So far, Mr David Parsons, the UKIP candidate, has not made a very good impression on local people.
His refusal to come and live here before the election has been badly received.
It is just not good enough to look at Spalding through a long lens from his home in faraway Leicester.
His ludicrous walkabouts are no compensation – a stroll through the town once or twice does not make up for a complete absence of local knowledge.
Worst of all is Mr Parsons’ failure to be entirely honest about his past.
The facts speak for themselves.
His career as a local councillor (first Labour, then Conservative and finally Independent) ended in shame, when he was found guilty by an independent enquiry of breaking four core standards of public decency – honesty, integrity, accountability and leadership.
He was forced to pay back thousands of pounds of public money that he shouldn’t have had and he paid it back grudgingly.
If Mr Parsons wishes to be taken seriously, he should be entirely transparent about his wrongdoing by publishing the details under his own name or perhaps distribute copies of the many (at least five) investigations into his affairs on his next walkabout!
Andrew Livsey
via email