To quote the sage words of Simon Heffer in The Telegraph:

"The most I would say is that you should do (on election day) exactly what I am going to do myself, which is to look down the list of people who are offering themselves to you for your vote, read what they profess to stand for, and vote for the person whose values and sense of priorities most closely reflect your own."

Press play below to watch a conversation between Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush and Michael Gove, the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Shaun Bailey visited Bush Youth Boxing this week. The club is a new part of the wider Bush Youth project run by St Simon's Church, which seeks to serve local young people and their families by creating a sense of community and belonging; empowering them to make positive life choices; and modelling a better way of living.

During the visit, Shaun and the local vicar, Cameron Collington, tried out the new boxing ring and equipment (pictured above).

Shaun Bailey is a huge supporter of youth projects like Bush Youth Boxing and wants to see more activities like this for local young people. If your child, or a child you know would like to get involved with Bush Youth Boxing, email St Simon's Church at bushyouthteam@gmail.com.

Chelsea and Fulham is one of the safest seats in the country where statistically our votes are worth 8 times less than the national average.

Quite simply Greg Hands, the Conservative candidate, is going to romp it. The only affect of candidates standing against him is to give a democratic gloss to the whole sham. It occurred to me even, to speak to all the other candidates and see if I could get them all to agree to stand down allowing Greg Hands to run unopposed, just to highlight what an abuse of democracy this electoral system can be.

Still, that plan never materialised, and so we will now be proceeding with the crowning of our King Greg on 7 May.

What this does mean, however, is that when you do vote, you can do so free from any encumbrance of tactical voting. The more we can reduce Greg Hands' majority, the more he will have to remember his constituents when he takes up his front bench job. Remember that he secured his job by abandoning his principles, having in the past supported a referendum on the EU even after ratification of the Lisbon treaty.

When he was MP of the marginal Hammersmith and Fulham he was out there campaigning for a referendum. But as soon as the super-safe Chelsea and Fulham was offered to him, he did a U-turn quicker than you can say Herman Van Rompuy. In such a safe seat, his party whips and job are more important to him than his constituents.

So on May 6th, please remember that a vote for the Conservative candidate is entirely wasted, and if you believe in freedom and democracy you should really vote for me.

Freedom is in your Hands. Not Gregs.

My very best wishes to all the constituents in Chelsea and Fulham.

Tim Gittos

www.fcukip.com

Getting too busy to blog now, its more and more manic, with absolutely no let up in the support for and interest in the Liberal Democrats, which I predict will surge higher after tonight's final leaders' debate.

I am spending all my time answering constituents and journalists, delivering and canvassing. The hustings was my first ever, and I was pleased overall; strong start on the economy and strong finish on crime, with a bit of a wobble in the middle caused by random heckle. Onwards and upwards.

Yesterday morning on my way to our campaign HQ I saw a boy of about 13 walking along my street wearing a Lib Dem sticker - he certainly wasn't old enough to vote but just seeing him seemed to summon up what's going on at the moment - 500,000 newly registered voters, most of them young, with a belief that at last real change could be on the way.

This close to the election you might be surprised to hear that I gave myself the afternoon off, but I went to watch my brother and others running the London Marathon for the British Red Cross. We're all very proud of him - just turned 50, stranded in the US by the ash until Friday evening, and still got round in a very respectable 4 hr 38.

Well, that headline should get a few more readers, but don't get excited - the revelations won't come until after I'm elected as MP for Westminster North...

First of all, another great day's canvassing, delivering and everything else involved in running a campaign, with yet another record turnout of helpers. While visiting a newsagents in Westbourne Grove, I got a hello and a smile from someone I'm 99% sure was the sex writer and TV personality Tracey Cox - I hasten to add there were lots of other people out there in Bayswater introducing themselves and saying encouraging things.

Yesterday evening was entertaining - you couldn't make it up. The Conservatives and the Lib Dems often see each other while out campaigning, and I've bumped into Karen Buck a couple of times, but up to now Joanne Cash and I have missed each other on the streets of Westminster.

