WELL done on the rather clever set of questions you posed to the four game parliamentary candidates who chose to respond: Andy Adams for Labour, Sue Perkins for UKIP, Dan Hill for the Greens and Alex Payton for the Lib Dems.

What I found disturbing was that Kit Malthouse declined to take part.

Particularly so because he is the Conservative candidate and historically Andover has been represented by Conservative MPs.

Mr Malthouse has been Boris Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing, deputy leader at Westminster City Council, director and majority shareholder in various companies, member of the Thames Estuary Airport Steering group, and his business interests have been in hedge fund financing. So an undoubtedly excellent Conservative candidate for Westminster. But Andover..?

Wiki describes the North West Hants constituency as follows: “In the county of Hampshire focussed around the town of Andover which has small pockets of regionally high levels of social housing and unemployment”.

So being able to answer the Advertiser’s questions on the cost of a pint of milk and the minimum wage might have been rather helpful in deciding who was “in touch” and might make our best next MP.

With the forthcoming election likely to be one of the most interesting in recent history, perhaps it is time to start looking a bit more closely at the suitability of the candidates and asking how well they will represent us rather than just putting an X in a box next to a party label.

Maureen Treadwell, Meadow View, Chilbolton