Labour candidate spurns farmers

In 1997, I was chairman of the Uttoxeter National Farmers' Union (NFU) branch and I invited all the main candidates for the forthcoming general election campaign to meet local farmers at their NFU branch meeting and address them on their parties' agricultural policies.

The meetings were well attended and local farmers came along and met all the three main parliamentary candidates and gave them a courteous and generous reception.

This year, again, an invitation has gone out from this union branch, which now covers the whole of the Burton constituency, to the main party candidates so the local farming community can have a chance to assess the parties' agricultural and rural policies.

But one candidate, Ruth Smeeth, has given this invitation a firm thumbs-down and rejected this invite. This no doubt confirms the suspicions of the rural community that she has no interest at all in what happens within the majority of the area within her adopted constituency and that the only union that this Labour candidate from Lewisham is interested in is Unite, which is bankrolling her campaign.

David Brookes

NFU branch chairman 1997/8

Lower Loxley Farm

Uttoxeter