Shame there is no election hustings

Dear Sir, - Hustings are an excellent opportunity for residents to supplement their views of the candidates, parties and their manifestos with a present time experience.

It is a shame that no group in Congleton constituency could devote the resources to arranging one.

While residents vote on a mixture of issues and personalities, seeing all the candidates answering the same questions can only help the undecided to make a balanced judgement.

From chatting on the doorstep, some of the electorate seem to need reminding that they are electing a person from a political party to represent them at Westminster.

That person will in turn balance their own views, the platform on which they were elected and the desire of their party to show cohesion, while respecting their electorate's views.

Sometimes, one of these takes priority and at others a whipping process occurs to place pressure on individual MPs to toe the party line. - Yours faithfully,

(DR) PETER HIRST

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Congleton.