Should election candidates publish home town?

[donkmeister]

Every election, whether local or national, one of the criteria I look at is "where do the candidates live?". This can be surprisingly hard to find.

When I have asked "which town/village does your candidate live in?" some of the party faithful get very defensive, as if I've asked for the full address, location of any spare keys and the code for his burglar alarm.

My logic is that an MP who does not live in my area, has never lived in my area and clearly has his life established far away from my area, will not experience the issues being experienced by the people he represents. I want st local services for me to mean st local services for him too. I want him to see the same drug dealers, the same absence of police (assuming it's not the month before a PCC election), to also be faced with the dilemma of whether he should wait for an ambulance or driving hell for leather to the same A&E department. He's in a unique position to do something about it, even if just to stand up in parliament and whinge.

So, would you support the idea of prospective MPs (and councillors) being obliged to give some idea of where they actually live on their materials instead of the local party HQ (if they live in a small settlement where you could figure out their house easily, then maybe "near Royston Vasey" or similar)?

[donkmeister]

paulrockliffe said:

It's literally on the nomination form and a matter of public record whether the Candidates live in the Constituency. How can you not find it out? There are literally websites set up to tell you exactly which candidates have been parachuted in.

Link? Would be handy as the only ones I've seen point to a constituency based office (e.g. local club for that party).

[donkmeister]

Chrisgr31 said:

Personally I think I would prefer a good candidate who will represent their constituents rather than a useless local candidate

Good luck with that

I should stress this is just one criterion. I'm not going to vote for a turd sandwich just because he's local, conversely I wouldn't vote for an MP just because they belong to the party I have slightly less contempt for.

[donkmeister]

Puzzles said:

IMO they should live in the constituency

alangla said:

I’ve seen some candidate lists say “address in the XXXXXX constituency” I think that & disallowing the use of party HQ or your election agents address is probably enough detail.

Good enough for me

Me too.

I totally understand that they want to avoid nutters showing up at their house to shout at them about the sort of issues nutters shout about, so I don't think publishing home addresses is necessary. I just want to know they live in the constituency.

[donkmeister]

AndyAudi said:

Beati Dogu said:

Voldemort said:

Candidates should not be allowed to stand unless they live in the constituency.

Trouble is, that sometimes, like mine this year, the constituency is abolished and a new one drawn up.

Yep this is situation with me too, I know where my “current/last” MP lives, but boundary’s re-drawn & he’s now 250m out of his old constituency where he’s represented our interests up until now

I'd like to look at the frequency of boundary redrawing too... People who don't support the outgoing government are always (understandably) suspicious that this happens to give an advantage to whoever is in power.

I've got mates in both the local Tory and Labour parties, and it's quite funny to have seen over the years as they complain about it when it doesn't suit them, but are totally in favour when it does.