Until last night. Our Lib Dem team started at one end of the street, and soon we saw the Tories coming from the other, with none of other than Joanne Cash among them. As the BBC were filming us Lib Dems doing our work, the inevitable happened, and when the two parties met halfway up the street, the cameras were there to film it. I don't know what the BBC will end up showing, but all I can say is we didn't stand around chatting!

Cancer patients in Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush will get access to drugs that they are currently denied under Labour if the Conservatives win the general election, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Hammersmith, Shaun Bailey, announced this week.

Under the bold new plans, the NHS would save £200 million because Conservatives will stop Labour's jobs tax on employers. This NHS saving would be used to pay for drugs which have been blocked by the Government's quango, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

In the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (which runs Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals), which employs 10,010 staff, the cost of Labour's increase in Employers' National Insurance contributions - the jobs tax - is estimated to be £1,501,500.

* The Labour Government has failed to provide patients with the cancer drugs they need - drugs which are widely available in Europe. Britain has more cancer deaths per head than Buglaria. The current system lets Ministers off the hook. They blame bad decisions on unaccountable bureaucrats in NICE, the agency which approves drugs for the NHS.
* Under the Conservative blueprint, the money that would have been eaten up by Labour's jobs tax would go straight to a new Cancer Drugs Fund. No cancer patient will be refused access to drugs that have been licensed since 2005 if their doctors say they need them.
* Conservatives will also change the way that drug companies are paid for NHS medicines. Effective treatments for all conditions, not just cancer, would become available on the NHS, with drug providers paid according to the value of their new treatments.

Commenting, Shaun said: "There is a clear choice at this election: Labour and their jobs tax that will take £200 million out of the NHS budget; or the Conservatives who will stop the jobs tax and use the savings in the NHS budget to create a Cancer Drugs Fund.

"The NHS is our number one priority. We are committed to helping our NHS become truly world-class. Giving Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush's patients access to cancer drugs widely available in Europe is a key part of our plan for change and making the NHS even better."

Malcolm Rifkind's venture into blogging is a curious fiction.

He claims Tories are inclusive in decision making.

Does this mean he was fully included in the Tory decision to ally with the marginal hard right, including Waffen SS commemorators, in the European Parliament or in the Tories' human rights alliance with Mr Putin's party?

Contrary to his claims, the Liberal Democrats are the only Party to publish in our Manifesto the cost of our plans to make Britain fairer.

And we plan to save more than we plan to spend.

The Tories must be seriously spooked to be misrepresenting Liberal Democrat policy so extensively so early in this Campaign! It's certainly true Kensington would have a genuinely local and much more assiduous Constituency MP with the initials RM instead of MR.

Only Liberal Democrats offer genuine local democracy and involvement.

The real Tory message is: "if you fall on hard times, you're on your own".

Tories have still not twigged that they have no automatic entitlement to rule.

The British people decide who goes to Parliament. If the British people decide they want parties to work together, then we should work together: as we do in Scotland.

Last weekend, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg claimed that it was 'stating the obvious' to suggest that a hung Parliament was in Britain's interest. He claimed that Greek style unrest would result unless all parties were involved in resolving Britain's economic woes.

This is absurd. All three parties have different views on how best to improve the economy. Conservatives want to bolster employment through stopping National Insurance  increases. Our view has been backed by scores of business leaders. The present Labour Government wants to continue borrowing into the future, but have no plans to pay for it. The Liberal Democrats want to raise taxes even further, in order to continue spending. The idea that we need a forced compromise is wishful thinking. There is no guarantee that agreement would be reached, and a period of indecision could cause further damage.

What is needed is not a Government made up of all the parties, but one that actually includes the people of the country in decision making.  The Conservatives have put this approach at the heart of their manifesto. In each and every policy area, the Party has drafted plans that will increase citizen participation - in education, the environment, and even foreign affairs.  Our "Invitation to join the next Government of Britain" will help guard against public disenchantment with politicians, by providing people with a real sense of involvement. After thirteen years of top down policies, it is long overdue.

