MIKE BENKE gives his view on this week's Adver hustings at the Wyvern Theatre

FOR the past few weeks, the news wires have been dominated with talk of the impending General Election.

It’s been hard to avoid turning on the television to see a senior politician reading books to a school child or riding a boat with a reality television store.

Well there is good news. The count is only a week away, so you will all soon be left in peace (although be prepared for several weeks of negotiations).

But while many may be struggling to maintain their interest, the battle to take Swindon, especially the South seat, remains as tight as ever. All the candidates faced readers’ questions, both local and national.

On Monday it was the turn of the North Swindon candidates with South Swindon on Tuesday.

While the format of the events was similar to the televised leader debates, the aim is different. They were an opportunity to do away with the grand claims of the billions to be invested here and there by each party and to find out what the candidates will do for Swindon. It was an attempt to try to separate the candidate from the party.

As expected there were several slightly heated exchanges, but no knock-out blows were landed.

There were a several slightly embarrassing moments, notably Mark Dempsey failing three times to confirm whether he would vote against his Labour Party, even if they were proposing to reduce the amount of money coming to Swindon.

Conservative Justin Tomlinson was accused of ducking a question on student living expenses by a youngster in the crowd on Monday while Anne Snelgrove and Robert Buckland got into a heated discussion over the issue of immigration the next night.

As expected, the two main parties fighting for the seat made sure their key policies had an airing.

The Conservative candidates pointed to the economic improvement in the town over the past five years as to why they should keep their seats while Labour argued Swindon could do better so it was time for a change.

If no party lost the hustings, arguably the Greens won. Both Poppy Hebdon-Leeder and Talis Kimberley-Fairbourn spoke passionately and intelligently and clearly explained their position. Both received positive feedback from many audience members.

There were mixed fortunes for UKIP. While experienced campaigner John Short, the South Swindon candidate, got his message across calling for more to be done to help migrants in need, his North Swindon colleague James Faulkner did little to endear himself to people by claiming many African countries are richer than we think because they have shopping malls.

For the Liberal Democrats finding an audience in Swindon was never going to be easy with both candidates living outside the town, but Janet Ellard and especially Damon Hooton did a decent job of distancing themselves from what the central party has done.

Will the hustings make a huge difference come polling day?

It’s hard to tell until the count but hopefully the several hundreds in attendance will now have a better idea of which way they are going to vote next Thursday.