It’s not that often I find myself in whole-hearted agreement with John Prescott, but I was pleased to see him praising Twitter as an aid to democracy in the Manchester Evening News today. Sadly his attitude on this matter isn’t shared by the Luddites at Bury

Today is the first day of spring, which meant that the misery of having to de-frost my car for the millionth time this year was tempered a little by the irony of the date. I should have known it was going to be a cold one, because I’d spent most of yesterday out leafleting with increasingly numb hands. That numbness was rendered doubly unfortunate because I couldn’t really feel the damage being done to my fingers by a succession of gates and letterboxes each more injurious than the last. Quite why people who live in suburbia need to festoon the front of their houses with gates that wouldn’t look out of place in front of some horror mansion designed by a tasteless hybrid of Jordan and Posh Spice is beyond me. Whatever the reason, gaining access to deliver Focus is like trying to undo a pair of someone else’s walking boots whilst wearing ski gloves. My hands are bruised and battered today.

I noticed a letter in the Bury Times this week asking three questions of Labour’s Bury North candidate. Question two, about the fairness or otherwise of her selection from an all-female shortlist, is fair enough. As is question three, about the funding for her plush town centre offices. But the first question is this: “How has she attained the necessary lifeskills for this important role at her age?”

I don’t think that’s a fair question, nor do I think its inference is right. The Labour candidate is slightly younger than me, but we’re both the same side of 30 and I believe that our ages won’t make a jot of difference to the job we’ll do if elected. I am a Councillor and have been for several years, and I don’t think my age has hampered me once. Although I am younger than most of my constituents I don’t think I lack an understanding of the issues facing them any more than anyone older, mainly because a lot of those issues are the same issues facing me! I have a mortgage and a job and bills to pay the same as lots of other people. I have to think about saving for the future, how I might bring up a child, and how to put petrol in the car when it keeps going up in price!

The age of a candidate is nothing compared to their outlook, attitude and commitment to the role. After all, Winston Churchill was elected as an MP at 25 and he didn’t turn out too badly. And let’s remember, the older a candidate is, the less in touch he or she is with younger constituents. I suspect both the Labour candidate and I could have a better conversation with a university student looking for a graduate job than could the middle-aged Conservative candidate.

Of more concern to voters should be not that the Labour candidate is under 30, but that she doesn’t live in the borough, hadn’t shown any interest in Bury until selected, and has landed here because the incumbent Labour MP is facing criminal charges!

I am 28. It may sound young if you’re 88, but I suspect it doesn’t if you’re 19, and I genuinely don’t think it matters. The Tory candidate isn’t too old, we’re not too young, and I think voters should base their choices on what we stand for and our commitment to Bury, not anything else.

Rick