A further 12 businesses have signed up to our petition to prevent Labour's National Insurance (NI) increase. These 12 come on top of over 50 other local businesses previously signed up this week.

The latest signatories are:

Finlay Brewer Limited, W6
Nichols Employment Agency, W12
Handy Hard Store, W14
Olympia Post Office, W14
Z. Gholian, Barber, W14
Uno Moto, W6
P. C. Clinic Services, W14
James Purdey & Sons LTD, (Manufacturing) W6
The Local Data Company, W6
Deli Bar at W14, W14
Mitra Interiors, W14
Ackery Consulting, W12

The full story with the list of the 50 original businesses signed up to the petition can be found here.

Greg Hands has been blogging and tweeting against me this week, because I am resident in France. Here is a quick riposte:

Greg Hands campaigns to encourage ex-pats to vote, but when one stands against him, he seems to change his tune. As a law maker, Greg Hands should respect British law, that entitles me to stand in Chelsea and Fulham, a constituency I have lived in for 7 years and where I am still entitled to vote. I have a business in the city and accordingly spend much of my time in London. There can be no better education for a UKIP candidate than to live, work and integrate with our European neighbours. I am pro Europe, just anti the EU. The only reason I am standing is because Greg Hands has reneged on his support for a referendum on the EU before or, crucially, AFTER ratification of the Lisbon treaty (See http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=34018 ).

Had he not put his job before his country, I would not have had to put myself through such considerable inconvenience and cost of standing against him.

For some time now, I've been talking to residents in Earl's Court about the proposed demolition of the Earl's Court complex. This is part of a massive plan for redevelopment by the developer CapCo. It would really be an entirely new neighbourhood rather than simply a housing development, which would stretch across two London Boroughs and include office and leisure facilities. The Hammersmith & Fulham side of things has had significant press coverage because, controversially, the development would mean the demolition of existing social housing. CapCo have promised to re-provide the housing in the new complex but it would mean the breakup of the existing community.

But here in Kensington, residents immediately adjacent to the existing Earl's Court complex are worried about the impact of the first stages of the development on the existing neighbourhood. That first stage, which could happen as soon as the Olympics have finished, will be the demolition of the enormous Earls Court 1. This is the part of the complex that everyone has heard of because it's the exhibition and concert venue.

Last Tuesday morning Labour launched its London Campaign in Hammersmith, showing once again how important this seat is in this election.

Three Cabinet Ministers, Alan Johnson, Tessa Jowell and Ed Miliband, delivered the message of the Labour manifesto at the St. Paul's Centre in central Hammersmith. Alan Johnson focused on the Conservatives' proposed cuts in safer neighbourhood police teams, which have made a huge impact on crime in London. While crime continues to fall across London and the country, it is rising in Hammersmith due to the incompetence of the current council whose first act was to cut police support in Hammersmith Broadway, which has the highest crime figures in the borough. Alan is a regular visitor to Hammersmith and we always welcome his passion for our community.

Over 50 small businesses in Hammersmith in the past two days have signed up to Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey's petition to prevent Labour's National Insurance (NI) increase.

Commenting today, Shaun said, "After seeing so many national business leaders come out against this NI increase, I wanted to talk to local Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush businesses to see how this would affect them. The response has been overwhelming, with over 50 small business owners signing up to support the Conservatives plan to stop Labour's tax rise on jobs."

According to a recent survey by Nationwide Building Society house prices in Hammersmith and Fulham rose by 22% in the last year, to take the cost of the average home in Hammersmith and Fulham to over £497,000.

Property prices in Hammersmith & Fulham are now the third highest in London, after Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster.

Merlene commented:

"There are clearly market forces at work pushing up property prices in the borough. The weakness of sterling caused by Labour's quantitative easing has also enticed more foreign money to compete for our limited supply.

This is all the more reason why we need to increase the supply of affordable housing in the borough. The Tories fail to understand that there are social costs to forcing more households into overcrowded accommodation, which has resulted in the further widening of the wealth and heath gap within the borough."

Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, Tory leader of the council continues to advocate reducing the proportion of social housing available in the borough. It is the professed policy of the Tory controlled Council, endorsed by the Tory Parliamentary candidate, only to increase intermediate housing which would in reality be out of reach of the 9000 households currently on the Council waiting list for affordable housing.

I have lived in Kensington most of my life, having been brought up in Hampshire, where
my father was High Sheriff and Chairman of the County Council.

During the war his regiment lost 600 men in the desert, and so he resigned from the
Conservative Party in 1992 over the Maastricht Treaty. I remember him saying: "They did not die for this".

We, the little people are clearly too stupid to be told the truth, so this general election is turning out to be the greatest sham on earth. 


UK's public debt is around £750bn expected to rise to £1.4 trillion by 2014, and that does not even include the off balance sheet debts, let alone the private sector debt. Our deficit is around £170bn at 12.7% of GDP. Putting it simply the UK is going bankrupt, but none of the three main parties in Parliament have set out any remotely coherent plans as to how they would deal with this.
The only way to tackle it is through massive spending cuts in the order of 30-40%, and adopting a growth friendly tax policy.

Tim Gittos joined UKIP in October 2009. He is CEO of Artannes Capital in London which he founded in 2003. He advises banks and hedge funds on their investments and has been an active campaigner against abuses of minority shareholders.

He is presently contracted to a broker in Paris, where he lives with his French wife and three children. Tim is 42 years old and a graduate of Durham University.

If I may, I would like to use this page to extend commiserations to all Polish people, and most especially those living locally, on the tragic death of the President of Poland and his wife, The Rev Canon Bronislaw Gostomski of Shepherd's Bush and so many others, including former President in Exile Kaczorowski, in the plane crash at Smolensk.

In living memory, Poland has had to endure vastly more than its fair share of tragedy. This included the appalling Katyn massacre which Poland's leaders were today flying to Smolensk to commemorate.

Conservative Party Leader, David Cameron, joined Shaun Bailey in Hammersmith today, where he met with young people who have just graduated in a course run by local charity, SPEAR.

Based out of the St Paul's Centre on Macbeth Street, Hammersmith, SPEAR is a free interactive six week course that helps young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who can't work out what to do with their lives.

The Royal Borough went into absolute panic in March about the scale of the public and press reaction to the replacement of a historic part of Portobello Road Antiques Market with a branch of a fashion chain store.

There has been widespread disbelief and downright anger on the part of local residents that RBKC has allowed the developer of the All Saints store to pierce the historic flanking wall of one of the most prominent buildings in a Conservation Area. Now, an application for retrospective planning permission for the shopfront is about to come before the Council. It strikes me that this grants the Council one final opportunity to show that it has listened to the extraordinary scale of the public opposition to the appearance of this premises which - while absolutely fine for Westfield - is entirely inappropriate to this location.

Shaun's Labour opponent called Gordon Brown's disastrous decision to sell off Britain's gold cheap - losing the taxpayer £6 billion - a 'good decision' on LBC Radio today. Click below to listen!

...on this initiative.

It shows the value of an independent local press.

I had a go at the weekend, on www.chelseafulhamlibdems.org.uk, about the unfair competition the Chronicle faces from Tory Hammersmith & Fulham's propaganda and hope every reader will sign both the Chronicle's petition (http://campaigns.fulhamchronicle.co.uk) and the one on my website for the North End Road market.

It's not just the independent local press or North End Road market traders who face a hostile council in Fulham.

Local residents were even locked out of Fulham Town Hall last night FOR THE SECOND TIME RUNNING for their scheduled residents' meeting!

I have just received a letter from the single parents' charity Gingerbread. As before, I'm posting both the letter and my response. I can't have readers thinking I tell everyone exactly what they want to hear when I'm telling people what I think.

Dear Mr Hilton,

Single parents' manifesto

With the election date now set, I am pleased to attach a copy of Gingerbread's Manifesto for single parents, setting out their priorities for a new Government.

