Watch out for the Politics show this Sunday

The BBC in the North East and Cumbria are looking at battleground constituencies for each party in the run up to the General Election. They are expecting to do a short piece on Copeland on the politics show this coming Sunday lunchtime (12.30 BBC One in the North) I was interviewed yesterday and then filmed talking to local voters in a pub in Whitehaven.

Compared to our canvass returns - which are encouraging - the people in the pub were too small a sample to be meaningful in statistical terms, but some of the views expressed were interesting. There were one or two who said they would vote Conservative, most of the rest were floating voters. There was considerable distrust for politicians of all parties, but especially for New Labour. The main concerns raised were jobs, housing, the need to improve road and rail transport links, and education.

Crime, drugs, immigration and Europe were also brought up, and the war in Iraq is still an issue for many people.

I certainly enjoyed the evening's discussion: I just hope that when I and the BBC people had all gone the regulars in the pub didn't feel we'd interefered with their evening too much !!

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