A look back over my years as Conservative parliamentary candidate and contributor to The Cottage

I have written about some of those issues in this magazine. Not least my long campaign to save our post offices - something that involved personally knocking on several thousand doors to raise over 14,000 signatures for the petition I delivered to Number 10. Other activities have included fighting for the prompt re-opening of Bovey Tracey Hospital after a closure due to staff shortages, travelling to Brussels to argue for help for our Dartmoor hill farmers, presenting the case for the opening of the Fingle Glen Gap at a public inquiry, campaigning for a better deal on Devon school funding, pressing for a greater rural police presence, supporting local traders and working on the vital issue of affordable housing. To me all these efforts feed into an overarching belief that ‘Local' and ‘Community' are aspects of rural life that must be cherished and wherever possible strengthened.

With this in mind, 3 years ago I also set up my Community Action Group that has pitched in to support local communities right across the constituency (including hedge planting in Mill Marsh Park Bovey, renovation work on Sandford Church, gardening in Okehampton Hospital and the redecoration of Bradninch's Pre-School). I have also wherever possible supported local voluntary organisations including holding fund-raising events for Bovey Football Club, Okehampton Brownies and Okehampton Junior Rugby.

On other occasions my articles have roamed more widely sharing my thoughts on education and welfare reform, the EU, the economic recession, health and safety, capital punishment, climate change, healthcare, the American presidency and the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Here I have tried to give people an understanding not only of where I stand on some of these broader issues but also a feel for the compass that guides my thinking. I am very grateful to Dave and Bev Harman for having given me the opportunity to do this - good local media matters and The Cottage is a fine example of it. If you wish to read any of my previous articles you will find them at www.centraldevonconservatives.com or www.cottagemagazine.co.uk

I have learned a lot too. Not least the importance of listening and, wherever possible, of working with and not against other people. Of course there are times when you have to firmly disagree with others but at the local level in particular, there is often little difference between the aspirations of the various political parties. For example, in Crediton over the last few years I have served, at my suggestion, jointly with a Lib Dem councillor as the Chairman of The Crediton Hospital Campaign Group with both of us pressing for improved local healthcare provision in the areas of dementia diagnosis/treatment and respite care for those who have the often exhausting task of looking after their loved-ones.

All this campaigning and running around has taught me something else too. Something that has been going through my head repeatedly over the last few years. Over and over as I knocked on doors urging people to put their name to a petition. To join me on a demonstration. To write to the ‘minister concerned'. It is the simple notion that I want us to be heard. I want Central Devon to have a real voice in parliament. I want to fight for it - to champion it. And I want to do this as a Conservative Member of Parliament with a Conservative government in office. And that last idea of victory is vital. It was Bismarck who once described politics as ‘the art of the possible'. He was right of course. There is little point in striving for the unattainable. But as someone who has striven for the last four years as a candidate under a Labour government that has simply not listened to rural communities I would add something else to his salutary remark. Namely, that real change is only ever possible if you have the power to make it happen. Sometime, probably May 6th, we will all find out whether or not, after 13 long years, that is to be.

Other columns by Mel Stride