Single parents are often talked about in political debates, but too seldom have their voices heard. Single parent members of Gingerbread and single parents who use NetMums forums told us that they want to see:

• Longer repayment periods for overpaid benefits and tax credits: the current tax credit system has overpayments built in. One way to achieve this would be a return to fixed tax credit payments, so that parents don't get into debt.


• More financial help with childcare: Government should increase the amount of childcare costs met through the Working Tax Credit from 80 to 100%.


• Government to encourage more employers to offer jobs at school hours. Nearly sixty per cent of single parents are now in work. But the biggest barrier to combining work and family is finding jobs to fit in with school. Government needs to do more to ensure public sector jobs are flexible, and encourage the private sector to do the same.


• Services that give practical advice to parents on money, housing and legal rights. Government needs to fund independent advice services as a key part of helping families.


• More support for parents when their relationship is breaking down. Parents going through separation need more help to avoid conflict, and maintain their parenting relationship.


• More support to children at school to help if their parents separate. Children can't always talk to their parents about what is going on at home. They need confidential support at school to help them cope with family change.

As debate heats up during the election campaign, there is a danger that single parenthood will once again become a political football. We are urging all prospective MPs to sign up to our 'Lets lose the labels' campaign to challenge prejudice against single parents. We hope you will sign up - you can do so at www.gingerbread.org.uk or by sending an email to campaign@gingerbread.org.uk to let us know that you support the campaign.

Please do get in touch with us if you would like to know more about single parents views, or need any information on the latest research on single parent families,

Yours sincerely,

Kate Bell
Director of Policy
Gingerbread

http://www.gingerbread.org.uk

Ms Bell,

My mother met my step-father through Gingerbread when I was a baby so I have a very positive view of your organisation.

On your manifesto, everything within it seems entirely supportable, though it's not black and white. In most of those arenas, despite the fact that we could do more, we have improved the situation immeasurably. Even worse, the Conservatives are committed to retrograde steps; marriage tax breaks, erosion of tax credits and a distinct lack of clarity on the future of Surestart.

The sad truth is that when they talk about broken Britain, the Conservatives are demonising single parents as though it is better for society if a woman stays with an abusive or neglectful husband. So it doesn't matter whether you send every Conservative MP and candidate in the country a thousand emails, they simply do not wish to represent single parents.

That said, my own party's rhetoric has shocked me from time to time. The teenage mum homes announced at Labour conference last year made me cringe, as I have with every mention of "hard working families" from ministers over the past decade. But the proof is there, this government has done more to change the perception of single parents and the opportunities open to them than any that went before.

Your email makes an excellent point and if that is your aim then you have achieved that. But there's an election coming and points don't count, only votes. So I hope you will give some thought to how you can ensure that a party is returned to government that will continue delivering for single parents, regardless of its other flaws.

Yours,

Alex Hilton
Labour candidate for Chelsea & Fulham
07794 771 113
alexhilton@gmail.com
www.alexhilton.org

Now that the election has finally been called, it is a good moment to consider how broken our political system is. That's why I signed the Power Pledge which is a campaign for a reforming Parliament. After the mess Labour and the Conservatives have left, we really need one!

The Liberal Democrats will change politics forever and end safe seats by introducing a fair, more proportional voting system for MPs, and for the House of Lords. By giving voters the choice between people as well as parties, it means they can stick with a party but punish a bad MP by voting for someone else.

Liberal Democrats would scrap ID cards. Getting rid of this illiberal, expensive and ineffective scheme will free up money for thousands more police on our streets. We will also get innocent people off the DNA Database and scrap the intrusive ContactPoint database which will hold the details of every child in England.

Liberal Democrats will replace the House of Lords with a fully elected second chamber with considerably fewer members than the current House.

People should have the power to determine a new, written, constitution in a convention made up of members of the public and parliamentarians of all parties, and subject to final approval in a referendum.

Well, after months of speculation the election gets called and where am I? Near Turin for an Italian car-loving friend's wedding! BBC World's bringing the excitement of it all to me here - can't wait until Friday when I get back and join in the action! My team's still busy though - major assault being launched tomorrow evening, followed by beers all round