The Government has declared that it will be safe for the local elections (Town, Parish, County and Police Commissioner) to go ahead on 6th May. And at the same time as announcing that local elections will go ahead, the Government has placed an indefinite ban on volunteers delivering election campaign material ahead of those elections, for fear of transmitting Covid-19!

Despite the fact that Conservative ministers have been cautioning people against booking a UK holiday this summer!

But there is a way through this. If you have money - as both the two main parties do - you can pay Royal Mail or, if you can find one, a private delivery firm to deliver for you.

Surely any healthy, thriving democracy needs people from all walks of life to stand at local elections? The electorate have a right to hear from every candidate and every party.

The Conservative Minister’s suggestion that “It is widely accepted that voters can continue to get campaigning information remotely”, disenfranchises millions of people who are not online.

This approach, coming from the party with the deepest pockets and the most to gain from restricting access to free, full information, is quite simply undemocratic. It reeks of the fox being in charge of the chicken coop!

For the benefit of trust, fairness and open democracy, we need these highly political decisions taken out of the hands of the politicians who will seek to skew the playing field in their favour. Instead we need to allow the Electoral Commission to make a fully independent decision that we can all trust and get behind.

Suzanne Airey

GL5