The ”grey” vote is a powerful force which politicians can’t afford to ignore, writes Dave Morris.

Research suggests that over-55s will form a majority of voters going to the polls tomorrow in more than half of constituencies.

In Shropshire, older people are able to make their voice heard on local and national issues through the Shropshire Association of Senior Citizen Forums, and the association has compiled a list of questions to get the views of candidates on matters ranging from public transport and pensions to the future of the county’s community hospitals.

We put these questions to candidates in the Ludlow constituency, which has a high proportion of older voters. Not all replied.

Q1. The de-regulation of public transport in the 1990′s has resulted in appalling service or no service at all across rural county areas of England. How do you propose to rectify this situation?

Q2. Senior Citizens receive a derisory state pension despite having paid for what they believed would be a pension they could live on. When will you increase this pension and to what level bearing in mind the current minimum wage level?

Q3. Both national and local governments are seeking to encourage more volunteers on the pretext “It’s good for you”, not as a great number of people suspect “Getting cost free help”. What is your monetary proposal to reward the growing volunteer workforce?

Q4. The traditional rural framework is slowly being destroyed by closure of post offices and other services. What positive proposals are you offering to halt and reverse this trend?

Q5. Will you guarantee to ensure that the community hospitals provision of services will be sustained and enhanced?

Q6. What guarantees will you give to freeze salaries for MP’s, councillors, central and local government officers, plus freezing council tax, thereby sending the right sort of message to the 20 per cent of Senior Citizens below the Government’s poverty level?

Tony Hunt (Labour)

Q1. We need to look at doing more to regulate the public transport system where the market simply fails to provide a proper service – for example in many rural areas. I have campaigned in the past for legislation to enable the re-regulation of services so that a system that is properly integrated and as regular as possible can be provided. I will continue to do so after the election.

Q2. I am pleased that Labour has acted to re-link the pension to earnings – the link that the Tories broke when they were in power. Labour measures like pension credit has helped bring hundreds of thousands of pensioners out of poverty, and pensioners have benefitted from policies like winter fuel payments, but there is undoubtably more to be done to deliver for people who have worked hard and then find that they struggle financially in their retirement years.

Q3. Volunteers do fantastic work in our communities, and they should be encouraged, supported and facilitated by Government. Whererever MPs see this is not happening in their constituencies, they should ask tough questions of Ministers. Volunteers should not be expected to do the work that Government departments should do themselves just to mask the effect of cuts. This, I believe, is the danger behind the Conservatives talk about volunteering.

Q4. In many villages, local pubs are the hub of the community and so should be valued and supported if they make an effort to provide community services. Councils now have to ensure that the importance of local services to the community is taken into account before granting planning permission to change their use, and the Labour manifesto commits to strengthen this to protect viable shops, pubs and community facilities.

Of course, tackling issues like rural public transport, affordable housing and attracting jobs to the area are vital to enabling younger people especially to stay in their home communities.

Q5. Labour’s investment in our NHS has transformed it – in 1997, the very fabric of the NHS was under threat, with crumbling buildings and long waiting lists. Now, we need to refocus capital investment on primary and community services, to deliver the best quality care for patients on their terms. Community hospitals have a real role to play in delivering care, as do GPs surgeries – the key is to provide care at the right level for each patient.

Q6. Council tax is set by local uthorities, but this year’s average rise across the country is one of the lowest on record. MP’s pay is now decided by an independent body, but there is no doubt that MPs and those in senior positions need to take the lead in showing pay restraint in the years ahead.

Jacqui Morrish (Green Party)

Q1. The Green Party’s policy is to re-regulate the bus service and give proper funding to provide a frequent, affordable service for all. We would give free travel to under 18’s at off peak times as well as keeping free travel passes for older people. We would like to see the buses updated to being easy to get on and off and of the highest environmental standards with a move to electrically-run buses wherever possible. I remember travelling, when I was very young with my granny, on the trolley buses with the overhead lines, in Bournemouth. Things have moved on with the technology, we just had the big blip of the last decades of polluting diesel buses.

We are not taking on board that we are reaching peak oil. The fuel we are using is increasingly coming from environmentally destructive sources. The tar sands in Canada are destroying thousands of square kilometres of Boreal forest destroying bio-diversity and polluting and poisoning the soil, air and water. The carbon dioxide emissions are three times the amount to mine and refine it. We are also taking massive risks with ecosystems with deep sea oil drilling and are in the midst of the BP oil disaster off Louisiana.

Q2. The Green Party would increase the pension to £170 per week for a single person and £300 for a couple. It would not be means tested. We would increase the minimum wage to £8.10. We would restore the link between state benefits and earnings.

Q3. The Green Party thinks it is important that people are trained and receive a proper wage. We would invest in the health service and provide many more care workers to help people stay in their homes. People who need care should have people to look after them who are properly trained, doing a proper job and will be reliable. Many volunteers give generously already. A volunteer may have other commitments that take precedence and may not have the skills required. We would increase the carer’s allowance to £80 a week.

We would promote a youth volunteering programme for every young person under the age of eighteen to encourage community interaction across the generations. Free bus passes for the younger and older generations could also contribute to this interaction.

Q4. The Green Party is committed to protecting public services from being privatised and to improving them. Good public services will be needed more and more as we change to a local low carbon economy to counter climate change and as fuel becomes more expensive and will be used for vital services.

Post Offices will be at the centre of the local economy. A vital link for all in the community to keep savings and credit local as well as transactions on a wider level. They could be the hub for mutuals and credit unions providing loans for local people at reasonable rates. No privatisation of the Royal Mail which if it happened would see more out-of-the way householders being discriminated against by losing their delivery service.

