Kentish Express Ashford & District
Spotlight on candidates and survey results
We are now just a week away from going to the polling stations to cast our votes in the general election. Our reporter Aidan Barlow has interviewed candidates from the five parties standing to represent voters in Ashford and Tenterden.
LABOUR
‘Properly funded public services for the good of everybody’
Sally Gathern, 52, says she wants to place the NHS and education at the heart of her party’s message at this election.
The former secondary school languages teacher and mumof-seven works as a volunteer with local charities and is an active member of Great Chart with Singleton Parish Council.
She said she first became active in politics at school in London, standing up with Jewish school friends against the National Front.
Mrs Gathern said that Jeremy Corbyn is the right man to lead the country, despite the fact she herself backed Mr Corbyn’s challengers Yvette Cooper and then Owen Smith in the Labour leadership elections.
She said: “Hard-working people I speak to know I’m willing to stand up for what’s right. I’m strong, I’m confident, articulate and well researched.
“But with any party I think you need to look at policies. Voters should trust the Labour Party because I believe our manifesto is absolutely what Britain needs.
“We need investment in our NHS, in education, in social care and to renationalise the railways.”
She said Jeremy Corbyn and Labour would prioritise people’s jobs, consumer rights, workers’ rights and environmental protections in the Brexit negotiations and accused the Tories of aiming for a “catastrophic” Brexit deal outside of the single market.
During the election campaign Labour has appeared divided over issues such as the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent but Mrs Gathern said that the Tories are also divided on many issues, arguing that Labour is just “more honest” about having respectful debate.
Meanwhile on the economy she said the nearly £50bn in extra spending, borrowing and investment has all been fully costed in the party’s manifesto.
She said Conservative cuts to social care budgets have added to the crisis in the National Health Service with bed blocking.
LIB DEM
‘This is an opportunity for people to stop a hard Brexit’
Adrian Gee-Turner, 51, says the key issue for him at this election is Brexit and keeping Britain in the customs union and single market.
He is probably the most international candidate, as his wife is from Japan, and his job as a pharmaceutical company’s business development manager sees him travel all across Europe.
He says the vote to leave has already caused prices to rise and says that there is no appetite within Europe to give Britain a good deal.
Mr Gee-Turner said: “If people who want to remain in the customs union are voting Tory, they really are crossing their fingers, praying and hoping they get a results they can live with. But by voting Liberal Democrat they have got more chance of stopping a hard Brexit.
“Many leave voters say the price of leaving the EU is a price worth paying.
“I would point out this would mean Ashford would become a frontier town with thousands of lorries and warehouses. The character of the town would change completely.”
He said his party leader Tim Farron has been struggling to get a message across in a traditional two-party system.
But he said he is proud his party stepped up to the responsibility of being in government and now fears a lack of credible opposition to the Tories.
“It’s not Corbyn and his lot. It’s looking very worrying as to who will be the opposition. Democracy needs an effective opposition,” he said.
He criticised what he described as Damian’s Green’s “road to Damascus” conversion on Brexit.
He said the Liberal Democrats were second in the recent KCC elections, showing voters that the party is in a position to oppose the Tories.
In terms of policies, he pointed to Liberal Democrat proposals to give business start-ups £100 a week to help them establish themselves, and said “entrepreneurial spirit is the key to our future prospects”.
CONSERVATIVE
‘This is about getting the best deal for Britain’
Damian Green, 61, has served as Ashford’s Member of Parliament since 1997, during which time he has been a backbench constituency MP and a front bench politician.
He has most recently served as the Work and Pensions Secretary but as an ally of Theresa May it is rumoured he could be in line for an even bigger job after the election, with some pundits linking him to the Chancellor’s job.
But before then he says he is focusing on securing a Tory victory. He said: “Overwhelmingly this election is about the Brexit negotiations and who do voters think can deliver the best deal for Britain.
“The choice before voters is whether they want Theresa May and her team or Jeremy Corbyn and his team running those negotiations.”
Mr Green said he accepts the result of the European Union referendum last year and is working hard to make sure there is a good deal, as both Ashford and the country have important links with the
continent. He said a key tenet of the Conservative campaign is to have a strong economy and criticised Labour’s “chaotic” plans of “mass renationalisation, huge tax increases and huge increases in borrowing”.
Following Theresa May’s apparent U-turn on social care and a so-called “dementia tax”, Mr Green denied that the Conservatives are taking elderly voters for granted and said hard-up pensioners will still receive winter fuel payments.
Meanwhile money saved from wealthier pensioners will go into the social care system.
Another tough issue is the state of the National Health Service. Patients have reported being stuck in trolleys in corridors and waiting up to nine hours for treatment in A&E but Mr Green said the Tories will spend an extra £8bn on the NHS.
Mr Green ruled out any talk of retirement by 2022, when he will be 66, and said he feels he is as energetic as ever.
UKIP
‘I’m your man for Brexit’
Ukip’s Gerald O’Brien says he is the right man for Brexit and has made a pitch to Conservative voters and those who voted to leave the European Union to back him instead of Damian Green.
The 68-year-old has been picked by the Eurosceptic party once again, after finishing in second place at the general election in 2015.
He is a relative newcomer to the political world, having only joined Ukip four years ago after he was “incensed” with how the European Union was “anti-democratic”.
Despite his party’s poor polling in the run-up to next week, he denied that Ukip had imploded since the referendum last year.
Mr O’Brien said: “The key message is that Ashford has voted for Brexit, we need a candidate who believes in Brexit and will support Theresa May to the hilt.
“Of the five candidates on offer, I am the only one who is prepared to do that. All the others would be half-hearted to a greater or lesser extent.”
He said he is fighting for a “proper Brexit” and has likened the referendum outcome to the declaration of war on Germany in 1939.
“As we well know, it took several years after that to get things sorted out satisfactorily, so we’re in it for the long term,” he said.
On more local issues Mr O’Brien said Ukip is also offering residents the chance to hold referendums on big planning decisions like Chilmington Green and says there will need to be more grammar school places when the town grows.
Cutting the foreign aid budget is another key policy, where Mr O’Brien says money is sent to wealthy countries where money should be spent in this country first.
He has been out to campaign on local issues such as railway services running from Ashford International, as well as village stations like Pluckley.
GREEN
‘The environment will always be top of the agenda for us’ Green Party candidate Mandy Rossi says every vote for her party sends a message to the government and other parties that their voice matters.
The 52-year-old training and development consultant stood for the party in 2015, where her share of the vote increased to 4.3%. Now she hopes she can win the 5% of votes she needs to keep her deposit.
But she admits that this election has been difficult, as she hasn’t been able to book as much time off work as she did last time, while pundits say the share of the vote going to the Conservatives and Labour is set to increase this time round.
She said: “Every vote the Greens get is a message to the government and to the other political parties. Last time we got a million votes. That is definitely to be taken seriously.”
The absence of green policies and discussion at this election doesn’t worry her. She says her party will always discuss the environment and she is concerned Brexit could see an end of environmental protections and commitments.
One example is air quality. She says 40,000 people die each year from air pollution and fears that in Ashford there are playgrounds next to congested roads.
She denied that the Green Party’s job share leadership has been a failure or diluted the party’s message, saying it has enabled its only MP Caroline Lucas to deal with constituency matters while Jonathan Bartley goes to national events.
The party is pledging a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership and said this gives voters a choice to decide whether the final Brexit deal is the right one.
While Labour has shifted left on policies such as renationalising the railways and ending privatisation of public services, she says this shows the influence of Green policies.
She said: “We have a great manifesto, I’m sure lots of it will appear in Labour’s manifesto in 2022.”