Reading West Candidates

There is some news on the candidates selected to contest Reading West in the General Election.


The Lib Dems will choose between Reading Cllr Daisy Benson, West Berkshire councillor Tony Vickers and former Thatcham mayor and ex-West Berkshire councillor, Alex Payton. They are all more local than the previous candidate Patrick Murray who stepped down in August. Waiting this long must put them at a disadvantage, but they are upbeat about there chances. "we're expecting to do very well in the general election." They got 15.8% last time, a long way behind the winning 45%!

Mr Payton, could not be reached for comment yesterday, not a good start.

Cllr Benson said: "Housing, health and crime are my main concerns." She will be standing in the local elections for Redlands Ward in Reading East, so she will have to cover lots of ground.

Cllr Tony Vickers said: "The party hasn't made much of an effort for many years now in that area, I want to change that, and I want to see Reading run by Liberal Democrats as they run many other major towns and cities around the country." Does he know this isn't a council election?

UKIP have chosen Bruce Hay. There doesn't seem to be much information on him yet, even on the UKIP website.

Conservative Alok Sharma is the favourite to win, has been campaigning for 3 years but I cant find a blog or website of his own.

Labour's Naz Sarkar didn't have a great start. I think he will struggle to be heard alongside Martin Salter, who rather hogs the media.

I am the Green candidate, and there is lots of information on me here. This is my 677th post, after nearly 3 years of blogging. I have been campaigning in Reading for 5 years, have written many letters to the local papers, had a few radio and TV interviews.

The political climate has changed a lot since the last General Election, Green issues are high on the agenda now, last time they were barely mentioned. A few of our policies have been picked up by the other parties, but there is only one Green Party.