The Green Party advocates more support for small and medium farms to go organic. Amongst many environmental advantages would be the improvement in water quality and wildlife would thrive.

We would encourage farm co-ops whereby farmers could provide good local food and share ideas and the costs of machinery etc. We would link local food production and other invaluable services of farms with the local community- farmers’ markets, education, tourism, renewable energy production via wind, hydro, solar etc.

We would invest in affordable energy efficient housing, for rent in particular and update and make better use of empty buildings to minimise the use of green belt land. We advocate a free insulation programme for all homes. Prices for fuel will not go down so insulation is imperative.

Second homeowners would no longer have a reduction on council tax and will pay the full rate.

Q5. We will guarantee local community hospitals and local community health centres providing a wide range of services. We will maintain a publicly funded, publicly provided health service. We will provide free social care for the elderly just like in Scotland.

Q6. We will reform council tax by making people in more expensive houses pay more and those in smaller ones pay less.

Lord Socretes of Ludlow aka Alan J Powell (Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party)

Q1. All living in rural surroundings, with at least one field in view from their bedroom window,will be given a Jetpack, Smart car or bicycle of their choice, together with concessionary tax and petrol vouchers. This will allow them to visit their local public house (Pub is the Hub) more often to meet others and join in the local way of life.

Q2. Pension levels will be fixed at 10 per cent of average MP’s pay per person over the age of 60. Any other income would be ignored for the purpose of tax.

Q3. Volunteers cease to become volunteers if paid, plus a lot of the naughty boys and girls are required to do community work which no doubt overlaps. Most of the Loony Party work for nothing or less!

Q4. Another slice of country life gone. Support your local pub and use all the facilities. Some have shops, some Post Offices, some weekly hairdressers.

Q5. Who wants to go to hospital? I propose a team of Nurse Gladys’s to visit at home, also surgery doctors moved into hospitals and surgeries sold off to fund some of the above. Cottage Hospitals should be retained at all costs.

Q6. See above, plus winter heating allowance. Would also have an alternative of £1,000 in beer vouchers each, per year, thus supporting our ailing pubs, and helping employment and local breweries, also saving on heating and toilet roll costs.

Christopher Gill (UKIP)

Q1. In the circumstances in which the country is nearly £800 billions in debt and the annual deficit is running at over £165 billions, I see no prospect of additional subsidies to public transport.

Q2. The UK Independence Party would increase the old-age pension to £130 per week.

Q3. We have no plans to pay volunteers.

Q4. Post Offices have been closing as a consequence of the European Union Directive on postal services. UKIP’s policy of leaving the EU would put us in the position of being able to make our own decisions regarding Post Offices and many other things. Leaving the Common Agriculture Policy would free us to come up with British solutions to many of the problems associated with rural areas.

Q5. Thanks to my efforts in support of the local community in the late 1980′s all the cottage hospitals in the Ludlow constituency were saved from closure and my commitment to community hospitals remains 100 per cent..

Q6. UKIP recognises the contrast between pensioner poverty and bloated salaries and pensions in the public sector. UKIP is totally committed to overhauling the whole of Government spending so as to achieve greater economy and a much fairer deal for those on low incomes. We would take all low-wage earners out of tax altogether.

Christina Evans (BNP)

Q1. We believe that public transport should be accessible to all people, especially in rural communities and that the privatisation of our transport infrastructure has led to private companies putting profit before people. British National Party policy is to reverse the privatisation of the 1990′s, started by the Tories and continued under Labour.

Where there is local demand we would also re-open disused rail lines, closed under Beeching,with a view to improving transport links and easing congestion.

Q2. I agree that the state pension is derisory and that those who have paid into the system all their lives deserve more than they receive at present.The BNP would raise the state pension to £150 a week and pay for it by ending the £18 billion we are giving to China and India to ‘adapt’ to non-existent climate change.

Q3. Voluntary workers should never be used by governments as a free source of labour. If voluntary workers are needed we believe that they should come from the long term unemployed as a way of contributing to society and helping them back into work.

Q4. Rural services and especially Post Offices must be preserved. They are an essential part of the local community and if necessary should be subsidised centrally. We also believe that small local schools should be free from the threat of closure.

Much of the upward pressure on rural house prices is caused by “white flight” from our towns and cities. We would stop immigration and ease the pressure on housing. This in turn will keep house prices affordable for people in their own communities.

After years of governance by politicians from the ‘Metropolitan Elite’ our rural communities have been put second for far too long.

Q5. The British National Party is committed to increasing spending on the NHS in precisely this way. We would stop completely the £9.5 billion a year (rising to £10.5 billion next year) that our Government gives away in ‘Foreign Aid’ to countries like China and India who have nuclear weapons, a space programme and more millionaires than Britain! This money should be invested in our public services and not squandered abroad.

Q6.We would not only freeze the salaries of MP’s, councillors and Government officers but would also tackle the obscene expenses culture in the following way.

The BNP proposes that no MP should be entitled to a second home allowance. We would provide Travelodge style accomodation for MPs that live outside of London with only basic facilities. If this is not considered sufficient then the MP should pay out of his or her own pocket. It is a scandal that our elected representatives have abused the expenses system while so many of our people are struggling to make ends meet.

In terms of council tax we are very clear that it must be frozen and where possible cut.

We would facilitate this by ending the ridiculous amounts of money spent on projects aimed at minority groups and so called diversity.

Council Tax is paid to provide the best service possible for local people and not to be squandered on committees and quangos.