As I wrote on Monday, the Newark By-Election that is taking place next Thursday is a very unequal struggle. On the one side there are five Political Parties which are well resourced and sending in significant numbers of people from outside the constituency to create the impression that they care for the area. All of these parties to differing degrees can harness significant levels of public profile at a national level further strengthening their brand and bring externally raised funds to hold all sorts of events in the constituency itself. They also have varying levels of capability in using social media to make contact with the residents of Newark who use Twitter and Facebook. Four of these five parties have adopted candidates from other parts of the country and as parties have significant numbers of skeletons in their closets who have misused public funds. The Green Party appears to be alone in having relatively clean hands and to have adopted a Nottingham based candidate.

Along with the five party candidates, there are 6 other candidates. Two that I mentioned on Monday are Independent Candidates, Paul Baggaley and Andy Hayes. Both men are local to Newark and have clear and credible CVs with manifestos that are based on responding to the needs of Newark although I have not met or spoken to either men.

There are four more candidates. Two are clearly not serious, they are the Monster Raving Loony Party and the Bus Pass Elvis Party. There is what appears to be a one man Political Party based in Birmingham run by Dick Rodgers known as the Common Good Political Party which has since 2004 fought seven previous campaigns from his Birmingham home, 90 miles to the South of Newark. I have seen nothing to suggest that he has any links to Newark. Finally the newly formed Patriotic Socialist Party has nominated Lee Woods who appears to live in Kirklees 60 miles to the North of Kirklees.

Last night in Newark the local Newspaper organised or sponsored a Hustings event, to which the candidates for the 5 National Parties were invited. There was no invitation extended to either Paul Baggaley or Andy Hayes despite their clear local connections. My limited correspondence with Andy suggest he was available and willing to attend had the local paper been prepared to extend their offer to two of the only three local candidates.

Organising Hustings events is never easy, the time taken for 7 people to respond to questions is clearly greater than for 5 people. However bearing in mind that historically Newark is a safe Conservative seat, the newspaper could have cut to the chase and taken the view that one person could be given the time to speak, relegating all of the other 4 parties to the same treatment that they have handed out to Paul and Andy.

As we approach a General Election it is vital that local voices get heard, especially if they are principled people such as Paul and Andy prepared to stand as local people for a local contest. Sadly the Newark Advertiser does not believe that local people should hear from such as them, that seems a very sad indictment from a so called local Newspaper. The Oxygen of publicity apparently only applies to those rich enough and linked to the very parties that opinion polls consistently tell us we don’t want to elect.