
\nTERRY:<\/strong> Any person that I vote for isn’t really going to make a huge difference.<\/p>\n